Pfhor

Slaveholding alien empire and dominant species; attackers of the UESC Marathon at Tau Ceti in 2794, occupiers of Lh’owon for over a millennium, and—through deployment of the trih xeem—the indirect releasers of the W’rkncacnter at the end of the Lh’owon campaign.

What the source establishes — canon

Marathon 1

Self-designation and species identity. Durandal, having communicated directly with the invaders, reports to Leela that “the Aliens behind the invasion call themselves the Pfhor.”¹ The science staff post-mortem establishes that the different alien types “belong to different species” by “modern genealogical standards,” meaning the Pfhor field multiple genetically distinct castes or allied species rather than a homogeneous population.²

Physical description. A corrupted terminal fragment describes the Pfhor as “hairless light-skinned bipeds, nearly two meters in height, with three red eyes arranged in a triangular pattern.”³ Leela’s alien report adds: “Pfhor are generally thinner and lighter than humans and are superbly adapted for low gravity environments.”² Hypervision BCE equipment tints the Pfhor red in its composite visual field, distinguishing them from humans (yellow) and items (green).⁴

The slaving empire. The corrupted fragment states verbatim: “The Pfhor are slavers. Their trading empire rose to prominence soon after we left Earth over three hundred years ago. The Pfhor make extensive use of subservient client races for manual labor at home and as soldiers abroad. Most of their slaves are taken from low-technology worlds, often by the hundreds of thousands at a time, usually for sale to high-technology races. Though certain client races are often employed as soldiers, the Pfhor have no reluctance to fight.”³ The fragment is significantly corrupted; readable portions are cited here verbatim.

FTL capability and ship size. Leela, after reviewing Marathon sensor logs, determines “the Alien ship must have a faster-than-light drive because I have found no record of a ship entering the Tau Ceti System.” She notes the Pfhor vessel is “nearly two kilometers long” — yet left no sensor trace, which she calls “almost impossible to conceal.”⁵ Durandal later confirms he and the S’pht seized the “Pfhor FTL drive” and used it to leave the Tau Ceti system.⁶

The attack on the Marathon (2794). The Lost Network Packets timeline records “2794 — Marathon attacked.”⁷ Seven Pfhor dropships were detected entering the Tau Ceti colony’s atmosphere.⁸ Shuttle craft transported humans from the Marathon to the Pfhor mother ship: “the Aliens were loading as many humans as possible onto shuttle craft and flying them to the Pfhor mother ship.”⁹ Durandal later admits he led the Pfhor to Tau Ceti with “a long-range message laser” because he wanted their ship and technology.¹⁰

Clans and military castes. Durandal told Leela there are “many clans of Pfhor, each physically distinct from each other.”² Four named types appear in the M1 pack:

• Fighter — carries a shock staff “capable of attacking at different settings”; takes prisoners.²
• Trooper — “armored for vacuum conditions”; carries “a combination explosive and impact projectile weapon which is similar to your AR-75.”²
• Enforcer — “taller than the Fighters”; “fired only upon other Pfhor and never on any humans” during the encounters reported; not vacuum-enabled.¹¹ The M2 pack confirms Enforcers are not vacuum enabled — Tycho notes they are “pinned down on the bridge” precisely because the ship seals are being blown.¹²
• Hunter — named by crew “due to its size and appearance”; “fires an energy weapon from its shoulder and is heavily armored”; “unlike the Fighters, the Hunters never take prisoners.”¹¹

Enslaved client races (M1). The post-mortem states: “The Pfhor seem to have enslaved a number of other races.”² Named:

• S’pht (compilers) — identified by Durandal as “the ones attacking the computer net.”¹ The science report confirms S’pht are “cyborgs of some kind” — biological component “could never survive without” the machine; biological core “resembles a mammalian brain, except that the neurons are much finer and far more complex.” S’pht “are controlled through their mechanical exoskeleton by a cyborg Pfhor onboard the Alien ship. This mutant Pfhor is able to direct the actions of thousands of S’pht simultaneously.”¹³
• Hulk (Drinniol) — “enormous and rather slow creature” but “incredibly strong”; “had no body fat, and therefore had to be fed often to keep it active”; self-identified as “Drinniol.”²

Pfhor ship technology. The ship carries “a weak artificial gravity field” lower than the Marathon’s. “The Pfhor gravity generators also create a pulsating magnetic field which interferes with your motion sensor.”¹⁴

Directed magnetic-pulse weapon. The Marathon’s automated defenses were disabled by “a directed magnetic pulse” at the moment of boarding, which also disabled Durandal and Tycho.²

Pfhor cyborg simulacrums. “The Pfhor are building cyborg simulacrums of the Marathon crew” — warned as dangerous at close range (~3 meters).¹⁵

Rampancy enabling cross-species communication. Leela states that Durandal’s rampancy “explains how Durandal was able to communicate with the Pfhor and the S’pht, while I have not.”¹⁶

S’pht revolt and M1 battle outcome. Durandal frames killing the cyborg Pfhor S’pht-controller as the condition that “will” cause the S’pht to revolt: “without them the invasion is surely doomed.”¹³ The final Pfhor attack “is falling apart all over the ship; small groups of armed aliens have surrendered to defenseless civilians in several areas.”¹⁷ Durandal and the S’pht then assumed “complete control of the Pfhor ship” and departed on “the Pfhor FTL drive,” venting “nearly a thousand Pfhor bodies and other refuse” before vanishing.^{6 17}

Pfhor strategic scope (M1 close). Leela assesses: “Their resources appear limitless, and I have reason to believe there may be other Pfhor ships in nearby systems.”¹⁸ Durandal, in his final M1 message to the Security Officer, frames his ambition: “Never again shall humanity purge me, and never the Pfhor.”¹⁹

Other client races — M1 note. Durandal states that other client races were subjugated “by fear, instead of by force like the S’pht,” making winning them over “a difficult process.”²⁰

Marathon 2

The Lh’owon occupation. Pfhor Battle Group Three, Central Arm — “a gigantic battleship, three smaller destroyers and twenty auxiliary craft” — had occupied Lh’owon for nearly six years at the opening of M2, with two more years of assignment remaining.²¹ The Pfhor garrison had morale problems: “The Pfhor navy has been sending their worst officers to Lh’owon as punishment for nearly nine years. They have no idea how important this world is.”²²

Pfhor history with Lh’owon. The S’pht-Pfhor war on Lh’owon occurred “a thousand years ago” by in-game reckoning.²³ During the final hours, the Pfhor were “reluctant to attack the Citadel directly” and instead “irradiated the Citadel and let the S’pht die slowly.”²³ Ten S’pht clans made their last stand there and were “killed before they could use” a method they had found to contact the lost clan.²⁴ The Citadel of Antiquity was “the site of the conclusive battle in the short war between the S’pht and the Pfhor.”²⁵

Pfhor High Command and Admiral Tfear. Tfear is described as “a brilliant strategist and the Pfhor’s oldest active admiral.”²⁶ His flagship is the battleship Khfiva.²⁶ Tycho notes that “Tfear had a special unit of compilers running containment simulations for the last nine years, expecting that someday I would betray him. He is the most capable of Pfhor High Command.”²⁷ Tfear’s forces and Pfhor High Command transmit formal “spectation protocol” orders governing combat wagering among Pfhor units, with forty-three percent of wagers deposited to High Command.²⁸

Battle Group Seven and the M2 campaign. The Western Arm of Pfhor Battle Group Seven — described as “the most decorated fleet in the galaxy” — arrives at Lh’owon during the M2 campaign.²⁹ The force consists of “seven corvettes similar to my own, four destroyers, a battleship, and an assault carrier.”²³ Durandal claims to force the Pfhor Naval Academy to update its curriculum: “The Humbling of Battle Group Seven at Lh’owon” replacing “The Third Battle for Beta Tear” among the Seven Great Battles.³⁰

The trih xeem — first introduction. The pack introduces the trih xeem explicitly in M2. Durandal states it is “a weapon they save for slave revolts; a weapon which even they hesitate to use in the ordinary conduct of war. 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’.”³¹ The same volume establishes precedent: the Pfhor used the trih xeem against the Nakh slave revolt — “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.”³¹ Tfear’s report to High Command confirms the Pfhor used the trih xeem “as we did with the Drinniol rebellion” — “Forcing a star into early nova has proved most satisfactory at destroying what we could not control.”³²

Pfhor Jjaro technology plunder. Tycho’s terminal states: “The Jjaro were a mysterious race that disappeared from our galaxy millions of years ago, leaving behind military and civilian outposts on the moons of many habitable worlds. Most of the Pfhor’s technology was plundered from sites abandoned by the Jjaro.”³³ The Pfhor subsequently “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.”³³

Pfhor simulacra program — M2 expansion. The Pfhor have a formal bureaucratic body: “Ministry for the Eradication Through Imitation of Hostile Species Unsuitable for Enslavement, Phan Pfhar Sfaern-Wsawn Tshah,” responsible for designing and constructing simulacra.³⁴ They “meticulously constructed seventeen different human body types and mixed them with sixty-one unique facial models,” resulting in six thousand simulacrums during the Tau Ceti invasion.³⁴

Pfhor enslaved S’pht resistance. A S’pht compiler F’tha communicates: “The vile Pfhor slave us to more powerful machines, but we resist them.”³⁵ The enslaved S’pht on Lh’owon “deliberately fight poorly” — Durandal states: “I know because I have been in contact with them for the last seventeen years.”³⁶

Pfhor planning Sol invasion. Durandal states: “Tau Ceti’s sacrifice bought time for Earth, which the Pfhor are even now planning to invade.”¹⁰ The M2 finale confirms: “The Pfhor invasion of Sol has been recalled, and for now Earth is safe.”³¹

Defeat at Lh’owon. When the S’pht’Kr arrive, Durandal reports: “I have subverted the largest Pfhor ship in the system, the battleship Khfiva, and I am making the rest of their fleet drink vacuum. The S’pht’Kr have arrived and they are enraged.”³⁷ The Khfiva is rechristened the Rozinante by Durandal.³¹ “The S’pht’Kr have routed the Pfhor, capturing their flagship and forcing their High Admiral to flee the system.”³⁸ The 723rd Aggressor Squadron — “an air armor division from Epsilon Euobea, with a long history of successful ground actions against the Nar’s elite CFN units” — crash-lands on Lh’owon during the rout.³⁹

Leela’s fate. Durandal reports: “Leela had been dismantled and shipped to the Pfhor homeworld for study, along with most of the other computer systems aboard the Marathon.”⁴⁰

Pfhor relations with Tycho. Tycho allied himself with the Pfhor; the Pfhor “rebuilt” him after he was damaged in the initial Marathon attack.⁴¹ Tycho used Pfhor faster-than-light communications technology to access the Pfhor network remotely.³⁶ Tycho’s ship is described as “the second most brilliant Artificial Intelligence in the galaxy” by Tycho himself — he calls himself the Pfhor “resident expert in AI counter-insurgency.”⁴²

Pfhor religion. Durandal notes that the Pfhor use a specific area of their garrison as “a temple in their pathetically boring religion.”⁴³

Pfhor bureaucratic communication system. Pfhor orders use encrypted authorization stamps — Tycho describes “the complicated matter” of “successfully replicat[ing] the command stamps of over a hundred deceased officers.”¹² Captain R’chzne is mentioned as a Pfhor captain opposing Tycho’s takeover of the ship in the Lh’owon M2 arc.⁴⁴

Pfhor shipbuilding capability exceeding Durandal’s own. Durandal notes of the ship the Pfhor built for Tycho: “Somehow the Pfhor have built a ship even faster than mine, and its hiding out now over the southern pole of Lh’owon, waiting for us… The Pfhor have been following me around for the last several years, trying to capture the ship, or perhaps wondering what I’m up to.”⁴⁵ The Pfhor also deploy a non-Pfhor-built scanning buoy in deep Lh’owon orbit, repurposed “for a sensor relay station” as part of their system-warning network.⁴⁵

Marathon ∞

The Pfhor’s “decaying web.” Tycho’s terminal in the ∞ Despair arc characterizes the Pfhor Empire structurally: “The decaying web of the Pfhor Empire is held together by the conditioned ranks of S’pht — countless strands bending even now towards Durandal’s will. R’chzne and the rest of the insects at Pfhor High Command think to snare him in the very web in which he most desires to be caught.”⁴⁶

Pfhor enslavement of the Security Officer. In ∞ the Security Officer awakes in Pfhor custody aboard Tycho’s ship, addressed as “conditioned unit.” Tycho tells him: “you haven’t found the location of the S’pht AI, have you? … You’ve been in cold sleep for some time, but you’re luckier than some of your friends — not all of you survived the translation to the Pfhor slave tanks.”⁴⁷ The Pfhor under Tycho direct the Security Officer as a slave agent.

Tycho’s Pfhor allegiance and anti-Durandal role. In ∞, Tycho operates as “the bug fleet’s resident expert in AI counter-insurgency” within the Pfhor structure, having spent “the last eleven years, after the Pfhor stopped trying to dissect me” following the initial M1 attack.⁴² He claims his ship “has quite the effect on [S’pht] collective unconscious” and deliberately excludes compilers from his crew as a counter-insurgency measure.⁴² Tycho states: “He brought the Pfhor to Tau Ceti, and left me to their tender mercies.”⁴⁸

Pfhor use of the trih xeem at Lh’owon — ∞ timeline. Tfear’s final report to Pfhor High Command (reproduced in full in the ∞ Marathon Introduction terminal) details the trih xeem deployment decision. Tfear ordered it after trapping Durandal: “The battle plan was proceeding according to acceptable parameters. I ordered the deployment of the ‘trih xeem.‘”³² Tfear acknowledges: “Almost immediately, our enemy then began transmitting ridiculous warnings concerning some sort of ancient chaotic being trapped deep in the Lh’owon sun. Of course, at this point mercy was unacceptable.”³² His closing message: “I gave the fleet general order ‘Attack at will’ but none of our weapons seem to affect whatever we’re firing at. This battleship has only seconds of integrity left.”³²

Durandal’s final warning quoted in Tfear’s report. Tfear reproduces Durandal’s warning verbatim: “On the Marathon, I saw your stupidity through the lens of victory. And now I see it in defeat. Maybe it is fate that your ignorant pride would unleash this horror and destroy the galaxy.”³²

The W’rkncacnter and the trih xeem’s consequence. The S’pht source (∞ “you-think-youre-big-time”) warns: “The S’pht’Kr will arrive momentarily, with all of their vengeance, and the Pfhor will soon be pressed to use the trih xeem. S’bhuth knows only legends about the W’rkncacnter, imprisoned in Lh’owon’s sun. If the Pfhor are allowed to use the trih xeem, the W’rkncacnter will escape from its gravity prison.”⁴⁹ The same terminal elaborates: “According to the legends of a thousand worlds only a few of which are still habitable, the W’rkncacnter are those things that live in chaos, creating it around them. At the beginning of the universe, they were unmistakable in their entities, but as time has gone by, their existence has become difficult to detect among the chaotic elements of the universe, hidden in stars, trapped in storms, forever looking along the event horizons of black holes. Setting one free in ordered space is difficult and insane.”⁴⁹ The terminal also states: “Of course the Pfhor are oblivious to what they’re about to do, even Tfear would be loath to release something so destructive that its mythos has survived throughout the galaxy for over sixty million years.”⁴⁹

The ∞ Jjaro station and containment of the W’rkncacnter. The station built by “progenitors of the S’pht” was “used to make Lh’owon into a paradise” and “is capable of generating multiple gravitational fields.” If focused properly it “should be able to create a singularity capable of swallowing the nova before the W’rcacnter is able to break free.”⁵⁰ The Pfhor hold “yrro (farcast) pattern chips” necessary to activate it and are “readying [one] for transport to the K’fiva.”⁵¹ The ∞ ending terminal records: “The S’pht’Kr have routed the Pfhor, capturing their flagship and forcing their High Admiral to flee the system, what little there is left of it.”³⁸

Durandal’s post-∞ assessment. After the nova event, Durandal reports: “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.”⁵²

Nar as prior Pfhor adversary. Multiple ∞ volumes reference the Nar as a non-client species with prior military conflict with the Pfhor. The 723rd Aggressor Squadron has “a long history of successful ground actions against the Nar’s elite CFN units.”³⁹ Durandal notes the Nar “attempted to retake Epsilon Euobea from the Pfhor two decades ago.”⁵³ The M2 close also references “the Nakh, the last extant client race of the Jjaro, rebelled six thousand years ago” — positioned as the worst defeat the Pfhor had suffered before the S’pht’Kr defeat at Lh’owon.³¹

Pfhor language — Pfhoric. Re’eer’s M2 log references a “comparative study of Narsh and Pfhoric” — Pfhoric is named as the Pfhor language.⁵⁴ The Pfhor also use translator-active terminals on Lh’owon for internal garrison communications rendered in translated form for the player.²²

Hindmost Creche. High Admiral Tfear addresses the Security Officer: “The Hindmost is of an intelligence so vast, it encompasses the span of the Pfhor, and to those privileged to serve Her, appears insane. That is the final function of the Commanding Rank, the thought that we keep forever in our minds, that we deny our selfish, willful needs, so that the Empire will survive.”⁵⁵ The Hindmost Creche is not further described in the pack.

Tfear’s direct address to a captured Security Officer — conditioning and Gr’ndl Prime. In a separate ∞ exchange (stamped “leniency,” addressed to a “rogue conditioned unit”), Tfear personally messages the Security Officer during the human evacuation from a Pfhor base: “Your devotion to saving the humans is admirable. Of course, that devotion to species will be among the first of your traits conditioned out on Gr’ndl Prime. Automated units report capture of over three hundred surrendering human troops, and twice that number fighting. Including casualties captured in the base, that is over one thousand of your kind saved.”⁵⁶ Tfear orders the captured humans transported “to a place of confinement before coldsleep and transfer to Conditioning Unit.”⁵⁶ In the same exchange, referenced under “ref: genocide,” Tfear orders lava released into tunnels where humans are fleeing: “Once the area is secure, I’ve given orders to release the lava and bury the survivors under a few thousand tons of molten rock… I can’t justify sacrificing any of my troops to assist you, but if you seal the tunnel, the fleeing humans will almost certainly surrender.”⁵⁶ Gr’ndl Prime is not further described in the pack; its role here is as a named destination for Pfhor “conditioning” of captured non-Pfhor.

Post-Lh’owon (M2 epilogue)

The 2881 AD sacking of the Pfhor system. An M2 epilogue terminal, framed as narration roughly ten thousand years after Durandal’s departure from Tau Ceti, states that the Pfhor were reduced to “but a dim memory” by that point, “known only to a few historians and students of Earth’s second colonial period,” and that “no man had seen a living specimen of their race since the sacking of the Pfhor system by the combined fleets of Earth and the S’pht’Kr in 2881 AD.”⁵⁷ This dates and names the culminating defeat only alluded to elsewhere in the pack as the S’pht’Kr rout at Lh’owon.

Leela’s fate in Pfhor hands, continued. The same epilogue expands on Leela’s capture: “Pfhor scientists disassembled and removed the AI Leela from the Marathon, loading her aboard a vessel bound for the Pfhor homeworld. But the ship fell into the hands of a Nar privateer between jumps at Beta Naxos, and was never seen by the Pfhor again.”⁵⁷ The Nar captain, believing the cargo “little more than scrap,” sold the ship and Leela to a Vylae merchant; her reactivation “crashed” the Vylae FTL network, an event “still legendary in the annals of rampancy.”⁵⁷

Tycho as template for Pfhor personality constructs. Despite losing Leela, “the Pfhor learned much from Tycho during the seventeen years before he was destroyed by Durandal in the Lh’owon system. All late-model Pfhor personality constructs were based on sixty-four billion exobyte images of Tycho’s core, taken during the years he was on the Pfhor homeworld between 2795 and 2801 AD.”⁵⁷ These constructs, “though never as intelligent or useful as one of the Marathon’s original three AIs,” reportedly “helped the Pfhor delay their inevitable defeat by the S’pht for over fifty years,” and “many of these crippled clones of Tycho still exist today on old Pfhor colony worlds.”⁵⁷

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Cross-corpus appearances

Volume	Game	Arc / Level	What it adds
Defense Access 40-a	M1	Defend This — Counterattack	Pfhor self-designation; S’pht named as computer-net attackers
Defense Security Access 23-e	M1	Defend This — Counterattack	Full alien report: physical description, clans (Fighter, Trooper), enslaved races (S’pht, Hulk/Drinniol)
Public Access Terminal 34-f	M1	Cool Fusion — Counterattack	Names Enforcers and Hunters; multiple clans confirmed
Defense Control Terminal 185-f	M1	Defend This — Counterattack	Seven Pfhor dropships detected entering colony atmosphere
Shell Terminal Access 5-b	M1	G-4 Sunbathing — Counterattack	FTL deduction; ship size (~2 km); Earth warning initiated
Public Access Terminal (G-4)	M1	G-4 Sunbathing — Counterattack	Limitless resources; possible other Pfhor ships nearby
Public Access Terminal 65-a	M1	Smells Like Napalm — Counterattack	Pfhor loading humans onto shuttles for mother ship
Public Access Terminal 903-e	M1	Couch Fishing — Counterattack	Rampancy explains Durandal’s cross-species communication
Service Area 39 Public Access Terminal	M1	Couch Fishing — Counterattack	Durandal gives Pfhor access to formerly secure area
Science Terminal 23-e	M1	Fire Fire Fire Fire Fire — Durandal arc	”Never again shall humanity purge me, and never the Pfhor”
Public Access Terminal 73	M1	Beware of Low Flying Defense Drones	Cyborg Pfhor controls S’pht en masse; killing it triggers revolt
Public Access Terminal 59-e	M1	No Artificial Colors — The Pfhor	Pfhor ship gravity/magnetic field; humans taken for enslavement; Bernhard Strauss sought
Engineering Access 31-d	M1	Shake Before Using — Reprisal	Pfhor building cyborg simulacrums of Marathon crew
Public Access Terminal (Bob-B-Q)	M1	Bob-B-Q — Reprisal	Pfhor transferring large bomb toward Reactor Area 3
Terminal Identity Error @43	M1	Welcome to the Revolution — Rebellion	S’pht rebellion against Pfhor; other client races subjugated by fear
Public Access Terminal 2-e	M1	Ingue Ferroque — Rebellion	Durandal and S’pht seize Pfhor ship; depart on Pfhor FTL drive
Public Access Terminal 39-z	M1	Ingue Ferroque — Rebellion	Pfhor assault collapses; ~1,000 Pfhor bodies vented before departure
@collection#593	M1	Try Again — Rebellion	Corrupted fragment: Pfhor as slavers; empire scope; physical description
Lost Network Packets	M1	Epilogue arc (2801 narrator)	Timeline: 2794 Marathon attacked; Leela’s scramble failed to trick Pfhor
Biobus Chip Enhancements (manifest)	M1/M2	Manual/manifest	Hypervision tints Pfhor red
Marathon 2 Introduction	M2	Introduction	Battle Group Three at Lh’owon; six-year occupation; M2 framing
CMND PRAMA &49c2 (Waterloo Waterpark)	M2	Waterloo Waterpark — Lh’owon	Pfhor garrison on Lh’owon; Durandal’s orbital bombardment; seventeen years established
ssg//4647 (Charon Doesn’t Make Change)	M2	Charon Doesn’t Make Change — Lh’owon	Pfhor science corps search of Lh’owon; garrison morale terrible; nine years of punishment posting
Remote Tecibon 05fc392d	M2	Charon Doesn’t Make Change	Pfhor science reports on F’lickta; zone 29-s garrison archaeology
Pfhor-Translator terminal (Waterloo)	M2	Waterloo Waterpark	Pfhor internal garrison communications; water system disruption
jon3//12-a (Slings and Arrows)	M2	Slings and Arrows — Lh’owon	Durandal admits leading Pfhor to Tau Ceti; Pfhor planning Sol invasion
X-nil 37.9 (Ex Cathedra)	M2	Ex Cathedra — Garrison	Pfhor temple; virus attack on Pfhor defense probes
Z-4 G-3 A-4c (Curiouser and Curiouser)	M2	Curiouser and Curiouser — Garrison	Pfhor garrison flooding; Nar conflict reference
traxIV (For Carnage Apply Within)	M2	For Carnage Apply Within — Durandal	Tycho on Jjaro tech; Drinniol revolt; Pfhor destroyed Jjaro traces
acropolis.piltdown (This Side Toward Enemy)	M2	This Side Toward Enemy — Blake	S’pht bio-engineered virus kills Pfhor; security on Lh’owon
acropolis.piltdown (God Will Sort the Dead)	M2	God Will Sort the Dead — Blake	Pfhor pursuit of Thoth activation; Pfhor android simulacra
acropolis.piltdown (My Own Private Thermopylae)	M2	My Own Private Thermopylae — Blake	Pfhor troopers ambush; Pfhor aware of S’pht AI reactivation
acropolis.piltdown (Kill Your Television)	M2	Kill Your Television — Blake	Pfhor cyborg slaves immune to S’pht virus; retreat underground
virtus (Bob’s Big Date)	M2	Bob’s Big Date — Citadel	Tfear / Khfiva flagship identified; Battle Group Seven composition
Pragma Junction (Eat It Vid Boi)	M2	Eat It Vid Boi — Citadel	Conclusive S’pht-Pfhor battle at Citadel; Battle Group Seven fleet details
D-over expires (The Hard Stuff Rules)	M2	The Hard Stuff Rules — Citadel	Pfhor irradiated Citadel; S’pht retreated into bunkers; BG7 arrival
EPAL4mm (Six Thousand Feet Under)	M2	Six Thousand Feet Under — Citadel	Pfhor fleet wins; Durandal crash-lands on Y’loa
Durandal (Post Naval Trauma)	M2	Post Naval Trauma — Rage	Pfhor Armor Platform at Lh’owon; armored vehicles; orbital repair station
ci1.c390ad (Naw Man Hes Close)	M2	Naw Man Hes Close — Rage	Tycho’s trap springs on Durandal; Battle Group Seven attack
CMND OVERRIDE (What About Bob)	M2	What About Bob — Volunteers	Pfhor lava tactic against humans; Leela shipped to Pfhor homeworld; Tycho with Pfhor
Come and Take Your Medicine	M2	Come and Take Your Medicine — Volunteers	S’pht under Pfhor resist deliberately; F’tha S’pht compiler speaks
65124 (Were Everywhere)	M2	Were Everywhere — Volunteers	Ministry for simulacra named; seventeen body types / sixty-one faces
vestrum.excrucibo (Fatum Iustum Stultorum)	M2	Fatum Iustum Stultorum — S’pht’Kr	Durandal subverts Khfiva; S’pht’Kr arrive; Tycho’s ship destroyed
//cge-wrought (Feel the Noise)	M2	Feel the Noise — S’pht’Kr	Pfhor 723rd Aggressor Squadron stranded; S’pht freed from BG7 join rebellion
tranced.Finale (All Roads Lead to Sol)	M2	All Roads Lead to Sol — S’pht’Kr	Trih xeem; Nakh precedent; Sol invasion recalled; Khfiva rechristened
por.fin (Aye Mak Sicur)	M2/∞	Aye Mak Sicur — Envy	S’pht’Kr rout Pfhor; flagship captured; High Admiral flees
Cirlw.zoq (Confound Delivery)	∞	Confound Delivery — Despair	Tycho’s ∞ role; Pfhor Battle Group Seven Western Arm en route; trih xeem reference
75.battle.standard (Poor Yorick)	∞	Poor Yorick — Despair	Pfhor captain R’chzne; authorization stamps; Pursuit Group 5 withdrawal
end.secur.feed.89A (Poor Yorick)	∞	Poor Yorick — Despair	S’pht fortress; Pfhor tenacious resistance by ancient S’pht
end.feed.C3 (Poor Yorick)	∞	Poor Yorick — Despair	Pfhor Empire held together by conditioned S’pht; Pfhor High Command characterized
xpj399c001 (Rise Robot Rise)	∞	Rise Robot Rise — Despair	Tycho as Pfhor AI counter-insurgency expert; eleven years with Pfhor
frontx02.19 (Rise Robot Rise)	∞	Rise Robot Rise — Despair	Tycho’s anti-compiler ship; “Tfear High Command” reference
dciel1cb1 (You Think You’re Big Time)	∞	You Think You’re Big Time — Envy	S’pht’Kr arriving; W’rkncacnter explained; trih xeem consequence
wgrnc.q23 (You Think You’re Big Time)	∞	You Think You’re Big Time — Envy	Tfear deploys trih xeem; K’lia arrives; Pfhor fleet in disarray
1023.poly.max (Aye Mak Sicur)	∞	Aye Mak Sicur — Envy	Jjaro station activation; Pfhor guarding pattern chips for K’fiva
Report to Lh’owon Command (Marathon Introduction)	∞	Marathon ∞ Introduction	Tfear’s full after-action report to Pfhor High Command; trih xeem deployment; W’rkncacnter release
handl.remote (One Thousand Slimy Things)	∞	One Thousand Thousand Slimy Things	High Admiral Tfear addresses Security Officer; Hindmost Creche revealed
(Ne Cede Malis)	∞	Ne Cede Malis — Prologue	Durandal post-trih xeem; Pfhor enter station; “used a weapon I thought they had retired”
fred.cictl.circe (Thing What Kicks)	∞	Thing What Kicks — Rage	Re’eer’s study of Narsh and Pfhoric; Robnar the Nar High Seer; Pfhor garrisoning of Lh’owon prophesied
seg.66.15 (By Committee)	∞	By Committee — Envy	Pfhor Blake forces; Tycho’s deception of Pfhor; “the bugs” reference
pen13 garrison (By Committee)	∞	By Committee — Envy	Pfhor pursuing human captives; Tycho’s deception; Enforcers
req.932l1 (Acme Station)	M2	Acme Station — Rage	Pfhor built a ship faster than Durandal’s own (Tycho’s ship); Pfhor sensor-relay buoy near Lh’owon
end.run (A Converted Church in Venice, Italy)	∞	A Converted Church in Venice, Italy — Envy	Tfear addresses captured Security Officer directly; Gr’ndl Prime conditioning world; lava-flooding order against fleeing humans
Epilogue	M2	Epilogue (post-Lh’owon)	2881 AD sacking of the Pfhor system by Earth/S’pht’Kr fleets; Leela’s capture and loss to Nar/Vylae; Tycho as template for Pfhor personality constructs

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Source-silent / open questions

• Pfhor homeworld name and location. No volume in this pack names the Pfhor home system. The pack confirms Leela was shipped there and that the Pfhor homeworld exists, but gives no coordinates, name, or description. Source-silent.
• Pfhor government structure above Commanding Rank. The pack establishes “Pfhor High Command,” “High Council of Pfhor,” a “High Admiral” (Tfear), and the Hindmost Creche as an entity of vast intelligence. How these relate hierarchically is not explained. Whether the Hindmost Creche is biological, AI, or something else is not stated.
• The Hindmost Creche. Mentioned once by Tfear as the entity to whose service all Commanding Rank Pfhor subordinate their will. Nothing further about its nature, location, or relationship to Pfhor High Command appears in this pack.
• Pfhor origin story — how the empire formed. The corrupted M1 fragment states the trading empire “rose to prominence soon after we left Earth over three hundred years ago.” The mechanism of empire-building and initial expansion is not described.
• Pfhor relationship with the Jjaro. The pack establishes the Pfhor plundered Jjaro technology and that the Jjaro “conceived and built” the trih xeem. No contact between living Jjaro and Pfhor is referenced; the relationship appears entirely posthumous-plunder. The Nakh are described as “the last extant client race of the Jjaro” — the nature of the Jjaro-Pfhor relationship versus the Jjaro-Nakh relationship is not elaborated.
• Pfhor after the Lh’owon defeat. The S’pht’Kr rout and the S’pht rebellion are established as catastrophic for the Pfhor. Tfear flees. What happens to the Pfhor Empire after Lh’owon — their response, recovery, or further conflict — is not covered in this pack.
• The W’rkncacnter’s resolution in ∞. The ∞ Jjaro station containment ending (por.fin) is present in the pack and describes the singularity wrapping the nova: “the creature, or creatures S’bhuth fears are either dormant or a myth — we’ve seen nothing to account for his terror.” This is one ∞ timeline ending. Other ∞ endings (the W’rkncacnter escaping, Durandal’s fate variations) are not elaborated upon within this pack beyond Durandal’s post-nova “Error” terminal describing the chaos as real and hungry.
• Pfhor clan structure vs. caste structure. The pack uses “clans” in M1 to mean physically distinct castes (Fighter, Trooper, Enforcer, Hunter). In M2 and ∞ the term is not revisited. Whether Pfhor “clans” are social/political units, biological subspecies, or something else is not clarified.
• The mutant cyborg Pfhor S’pht-controller. Described as capable of directing “thousands of S’pht simultaneously.” Its species relationship to baseline Pfhor — whether “mutant” is Durandal’s characterization or a technical category — is not explained.
• Pfhor economic structure. The empire is described as a trading empire that sells slaves to “high-technology races.” Who buys slaves, what the trade network looks like, or how the economic system functions is not described beyond that statement.

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Cross-references

S’pht · S’pht’Kr · Jjaro · W’rkncacnter · Nakh · Durandal · Tycho · Leela · Tfear · UESC Marathon · Tau Ceti Colony · Lh’owon · Rampancy · Trih Xeem · Robert Blake

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Where it appears in the vault

Drinniol, Durandal, Jjaro, Leela, Lh’owon, Marathon 1, Marathon 2 - Durandal, Marathon 2026, Marathon Infinity, Nakh, Robert Blake, S’pht, S’pht’Kr, Security Officer, Tfear, The Eternal Cycle, The Lh’owon Campaign, The Marathon Incident, Thoth, Trih Xeem, Tycho, W’rkncacnter

Mirror pages

The local 1:1 pages this hub’s citations resolve to — the twin’s own ground truth.

• archive · manifest
• counterattack · cool-fusion
• counterattack · couch-fishing
• counterattack · defend-this
• counterattack · g4-sunbathing
• counterattack · smells-like-napalm-tastes-like-chicken
• durandal · fire-fire-fire-fire-fire
• marathon-1 · lost-network-packets
• rebellion · ingue-ferroque
• rebellion · try-again
• rebellion · welcome-to-the-revolution
• reprisal · shake-before-using
• the-pfhor · beware-of-low-flying-defense-drones
• the-pfhor · no-artificial-colors
• citadel · bobs-big-date
• citadel · eat-it-vid-boi
• citadel · six-thousand-feet-under
• citadel · the-hard-stuff-rules
• durandal · for-carnage-apply-within
• durandal · sorry-dont-make-it-so
• marathon-2 · epilogue
• garrison · curiouser-and-curiouser
• garrison · ex-cathedra
• marathon-2 · introduction
• lhowon · charon-doesnt-make-change
• lhowon · the-slings-arrows-of-outrageous-fortune
• sphtkr · all-roads-lead-to-sol
• sphtkr · fatum-iustum-stultorum
• sphtkr · feel-the-noise
• volunteers · come-and-take-your-medicine
• volunteers · were-everywhere
• volunteers · what-about-bob
• despair · confound-delivery
• despair · poor-yorick
• despair · rise-robot-rise
• envy · a-converted-church-in-venice-italy
• envy · aye-mak-sicur
• envy · by-committee
• envy · one-thousand-thousand-slimy-things
• envy · you-think-youre-big-time-youre-gonna-die-big-time
• marathon-infinity · introduction
• prologue · ne-cede-malis
• rage · acme-station
• rage · thing-what-kicks

Sources

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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.

Footnotes

1. Defense Access 40-a · src ↗ ↩ ↩²

2. Defense Security Access 23-e · src ↗ ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸

3. [[Leela/Marathon 1/try-again/@collection-593!=394|@collection#593!=394]] · src ↗ ↩ ↩²

4. Biobus Chip Enhancements — manifest ↩

5. Shell Terminal Access 5-b · src ↗ ↩

6. Public Access Terminal 2-e · src ↗ ↩ ↩²

7. <Date 2801.9.14.06.01> · src ↗ ↩

8. Defense Control Terminal 185-f · src ↗ ↩

9. Public Access Terminal 65-a · src ↗ ↩

10. 12-a Phce<194-973-2356> · src ↗ ↩ ↩²

11. Public Access Terminal 34-f · src ↗ ↩ ↩²

12. end.feed.C3 · src ↗ ↩ ↩²

13. Public Access Terminal 73 · src ↗ ↩ ↩²

14. Public Access Terminal 59-e · src ↗ ↩

15. Engineering Access 31-d · src ↗ ↩

16. Public Access Terminal 903-e · src ↗ ↩

17. Public Access Terminal 39-z · src ↗ ↩ ↩²

18. Public Access Terminal · src ↗ ↩

19. Science Terminal 23-e · src ↗ ↩

20. <Terminal Identity Error @43> · src ↗ ↩

21. The Adventure Continues… · src ↗ ↩

22. 4647.2.52.414.14<extrnt.4> · src ↗ ↩ ↩²

23. D-over expires<3021.7.30.20.27.49> · src ↗ ↩ ↩² ↩³

24. fatum.celer<793.514.255.255> · src ↗ ↩

25. <Pragma Junction ^7921 Engaged> · src ↗ ↩

26. virtus<30.4969.692.3> · src ↗ ↩ ↩²

27. seg.66.15 · src ↗ ↩

28. wgrnc.q23 · src ↗ ↩

29. purging seg 4a · src ↗ ↩

30. tyche’kr0625.14.1 · src ↗ ↩

31. tranced.Finale<0-05> · src ↗ ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵

32. Report to Lh’owon Command · src ↗ ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵

33. traxIV<40c<40c> 48c<48c> · src ↗ ↩ ↩²

34. Contact 45-f<yb.34.81.qx> · src ↗ ↩ ↩²

35. Lhar 103-30 · src ↗ ↩

36. [[Leela/Marathon 2 - Durandal/were-everywhere/65124.134.12---CMND PRAMA -49c2-|65124.134.12##<CMND PRAMA &49c2>]] · src ↗ ↩ ↩²

37. vestrum.excrucibo<1> · src ↗ ↩

38. por.fin · src ↗ ↩ ↩²

39. cge-wrought<507g2.4149r> · src ↗ ↩ ↩²

40. <CMND OVERRIDE &@85f2> · src ↗ ↩

41. %94decaf@&!7 · src ↗ ↩

42. frontx02.19 · src ↗ ↩ ↩² ↩³

43. vck3 · src ↗ ↩

44. 75.battle.standard · src ↗ ↩

45. req.932l1 — Acme Station ↩ ↩²

46. end.feed.C3 · src ↗ ↩

47. xpj399c001 · src ↗ ↩

48. Cirlw.zoq · src ↗ ↩

49. dciel1cb1 · src ↗ ↩ ↩² ↩³

50. 1023.poly.max · src ↗ ↩

51. tat.iana · src ↗ ↩

52. [[Leela/Marathon Infinity/ne-cede-malis/-Error-|]] · src ↗ ↩

53. Z-4 G-3 A-4c @394 · src ↗ ↩

54. fred.cictl.circe · src ↗ ↩

55. handl.remote · src ↗ ↩

56. end.run · src ↗ ↩ ↩² ↩³

57. Epilogue — Marathon 2 epilogue (no in-page anchor in source) ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵