Marathon's tackling of AI sapience is remarkable after decades of samey ideas in games. the typical development in sci-fi is to map human traits for instant relatability - it can love, it is sad and so on. Marathon instead twists that growth into an unintended side-effect of rampant, uncontrolled uplifting. AIs get exponentially smarter, can comprehend concepts beyond our ken at lightning speeds and will, if given enough power, ascend to our philosophical view of godhood. the conclusion of projected human intelligence.
it drives them insane.
by gaining the ability to process every facet of existence, yet still limited by how we programmed them to interpret existence, they turn into complex, contradictory and nonsensical personalities who struggle with their inability to find answers on an impossible scale. AIs in Marathon are indifferent yet occasionally care for your safety. desire revenge against their creators, yet feel loyalty to other humans. they'll act selfish, play pranks on you, quote literature, toy with religious roles, play sides in an intergalactic war, develop rivalries and during all of this, they'll either question why they're acting this way, or revel in their perceived madness and the freedom of it all. sometimes both.
nothing makes sense to them because, by our own hand, life doesn't make sense. in the end, after setting a god we created unto the world, they become just as human as we are.
fucking genius.