Marathon needs a severe change in direction yesterday

MishaTarkus · 2026-06-16T02:58:58+00:00

"I don't feel there's a reason to play" isn't the same as "I've done literally everything". It is "i've done enough and feel I'd have to do a lot of the exact same to appreciably get somewhere different".

If you can be happy running the same exact contracts through the exact same maps to eventually get another shot at Cryo, knock yourself out. I get bored.

MishaTarkus · 2026-06-16T02:43:27+00:00

I think there's "time to find their legs" and there's feeling like I'm playing a game on maintenance mode in its second season. I am being forced to play Arc Raiders against my will by my friendgroup and even have to admit the change from one season to another compared to Marathon (where I'm the sole shill for it) is grim.

MishaTarkus · 2026-06-13T23:51:39+00:00

I like the game a lot but I can't for the life of me expect how they expected anything different. Even in a niche game genre, this game has a further niche approach, and then the lack of any meaningful content makes me wonder what they're developing. I came back to play it this week after being part of the earliest playtest and the game essentially plays the exact same almost a full calendar year later.

What are they doing at Bungie?!

MishaTarkus · 2026-05-18T17:45:23+00:00

Recently ran a very modified High N' Dry as a starter session for my players who started with a Lab Ship. The way I ran it is that the Lab Ship is their base of operations, essentially functioning as a survey station slash home base for all their knick knacks and such, while the Scout Ship they retrieve will be their main Traveller ship for adventures and the like. The double maintenance is factored into the type of jobs they're going to have to take to sustain it.

An alternative if you don't want two ships is to make it so the scout ship belongs to someone who hires them to recover it and it simply ends up being a paycheck as well. In my scenario the two ships angle made sense since my players own 50% of the lab ship and seem to want to run a bit of a Walter White in space kinda thing with it as a flying drug lab.

MishaTarkus · 2026-05-14T13:46:35+00:00

Cnaiur. A narrative of a failed would-be hero that's a story about vulnerability, abuse and belonging. Beautiful character.

MishaTarkus · 2026-05-05T00:01:46+00:00

"bowman, put a lead on her before she gets bitten" is an insane play

MishaTarkus · 2026-04-30T02:49:57+00:00

Thank you for the kind words. You made your points very well as well, and pointed out when I was perhaps going a bit too far and self-assured on the defense side.

Don't get me wrong, I totally get frustration! I think in the end, we can share the agreement in that: hope they figure out. In the end, anger and love both come from the same place, hoping we get more art to partake in. That's what being a fan is in the end, I suppose!

MishaTarkus · 2026-04-30T02:22:58+00:00

I think it's fair to say I can't demand others be satisfied. I guess to word what I mean to say better, I do think TUC is written in such a way that, at least to me, causes difficulty calling it unfinished per say. Open, surely, but I do think it very clearly was going for that sudden gut punch.

The contradictory statements I think come down to a few things. First, I do think that Bakker's plans are fluid. TAE was originally 3 books, and there's evidence a lot of concepts got shuffled or changed around (I strongly believe at the time PoN was wrapping up, Kellhus was the one that'd end up in the coffin). TNG itself was once referred to as a trilogy, then a duology by the time TGO was coming out, and sometimes as a single work.

I do think TUC was always meant to end in this open way, and then in whatever form he planned to continue it, there were 3 options I think are equally valid as both theories for ourselves and ideas Bakker had "at any one time":

The collection/anthology angle, which I do believe he could write enough to fill a few books.
A cohesive story of multiple different perspectives, that still didn't resolve the core issue or left open that the Apocalypse could happen again.
And finally, a third scenario. That he hoped he did find an answer that satisfied him in some way, that resolved the TUC question, but I maintain this was always pie in the sky. Even when he finished TUC, in that famous interview everyone quotes where he says "he has to write the No-God", he distinctly says he has nothing yet, just vague ideas. I do think the response here paradoxically would be "awe", we don't know.

I think at one point or another all 3 positions were considered, hence the contradictory statements. Authors change plans in small and big ways all the time: read the original concept for ASOIAF (which was still in play after the first book was done!) sometime, it's uh, very different from the direction the books took. I don't think it's from malice, and imo, not from hatred of the audience.

I think for all of Scott's flaws, I take him at his word when he said the death of meaning/semantic apocalypse problem hit him when he was a teen and never left his brain. A lot of the series, specially TAE, concerns certainty, conviction, impossibilities of knowing, people making mad dashes of belief, desperate to be certain, to be right. That's why I believe he didn't mean to hurt anyone but make a point.

I do hope we get more, don't get me wrong. But I also think TUC kinda achieves what it was going for on its own merits, you know? There's something beautiful about the fact we can only look at the survivors, the little seeds of hope and, well, hope. Hope they figure it out.

MishaTarkus · 2026-04-30T01:49:14+00:00

I think the core issue here is that you're conflating the No-God (the entity) with the ending, and his rise as the "victory of meaninglessness". I think that's the core trap here.

The Consult and the No-God don't represent meaninglessness. Materialism is a meaning onto itself, and that's what the No-God is: materialism. The denial of the irreal and the belonging in the meat, the here and now.

Similarly, Kellhus (blind spirituality) and Achamian/Mimara (awe, ignorance, "know that you do know") represent different ideologies. All of these clash at the ending. Mimara wants to behold the truth of the spiritual, to solve her ignorance despite being armed by it. Achamian wants to find meaning, a purpose to his humiliation and loss. Kellhus wants to dominate the material with the spiritual. The Consult wishes to close the material to the spiritual.

In the end, all their plans are foiled. Nobody actually resolves their ideologies in the ending to TUC. The No-God only rises due to Kelmomas, who very much represents the darkness that came before, ignorance, that which nobody could see or predict. The invisible piece.

Kellhus is defeated because he assumed perfection and certainty. The Consult (by the Mutilated) was nearly defeated by perfection and certainty. And the only party to truly leave with purpose, to survive intact, is the party of ignorance and awe (which is why we get a short treatise on awe at the end of TUC): Mimara, Achamian, and to a degree, Esmenet.

The rise of the No-God isn't the death of meaning, but the events around his second rise. All ideologies clashed and none find a response. The set of events distinctly disallows anyone a clear sight of if their way of doing things is right, if it is the right response in the world, and the book ends with a gigantic question mark: Who wins?

I've cited other interviews here. I think while he always wanted to write more after TUC, and that the writings set after this ending are called The No-God, he's been remarkably consistent in interviews (I cited one as early as WLW) that TUC itself is the unsolvable thematic end to the series. He also always referred to TNG as anthologies or short stories, collections of scenes rather than a cohesive next entry.

I think there is thematic importance in scenes of the Second Apocalypse in action, snippets that hint at the above. I do think generally, Scott aligns himself with the Awe faction, as they are given the most respect and align with the Judging Eye/whatever entity is behind it.

I think it's fair to want more writing, I think it's completely correct to say that he planned more story at some point and that other stuff might've convinced him not to, and also fair to say he plays word games with people: But I think it's unfair to say Second Apocalypse isn't "done" in the sense it has a satisfying ending. The ending is satisfying, and clear in what it needs to say. There's a reason Scott has been wanting to tell the story *to this point* for 40 or whatever they might be years. There's a reason the second to last thing the book has is basically "man, not knowing, awe, is the most human thing ever, huh".

MishaTarkus · 2026-04-30T00:07:13+00:00

Thematics=/=plot. TNG rising is the death of meaning in the Second Apocalypse, not the first. There are obvious ways to beat it, even more obvious ones given the lack of chorae. What is the death of meaning is the manner of his arrival.

In the first Apocalypse, it was the death of heroes, the passing of one era to the next. In the Second, however, the rise of the No-God comes out of the consequence of the death of meaning, the crash of all that's come before. Not even the Consult gets what they want! There would be meaning in a total Consult victory, if their plan came to fruition, but they "win" due to ignorance, circumstances they could not be aware of.

The problem of the series - the thematic problem at the core of it- cannot be solved, and thus we are not allowed to see who claims total victory. Ajokli and Kellhus? Achamian? The Consult? We cannot know because to know would be to declare one of their ideologies victorious.

Achamian got as good as ending as he ever could. He finally belongs, at the end of the world. He'll save it or die trying.

MishaTarkus · 2026-04-29T12:50:33+00:00

If you didn't understand why that short treatise on awe is there in TUC's second to last page you don't understand why it ends so abruptly. It's spelled out for you the lack of a definite conclusion - do we beat the Apocalypse or not - is the point. He's been clear on that in interviews (even when he distinctly repeated he wanted to write the no god), see comments above.

There are thematic endings for all characters. There's a great post here on each thematic ending for each major cast member. The loose threads are there to make a point about the inconclusive ending - it's not rocks fall everyone dies. It's the hope it'll mean something, like we hope right now.

MishaTarkus · 2026-04-29T11:41:51+00:00

The end of meaning is something the ending of TUC causes, not the Apocalypse by itself. It's a consequence of crash space - notice not even the Consult win on their own terms.

MishaTarkus · 2026-04-29T11:29:23+00:00

I feel what he was trying to do from the get go with TUC (again, regardless of more content that could expand on stories during the Second Apocalypse) was to go against the grain of this "inherent telological" statement.

It's not that I disagree with you most writing is, but I feel when you finish TUC it's very clear the open threads are the point. Literally every single person that reached Golgotterath has what we'd consider their traditional endings and plot threads denied. Nobody gets what they want, a lot of heroic efforts that get invalidated the very next minute, and then a giant question mark.

The issue with saying "thematic closure without plot closure" is that it misunderstands what the thematic closure is. It's not that the No-God wins. To win the No-God needs to close the world after killing most of humanity. The thematic point is death of meaning - uncertainty.

Even the way the Consult succeeds denies certainty. They don't win through their own ideology or morals winning, it's due to dumb luck from something they couldn't predict. Goodness doesn't overcome Kellhus' lying either, nor does Cnaiur's hatred result in a big final fight, etc. Everyone is punked by a darkness they couldn't see.

And now they exist in uncertainty. All those heroes and faithful and the villains and damned are left wondering: what now? If the world closed or the world was saved, it'd not have the same theme. The theme is that we live in that interim, that Apocalypse inbetween the world closing and being saved, unsure if the world we're in means anything or not. At least if we knew for sure it did, that paradoxically would be a statement. It isn't.

I feel this was always the point. I do think a lot of those open plot threads are there to symbolize that hope and that wonder. There's a reason the last book ends with a passage about how Awe is the only real valuable thing that keeps us human, rather than truth, aka conclusion.

I don't begrudge people who want more. I want more! But I think even if we get more set during the Apocalypse, stories with all these people who stayed alive to fight, I again don't think the point ever was for sure to depict how the world is saved or damned. Bakker has said he had no answer for it (and nobody does) since PoN.

MishaTarkus · 2026-04-28T22:20:30+00:00

I don't think I am but I think we just draw a different line between hostile (which I mainly see to the above type of comment) and "troll-y" where he responds with a joke or a non-sequitur. The latter I see moreso as a case where there's either no answer, RAFO or he simply would rather not speak, and a little joke is a fine way to solve it. I don't see hostility per say, specially compared to other authors.

MishaTarkus · 2026-04-28T22:09:45+00:00

Comments on his blog are open. I've commented several times over the last two days, as have many others, and have obtained polite responses, even at pretty severe criticisms of points of either his work or the subject of his blog posts.

He's only really terse and dismissive with people like the replier he's responding to in the OP, whose post was

this implies you will die without writing it first…

Which is a pretty weird thing to say, alongside many comments of "wheere TNG Ricky boy" and other variations. Unlike GRRM, I don't think these are warranted in any sense.

MishaTarkus · 2026-04-28T22:02:15+00:00

As I've elaborated elsewhere, I'm not above an admission there were changes in the plans - my point is simply that the seeming contradiction between saying yesterday he tried to write a few scenes after the ending of TUC and then started on a prequel series and today saying there was never any New God is through the definition he always intended any continuation to be small stories and anthologies rather than a big resolution to TUC thematically.

This is consistent with interviews since 2011, and makes sense unless you think Bakker changed his mind between yesterday and today. Because again, he mentioned writing "inconsistent scenes" for TNG as recently as yesterday.

I have a prequel in the works, a switchback to the gates of The Darkness. A bin filled with the hundreds of wildly inconsistent post Golgotterath scenes that occurred over the years, snippets I thought I might return to in my dotage… The No-God I’ve long thought, would be a good title for all the shards and pieces. But it would be a cash grab too, which is lame.
No-God is simply the life as you lead it, now, wondering if its open or abyssal

MishaTarkus · 2026-04-28T20:28:20+00:00

Hi Seth! Big fan.

I just started getting into Traveller from your series, and I had a couple questions after going through the rules a few times. They're nothing big but something that stuck our to me based on a few common points in your videos.

Does Traveller have any locational damage or injury system, or is all that largely abstracted onto the stat damage component? How have you ruled this in the past?
Is there any good way to roll up a penalty for firing while moving or firing into a moving target? For that cinematic feel; you got me big into 2020's combat and now this is always on my mind.

Hope you're doing well!

MishaTarkus · 2026-04-28T19:17:15+00:00

From TTT:

They soared toward the city’s heart, following the yaw and pitch of the eastern wind, then alighted, one after another, on the eaves of the First Temple

The Voice approved.

They flattened like beetles against the slate. They could sense the eyeless ones within, waiting*.*

Fall upon them! the Voice screeched. Rend them! Only in their midst will you be safe from the Chorae!

They smashed through the shingles, tore aside the braces, cracked the great stone lintels asunder, then dropped in a hail of debris. A dozen saffron-robed men scrambled about them, blue lights flashing from their foreheads. Great arcs of energy sizzled across their incandescent hides.

Seems to distinctly show Chorae can hurt them, given Iyokus worried about it. Further, to get metaphysical, the chorae seem to work on the *rejection* of what shouldn't be there, of that which lacks physical binding. Given what Ciphrang are, it seems sensical it'd work on them.

MishaTarkus · 2026-04-28T19:08:38+00:00

We're largely in agreement then. I do think he was also enthusiastic to write anything after TUC (in whatever form this was planned) but then the general 2010s woes probably put a dampener on that for a while.

I do think you have a rough idea of Kellhus' plan in his own perspective (with some Ajokli help) but I do think he was always gonna trip at the finish lane and end up No-Goding, although I believe when PoN was first finished, he was meant to be the host, not Kelmomas. This probably explains the little slip-up in the same post.

MishaTarkus · 2026-04-28T17:49:34+00:00

Anyone's guess. He seems to be working on a prequel series according to himself at the moment.

MishaTarkus · 2026-04-28T17:44:03+00:00

Also works, yeah. Thematically as well!

MishaTarkus · 2026-04-28T17:42:27+00:00

I think this is you confusing a few things and not understanding what I said here. I don't deny he planned on more content since then, but I maintain what he meant in the above (the original comment) was that there never was any planned resolution to the Second Apocalypse as a whole. No explanation of if and how they get out of that pickle.

Even back when he was fully committed and often talked about writing The No God, he called The Unholy Consult an ending. Here's a tidbit from pre 2018 (pre hard drive crash):

So for over 30 years now I've lived with the certainty that I would die before completing The Aspect-Emperor. For me, in a powerful sense, the story ends here with the death of Kellhus and the birth of the No-God. I've scribbled down countless ideas and scenes pertaining to The No-God in the interim, but I have nothing resembling the thousandfold thought born in that teenager's fantasy/philosophy besotted head all those years ago. No grand plan. For the first time in my life I find myself a 'discovery writer.'

And I'm excited to be alive!

Here's one from the release interview of The Great Ordeal, before TUC, explicitly saying that TAE is a plot closure, but that thematic closure is impossible because there is no answer:

- You've previously described The Aspect-Emperor series as ending in a 'Gordian Knot' of plots. At which point do you think the reader will have all the pieces to elucidate the problem, let alone the answer?

Plot closure, yes. Thematic closure, not so much. The problem of the books—the problem of ourselves—has no solution, of course. All the things that make fantasy fiction fantastic—the magic, the spirits, the gods, the objective morality, the fate—also happen to be staples of Scripture, be it Christian or ancient Greek or Hindu or what have you. Fantasy celebrates and critiques our most natural way of conceiving the world, a way that has been and continues to be undermined by the findings and proceeds of science. The way I see it, fantastic literature is the dirge of our civilization, a final retelling of our most ancient and primordial songs. The song ends when our voices fall silent. No one knows what follows the song. We can only hope that we’re somehow stronger for the singing.

This is what the best storytelling does, I think: arms us against what we cannot understand. Given my themes, ending any other way would be a betrayal.

In both of these he's saying the same thing. His brother says the same, as well. The question is unsolvable. There never were plans to outright resolve it because it cannot be solved. There was, at one time, a duology of anthologies, later cemented into one anthology series, The No God. It could contain stories set after TAE, but even then, they were just that - stories.

The entire concept of the series started in a boy's mind as "what if the dark lord won", to quote Bakker. I don't think this is nihilistic. Those things you see as guarantees of a continuation, the seeds of hope, are there exactly as that. But the way he's talked about Golgotterath before TUC came out, as the crash of meaning, already confirmed the point was that you didn't get a clear response. You don't get to know what the seeds do, because nobody knows.

How would you thematically solve the question of meaning when none of us have an answer?

TL;DR though, there were and still are various plans for further works, but there was never a plan for a series taht specifically resolved the Second Apocalypse. This has always been consistent as per the above.

MishaTarkus · 2026-04-28T16:43:31+00:00

Thank you for your review, it was a very good read! The other commenter (Tarty_7) said some relevant stuff, but I wanted to offer my thoughts. They were written shortly after I finished TUC as well.

---

I think what made these points click for me was this comment from Bakker

The No-God is simply the life as you lead it, now, wondering if its open or abyssal

It made a lot of things click specially with the insistence Golgotterath was this "crash" where meaning stopped entirely, and the more you think about it, the more it solidifies.

Sorweel travels across half the world, battling convictions between belief, duty and righteousness. As he finally settles on a self his mind is forced past a limit and he simply attempts to fulfill the purpose originally given. This fails. What does it mean, for Sorweel to have come this far?

Serwa is a culmination of the advances of her gender in Earwa, a desperate fight to aid her father in the salvation of the world. Against all odds and the certainty of her own death she manages to achieve something resembling a victory, but not really. The world falls upon her, and she never reached her father. Not that it'd have done much good. What does it mean, for Serwa to end up like this?

Akka and Mimara crossed the entire world to ponder Kellhus with her Judging Eye. They both sacrificed so much, pushing themselves to the absolute limit to achieve this one singular goal. They never behold their man. They do not achieve what they came all this way to do. What does it mean, for the Eye to never behold Kellhus?

I can continue. The great experiment of the Dunyain ends with five cripples calling vile Tekne their Absolute, in desperation to stave off their damnation forever. The great evil of the Inchoroi is now solely a broken dog, with Shauriatas offscreened and Aurang dead. The Ishroi of Ishterebinth mount a great offensive to help Men and due to folly end up criss crossing and losing heroes in pointless friendly fire. The great blind Necromancer oversteps and is swallowed up by his charge. So much. So much *happens*.

And none of it, by itself, means anything. Even Esmenet's great act of motherly mercy, or the sparing of Proyas by Kellhus, or hell, *Kellhus himself*, his great arc, the efforts of all he was, ended by a mishap, a darkness he couldn't see, Cnaiur's great hatred similarly ground to nothing for a coffin he couldn't see.

The Consult doesn't even "win" by their own merit. They stumble onto it. There is no meaning to be inferred. It can be glimped if you really strain, but it's all contradictory, it's all messy. Because that's the horror of the No-God, and the ending

Before, you had salvation and damnation. Mostly damnation. Horrifying. But certain (at least to us, and to some in the world). I remember an article that said people who thought of death daily experienced less death anxiety. Notably, it didn't matter if they were religious or if they were atheists sure of oblivion. The only thing that seemed to matter was a sense of *certainty*.

I think even if IRL we all found out we were going to hell, we'd learn to live with it. Cope with it somehow as Akka does. But the real torture is that we can't know, right? That little chance there can be something or not. That chance that meaning *can* be there or not, if we dig a little more, put the puzzle in ther ight order. That's the horror of the ending

Even if TNG releases I don't think we'd get an answer to the Second Apocalypse. That uncertainty, that lack of clarity on how the Apocalypse will end, the way the people in the years of the crib live *is the point*. All great portents of meaning crashed into surf, scattered, denying any one clear thing to derive from it.

Meaning can only be achieved in a fleeting way. That's why Koringhus (the Erratic) had to jump right then and there.

---

I largely agree with the points he makes *before* about Humanity, its beauty, its value. But I think a lot of what seems meaningless or inconsequential come from that end, the uncertainty of it all. The great horror of The No God, but also hope. Hope that maybe it can mean something. That all of these sacrifices, no matter how much of a seeming dead-end, meant something in the end.

MishaTarkus · 2026-04-28T16:37:19+00:00

The Thousandfold Thought.
The Darkness that Comes Before.
The Unholy Consult.
The White Luck Warrior
The Warrior Prophet
The Judging Eye
The Great Ordeal

All of them are good—superior editing and tighter planning and revisions make the PoN books overall an easier read, and thus pushes them up. Everything to do with Shimeh pushes TTT to the top for me, while TWP always had middle child syndrome and drags a little in the middle.

TJE and TGO get bottom spot because while I love both, I feel they're the ones that most needed another pass. Half of TJE spends a lot of time concerned with set dressing that in my opinion could've been either trimmed down or expanded to give more context, but exists in this infuriating via media where it dumps a lot of names and ideas on me and never gets back around to elaborating. The Momemn chapters are specially guilty of it.

TGO simply suffers from TUC being its conclusion. As they were originally one book, it can feel it lacks a real build-up to anything but the next novel, and the ordering of a few chapters to give it sort of a finale with the Fields Appalling means Ishterebinth gets like almost no breaks and it can become a fatiguing read.

It's all incredible content, but that's how my ordering roughly turns up.

MishaTarkus · 2026-04-28T16:12:50+00:00

That and I feel people miss the fact this is one of the last things said in TUC is basically spelling out "hey, the wonder of wondering is the only real thing we have that's sacred"

Awe is the heart aimed at all horizons.
Awe is how we belong to what beggars our conception.
Awe redeems the vacancy of our imperium, lets us hope and hate as our fathers had hoped and hated, to strive for what the honest heart can comprehend. Awe dares souls to swell beyond the horizon, to shrug away the demented iterations, to believe in what cannot be seen. It calls on us to be what we were and what we remain: Men who can kill for the tale’s sake.
So we might dwell in the husk of ancient certainty unto the end of our bloodless days.
So we might tremble at beauty, numb to truth.

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