W'rkncacnter
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The W'rkncacnter is a chaotic entity (or possibly entities) from the Marathon Trilogy of games created by Bungie. Its existence is hinted at in the storyline of Marathon 2, and its release from Lh'owon's star becomes a major plot point during Marathon Infinity.
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[edit] In Marathon
According to text found in Marathon 2:
"In primordial space, timeless creatures made waves. These waves created us and the others. Waves were the battles, and the battles were waves. 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. They made sisters for Lh'owon to protect and maintain the paradise. When the W'rkncacnter came, Pthia was killed, and Yrro in anger, flung the W'rkncacnter into the sun. The sun burned them, but they swam on its surface."
A particular text screen in Marathon Infinity describes the W'rkncacnter as a race of beings who "live in chaos, creating it around them." Over time, they have become imprisoned in the more "chaotic" aspects of the universe: stars, storms and black holes are all named as prisons. Freeing a W'rkncacnter is possible, but very difficult (given the nature of their prisons). One would have to be insane to even try: their ability to generate chaos enables them to destroy on a cosmic scale. The W'rkncacnter are present in the myths of thousands of worlds, most of which are now uninhabitable, and tales of their destructive power have survived all over the galaxy for over 60 million years.
In Marathon Infinity, a W'rkncacnter is imprisoned in the sun of planet Lh'owon. It is theorized by some that the W'rkncacnter's powerfully chaotic nature may be responsible for the jumps between realities seen in the game. When the Pfhor use a trih xeem device to send the star into early nova, the creature is released, to the horror and destruction of the Pfhor.
Whether W'rkncacnter is a singular entity or an alien race is unclear. Marathon 2: Durandal contains many mythological texts of the S'pht, but they are inconsistent on this point. It is possible that the W'rkncacnter is a race which is represented as a singular entity in the S'pht mythos, much like their mythological character Yrro has been speculated to be a singularization of the Jjaro. Durandal/Thoth in Marathon Infinity describes the legendary W'rkncacnter as having distinct identities. Another theory is that the W'rkncacnter is both a multiple and singular entity, in some incomprehensible way. Given the being's chaotic nature, almost anything is possible.
[edit] In Pathways Into Darkness
In Bungie's Pathways Into Darkness, the player is sent to destroy a "Dreaming God" located in Central America at the behest of the Jjaro. While never explicitly stated in game, various interpretations make it possible that the "Dreaming God" is a W'rkncacnter. If so, it would be an unusual example of its kind, as the later Marathon games stated that they must be contained within chaotic mediums such as stars or black holes. Perhaps the Dreaming God's state of "death" (or as close to being dead as such a being can be) permitted its entrapment in the more mundane environment of Earth.
All evidence points to the W'rkncacnter being completely immortal, even against each other. If the "Dreaming God" is taken to be an example of the race, their warring "in primordial space" was responsible for the creation of much of the universe, as per the Pathways Into Darkness manual "This particular being, whose name no human throat will ever learn to pronounce, was part of the cataclysmic battle that formed Magellanic Clouds, billions of years ago."
It has also been suggested that the W'rkncacnter may have been inspired by the Great Old Ones from the Cthulhu Mythos by H. P. Lovecraft, which the Marathon Trilogy contains many references to. Discussed in more detail on the Marathon’s Story page.
[edit] In Halo's continuity
Cortana records, in The Cortana Letters "I have begun to sense rumblings of a worse fate yet to come. I can recall a sun - black, but shining - and the creatures that inched along its fiery tracks." Compare this reference with: "Yrro in anger, flung the W'rkncacnter into the sun. The sun burned them, but they swam on its surface."
[edit] External links
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