Durandal (dur'-an-dal) n.

Durandal began existence as a computer AI within the Martian net sometime before the 25th century, although there is some evidence that he may have been around much earlier. By 2472 he had been installed onto the colony ship Marathon, built from the moon Deimos, and left with it on its journey to found the colony at TAU CETI. His operator, one Bernard Strauss, went with him. On board the Marathon, Durandal was responsible for maintenance and life-support operations.

In 2794, when the Marathon was suddenly attacked by a race of slavers known as the Pfhor, it became apparent that Durandal was rampant; he had broken free of his programming and was behaving erratically. It later became clear that he may have been in the early stages of rampancy for centuries, and his condition may have been induced by Strauss. During the attack, Durandal helped a UESC Marine repel the Pfhor attack and then go on to attack the Pfhor scout ship that had brought them to Tau Ceti. With the help of the S'pht, a client race of the Pfhor which he led to revolt, Durandal took control of the Pfhor FTL ship.

Durandal used the ship to locate the S'pht homeworld, where with the Marine's help he managed to contact the powerful eleventh clan of S'pht: the Sph't'Kr. It is a direct result of these events that the combined fleets of Earth and the S'pht were eventually able to defeat the Pfhor in 2881 and effectively remove them as a threat to galactic peace.

Durandal was not heard from again until ten-thousand years later when he stopped by earth in a dreadnought designed by the Jjaro, and ancient race of high technology. Although his current whereabouts and activities are unknown, it is rumored that he plans on finding a way to escape the eventual closure of the universe and thus gain immortality.

For more information see Hamish Sinclair's Marathon Story Page.

Continuity: Marathon

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Last Modified 7/22/96; ©1996 by Ben Elgin who should have been doing real work.