Marathon Ka-co-kh, translated

For topics about the story, help in a certain level, game discussion, or finding/discussing content.
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General-RADIX
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DISCLAIMER: Due to my limited knowledge of Japanese and lack of input from the dev team (and thus no context for some things, especially in the fourth installment), I would advise against taking these as definitive; more of a rough guide for the events as I understood them. (I also didn't realize that one AI's ship was called the "Karetsu" until examining KCK 2's text, so KCK 1 reads oddly)

The Ka-co-kh series is an old set of scenarios; like most of the ones from the time (mid-late 90s), it takes place after Infinity and sees the Security Officer working with a new AI, an Earth Defense Force strategist named Nagi. What starts as a conflict between him and another AI, Flea, gradually widens in scale.

Hopper provided the raw texts, and I spent many hours going back and forth between them, Jisho.org, lists of particles and denominations, and Google Translate (for romaji, and knowing where one word ended and another began).

I'm gonna be lazy and cross-post from the Story Forum. :U These posts, written near the beginning of this year, include some additional notes.

KCK 1
KCK 2
KCK 3
KCK FINAL

There's a prequel of sorts, Marathon Forever, which I started work on translating but haven't gotten back to. Maybe someday.
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hawkeyefile
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Nice work, now the scenario is less mysterious.
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Cyborg
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hawkeyefile wrote:Nice work, now the scenario is less mysterious.
Thanks. ^^
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Zott
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This is the first time of hearing of these two scenarios. Is there anything specifically notable besides their Japanese terminals that you could share?
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Cyborg
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Zott wrote:This is the first time of hearing of these two scenarios. Is there anything specifically notable besides their Japanese terminals that you could share?
Hm...When I asked Logue about JP scenarios, he told me that Marathon Forever and Leopard's Eye (unrelated to the KCK series) were the most popular/well-known on that side of the fandom, so there's that.

In terms of story (and assuming that I interpreted it right), KCK FINAl presents an interesting theory about Durandal and the Jjaro: that Durandal was apparently a Jjaro AI (how he ended up on Mars isn't explained, since he's only mentioned briefly), and that the mistakes the Jjaro made led not only to the creation of the W'rkncacnter and the 'great ruin' it wrought, but one of their own AIs (the fourth of ten, not named) engineering the next generations of Pfhor to specifically target the Jjaro and their remains. There's also the possibility that the Security Officer was around for all this in some form.

'course, this might just be notable to me because I love reading other folks' theories (especially old ones) and examining the thought processes behind them; I do wonder if this was one the JP community of the time posited (leading to broader questions of how they interpreted the Trilogy), or just a personal theory of the scenario creator's.
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Cyborg
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Bumping this to let y'all know that Pfhore re-translated the whole series, as my initial efforts really were off in most places.

(Also, that post directly above where I got excited about backstory stuff? Relied on the idea that the text was referring to the Jjaro and not Yrro [it's complicated]. So, uh, ignore that)

KCK1
- 00. Station Kazenagi
- 01. Death Trap
- 02. Space HiJack!
- 03. Station Kazenagi II
- 04. Duelist

KCK2
- 00. Encounter Sill
- 01. Juggernaut Panic
- 02. Insanity!!
- 03. Asleep Night

KCK3
- 00. Jack-knife
- 01. Kill and kill
- 02. Fallen Angel
- 03. The B.B.B. term
- 04. Fight fight fight fight fight!!

KCK FINAL
- 00. Prologue
- 01. Cool night
- 02. Jack-knife II
- 03. In the Cyan
- 04. UP!
- 05. Pain Paint
- 06. angel y diablo?
- 07. Ka-co-kh/08. Station Kazenagi III
- Epilogue
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Shocktart
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Can someone post screen shots of the game itself before I download this?
I really want a preview to see if this is worth my time in the slightest.
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General-RADIX
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Here's a few, if the link works.
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Johnman
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Holy shit, thanks.
Is this translated in-game? I would love to play some more Marathon story scenarios, in 2017 no less.
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Johnman wrote:Is this translated in-game?
Not yet, but I could probably put something together. 'twould like to get the okay from Pfhore first, since it's his translation I'd be working off of.

(Ideally I'd like to get permission from the original scenario authors too, but I dunno where they are now)
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