Beginning in mid-2012, I had an idea, inspired by the classic Volunteers series, for a new series of posts on the Story Forums called 'Tour of Duty'. It was probably one of the better ideas I've ever had, and easily the most successful so far. Initial plans changed a bit, and the series became increasingly detailed in its discussions of each and every level, but it has been a very good series. I was initially the first and only writer, but around July 2013, I was joined by Martin, who helped do the write-ups for Beware of Low-Flying Defense Drones and Try Again, and with whom I then shared the work for the Marathon 2 series. I left the write-up scene at the end of Marathon 2, and Infinity was covered instead by a combination of Martin and VikingBoyBilly (with the exception of the write-up for By Committee, which I wrote, and a number of dream levels that were covered by Hokuto). You can find a complete list of all of the write-ups for the original Marathon trilogy here (just scroll to the bottom of the page).
After finishing Infinity, Martin and VikingBoyBilly went on to cover Tempus Irae, a series which just finished 5 days ago, with Billy's coverage of the level 'For Your Eyes Only'. Now, we (meaning me, Martin and Billy) intend to continue the Tour of Duty through another fan-made scenario, but the problem is, we can't decide which one we want to cover. So, my idea was, how about we put the decision out there for the Marathon community to vote on? Martin and Billy agreed, and we settled on seven options we would put out there for you to vote on, which you can see in the poll at the top of this post.
Now the choice is in your hands: which scenario do you want us to write about, you citizens of the Marathon community?
![[MSmile]](./images/smilies/1.png "marathon")
Some notes to take account of before you vote or comment on this post:
The reason you don't see 'Marathon: Evil' on this list is because that scenario was already covered by the Rampancy duo of Narcogen and Blackstar, who were simultaneously putting up their Let's Plays of the Marathon series while we worked on the Tour of Duty series. You can see their playthrough of Evil here. Likewise, since we're not going to be covering Evil, we did not include the scenario "Siege of Nor'Korh", which was the prequel to Marathon: Evil.
'Tempus Irae 2: The Lost Levels' was included because, well, it is the "sequel" to Tempus Irae, which is the scenario we just completed. It would seem natural to continue with that, but many people might not feel the same way or might just want to change to an entirely different environment.
The reason we're doing this as a poll here, rather than initiating a discussion over on the Story Forums, is because:
1) It's easier for people to vote by selecting a poll option, instead of having to write a new post just so they can say "I want you guys to do scenario ____."
2) It's easier to tally up results through a poll, rather than have to sort through a whole list of posts just to get a sense of the results.
3) This seemed like a good excuse to reach out to the Pfhorums community and introduce a whole bunch of new people to the Tour of Duty series.
If you want to list your reasons why you think a certain scenario makes more sense, either to convince others why they should do the same (that is an important part of a democracy, you know), or just to initiate conversation, feel free to reply to this thread.
IMPORTANT NOTE: This poll will close in two weeks, so make sure to get your vote in by April 10!
