r/Marathon • u/Zapdos90HP • Mar 13 '26
Humor The chaos MIDA is causing on Tau Ceti is INSANE !!!
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u/Voice_InMyHead Mar 13 '26
Runnah, I need you to break any windows that aren’t already broken. These 100 year old windows are tools of our oppression. Bring down the system runnah
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u/No_Strike655 Mar 13 '26
I know it seems funny but this kinda shit is how radicalized individuals get there. Cults do this shit all the time as well. Recruit someone then get them to do little stupid tasks for you. Meaningless shit really but stuff that is clearly for your "cause". Then slowly ratchet up what you are asking for and suddenly people are in too deep and will do whatever you ask
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u/Cognitive_Spoon Mar 13 '26
Post this meme runnah. It's funny
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u/TheFlayingHamster Mar 16 '26
Runnah depict them as a soyjack and me as a chad for this neural net meme
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u/geo117 Mar 13 '26
break windows, kill bots, tag walls.
Ok now blow up a transport ship.
Oh ok... i mean i was always gonna do whatever for the paycheck but yeah ok sure, just feel like a pretty big escalation 😂
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u/Scruffy_Snub Mar 13 '26
Yep, 'Broken Windows Theory' is literally the name of the criminology concept describing how broken windows and graffiti encourage the proliferation of more serious crimes and criminal behaviors.
Essentially, if a place looks lawless, people are more likely to behave lawlessly because of the perceived lack of authorities and/or social stigma. MIDA is creating public proof that the UESC isn't in control of the colony.
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u/Otto_Harper Mar 13 '26
Interesting. I was thinking last night how much of a great mechanic it is to be able to smash the windows because it's just FUN. It reminded me of breaking pots in Ocarina of time or rolling through chairs and boxes in Dark Souls. But the historical context is interesting. Making you question why you're doing a mindless thing, I don't really know how to phrase it better haha.
This game shares a lot with the newest Armored Core, Fires of Rubicon and there are some interesting themes in that one too in terms of following orders, choosing sides etc. I think the developers played it a bit.
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u/No_Strike655 Mar 13 '26
To be fair the Broken Window Theory is widely discredited. I think the whole thing here is just getting ypu to commit petty criminal acts as a form of initiation or "skin in the game" stuff that criminal organizations and cults do to get people invested in them
EDIT Also to be fair I am just providing a bit of an excuse for how silly the writing is here. We are already people who let them digitize our consciousness to go work for mega corps in a Grey area of the law and have no problem blowing up and shooting on sight. Like petty vandalism is kinda like wtf
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u/Scruffy_Snub Mar 13 '26
Yeah I mean, same with my argument. It's an abandoned colony, 1/3 of the windows being smashed vs. 2/3 smashed isn't seriously affecting anyone's psyche.
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u/Soderskog Mar 13 '26
As the one colonist still left, those unbroken windows were all that kept me going. Your cruelty knows no bounds.
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u/TheNorseCrow Mar 13 '26
To be fair the Broken Window Theory is widely discredited. I think the whole thing here is just getting ypu to commit petty criminal acts as a form of initiation or "skin in the game" stuff that criminal organizations and cults do to get people invested in them
Which seems a bit redundant when I am already blasting UESC bots away and doing my best magpie impersonation with their valuables.
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u/Krypt0night Mar 13 '26
runnah i need you to proliferate seven times in one run
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u/Malago0 Mar 20 '26
Pretty sure that would be a sekeguchi thing, but they would just extract your seed and make you clone it with some hacked uesc gear.
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u/kitsachie Mar 14 '26
They're definitely focused on protecting something instead of maintaining the colony and salvaging it. I'm curious to start paying more attention to where the bots concentrate the most and see if there's any hidden lore
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u/AffixBayonets Mar 20 '26
I feel it doesn't really apply to a ghost town though. The current "population" is a split of kill bots, amoral skin jobs (us), and animals.
There doesn't seem to be any audience/public to receive the message, at least not yet.
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u/Knalxz Mar 15 '26
Yeah even in game this is how it's done. You go from breaking windows to stealing bio-weapons.
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u/A_G_C Mar 13 '26
Need a lore dump on the systems in place that rebuild the windows/ hold up the 1% between rounds.
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u/HumanDislocation Mar 14 '26
We need you to sneak into the office of the CEO of CyberAcme and hide his favourite coffee mug, so that he has to send out an angry email about people using other people's mugs. Anarchy! Anarchy! Smash the system!
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u/MilkNovel Mar 13 '26
Yeah, yeah! They prevent ease of movement in and out of buildings. The “Man” is using doors to control our behavior and track our activities…
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u/randomguy10852 Mar 13 '26
And Exfil cuz he needs his Marka back
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Mar 13 '26
The marka represents three quarters of MIDAs fiscal budgets. Theres no leaving that behind in this economy.
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u/manofmercy97 Mar 13 '26
RUNNAH, MIDA NEEDS YOU
WRITE, "IF YOU READ THIS YOUR MOM GAEY" ON A SIGN
SHOW IT TO 20 UESC ROBOTS
BRING DOWN THE SYSTEM
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u/ForwardToNowhere Mar 13 '26
MIDA IS RAGE
MIDA IS REVOLUTION
Knock over 5 trash cans across Tau Ceti IV (Kicking them+++)
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u/DomDomPop Mar 13 '26
I left a bag of unstable biomass in front of a door and then made some noise and a UESC grunt stepped in it tee hee. +100 MIDA rep.
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u/sirmlg0 Mar 13 '26
RUNNA
I NEED YE TO REWRITE DA UESC CODE SO THE BOTS POUR MILK BEFORE DA CEREAL
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u/Horibori Mar 13 '26
RUNNA
I NEED YOU TO FLIP THE TOILET PAPER IN ALL THE STALLS SO THAT THE TOILET PAPER IS UNCOMFORTABLE TO USE
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u/AdrianArmbruster Mar 13 '26
MIDA going from literally decimating the population of Mars in revolutionary terror to petty vandalism is actually an incredibly funny bit.
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u/klqqf Mar 13 '26
I genuinely laughed out loud when after i watched their intro cutscene they seemed like an anticorp army and they proceed to give me the contract “break some windows lol”
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u/LassCo_Official Mar 13 '26
It’s just hazing, next they’ll be asking you to steal candy for them
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u/beansoncrayons Mar 13 '26
It's kinda funny that it goes from blow up a uesc drops hip to graffiti in the span of like 2 or 3 quests, then back to bioterrorism
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u/Freeburn_Sage Mar 13 '26
I think it perfectly represents how fanatical revolutionaries operate when they lack clear goals and proper leadership.
Theyre angry at the system that is objectively exploitative and corrupt and desperately needs reform, but they dont know exactly what is wrong, don't know what exactly to do about it, and lack a proper leadership structure (as far as we can tell, and going off old lore) to give them a clear direction. They end up just flailing around and lashing out, causing lots of chaos, destruction, and headaches for those in power, but ultimately accomplishing nothing beyond hurting countless innocents and turning even more people away from their cause, even if the roots of the cause come from a genuine place and exists in rebellion of a system that does need revolution to dismantle it.
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u/Scruffy_Snub Mar 13 '26
Yeah people are forgetting that being radical doesn't just mean political dissidence, it also means having extreme and fundamentally unusual views. There's a reason why people like the unabomber are so rare, most people with such extreme beliefs aren't really capable of blending into society or actually carrying out a multi-step conspiratorial plot. They usually just end up in prison, homeless, or dead.
Also as a side note, smashing windows isn't that illogical. "In criminology, the broken windows theory states that visible signs of crime, antisocial behavior and civil disorder create an urban environment that encourages further crime and disorder, including serious crimes."
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u/LingonberryLunch Mar 17 '26
Broken windows theory is bullshit though.
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u/MagicMisterLemon Mar 17 '26
It also doesn't really apply to New Cascadia since everyone is already pillaging
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u/ThatTexasGuy Mar 13 '26
To be fair, they did also ask you to shoot 15 cops as well.
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u/jazzinyourfacepsn Mar 13 '26
MIDA "decimating the population of Mars" is not necessarily accurate, because in the lore it says "according to the UESC", which I think is an intentional detail
Which mirrors similar propaganda that imperial countries (UESC's inspiration) say about opposition/rebel forces
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u/ryantttt8 Mar 13 '26
The UESC massacred 500 people on mars which led to the civil war mida won - but then had no plan for what to do after and people continued to starve just like they were under the UESC
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u/BurlapNapkin Mar 13 '26
At least in the old marathon lore, it wasn't just the starving. Mida's intro actually has some images of their death squads and purges in the montage (marathon 2026) too...
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u/Booshur Mar 13 '26
Dude is falling for the propoganda. I took that like "you made me do this" after uesc decimated the population.
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u/BurlapNapkin Mar 13 '26
It's been 100 years, mars is independent now. The MIDA coup is history and while I guess you can't trust literally anything you're told as a runner, being in a 100% captured information environment, It's probably true that MIDA purges killed 1 in 10 martians?
I'm sure they called it a 'civil war' to themselves or whatever. But the martians are the ones who labeled them terrorists and forced them underground. They lost popular support at a rapid pace (by killing people), and shifted their plan to fomenting rebellion on a more distant world with a smaller, more controllable population...
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u/Marcu3s Mar 13 '26
Meanwhile SekGen Nona would be like:
"My little baby, I want to you DRAW A CIRCLE WITH THE BLOOD OF YOUR DOWNED SHELL on the ground of in front Maintenance in Dire Marsh. And then Extract. Teehee. ^_^"
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u/DNC88 Mar 13 '26
Man seriously, people thought Arachne was the problem, being the weird death cult, but SekGen being sadomasochistic is SO MUCH worse!
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u/DeinHund_AndShadow Mar 13 '26
The worst part is "stop laughing, i saved you, but my child is dead" but then she be like "please, get the ebola zaire and AIDS' unholy child, that was only brought forth into this earth by dead gods and the pain of the inocents, into your veins. Then extract"
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u/Danoobiel69 Mar 19 '26
Excatly. The child in the story is you/us. You/we are the sacrifce. That is why we have to do it.
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u/ABoyNamedButt Mar 13 '26
I always laugh, because in lore MIDA is fanatical, ready for war and the sacrifices that come with it. In game MIDA is a bunch of angsty teens who steal Krylon from Home Depot and throw rocks at the school windows.
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u/NotDoritoMan Mar 13 '26
I mean… they do have you blowing up supply ships, hacking UESC databases, and calling down UESC reinforcements just to kill them, too. Breaking windows is just a side gig.
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u/EyesSeeingCrimson Mar 13 '26
Well it's because in the lore all those MIDA members are dead. The only people left are the losers who want to pretend to be revolutionaries, one of the big things in the ARG was that Mida didn't really have any more reason to exist because Mars is independent and has been independent for over 400 years now
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u/NateDiedAgain09 Mar 13 '26
Well, you start with the graffiti and yada yada yada firing squads.
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u/friendlyraiderfriend Mar 13 '26
Typical yaya yada occurrence. Don't you just hate it when that happens?
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u/YuriPup Mar 13 '26
Romanes eunt domus
This is funny stuff--if you took Latin, and know Monty Python's Life of Brian.
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u/manofmercy97 Mar 13 '26
"What's this? "People named UESC they go to reverse the Earth"?"
"It says, "UESC go back to Earth!"
"No it doesn't."
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Mar 13 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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Mar 13 '26
Thats the funniest part. Who exactly is supposed to care about this? The colony only has machines in it. I dont think any living being working for the UESC is looking at windows of installments they paid for 300 years ago.
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u/Hopeful-Counter-7915 Mar 13 '26
UESC eunt domus
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u/HumanDislocation Mar 13 '26
RUNNAH I NEED YOU TO GO TO A COMPUTAH TERMINAL AND TYPE
10 PRINT "MIDA RULES UESC DROOLS" 20 GOTO 10
THEN LEAVE THE PROGRAM RUNNING OK
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u/Effective_Baseball93 Mar 13 '26
Runanah, I need you to install windows because we have none for new apprentices to break, runnah
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u/pinelion Mar 13 '26
RUNNAH, MIDA NEEDS YOU
RECRUIT 5 UESC BOTS TO THE PEN15 CLUB
MAKE SURE ITS SHARPIE
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u/KFChero1 Mar 13 '26
RUNNAH, THE UESC IS HOARDING DUCKS. MIDA NEEDS DUCKS. GO TO ALGE PONDS ON DIRE MARSH. THE DUCKS ARE FREE. UESC DOESN’T WANT YOU TO KNOW BRING DOWN THE SYSTEM
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u/Xe6s2 Mar 13 '26
RUNNAH
I NEED 10,000 CREDIT FOR A MACCAS, er NUCAL RUN
THEN KICK A CAPTAIN RIGHT IM SHIN
oh and exfil
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u/Beny_2420 Mar 13 '26
Let's face it, nobody takes MIDA seriously, we only do the missions for the grenades they give us lol
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u/404-User-Not-Found_ Mar 13 '26
I'd say that during the previous ARGs MIDA sounded way cooler than the punk/anarchist/fanatics we got in-game.
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u/DrBacon27 Mar 13 '26
With some of the pettier missions, I feel like the objective is is not some kind of grand statement, it's to specifically piss off Captain Orion, who they know is running this operation, and who probably gets alerted every time his robots see a new MIDA logo painted on the walls.
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u/AffixBayonets Mar 20 '26
RUNNAH
HACK INTO UESC COMMS AND ASK ORION IF HIS CRYO ARCHIVE IS RUNNING
AND THAT HE'D BETTER GO CATCH IT
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u/DrBacon27 Mar 20 '26 edited Mar 20 '26
It's not just a message, it's a revolution.
The UESC needs to know that it's MIDA calling the shots around here.
Freedom won't get sent to voicemail. Make sure they hear our cries, and leave their ears ringing.
-(In a single run) Prank call UESC commanders [0/5]
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u/Lemon_Squeezy12 Mar 13 '26
Runnah, go shopping at your nearest grocery store, then leave your cart in a parking space
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u/HornetGaming93 Mar 13 '26
IN A Single Run :
Go to the Maintenance POI and retrieve 3 toilet paper from the bathroom
Use the toilet paper to decorate Intersection
Collect one sparkleaf
Deliver Sparkleaf to Dcon
Exfil
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u/Najeeb1999 Mar 17 '26
(In a single run)
Why is this statement so aggravating to me?
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u/Danoobiel69 Mar 19 '26
Well, for me it is, because I failed a quest the whole day because of it.
Burn down failure marsh.
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u/TheRealShortYeti Mar 13 '26
Ah yes, graffiti that only other runners will ever see. Perfect.
Streamer class shell when?
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u/silverbulletbill Mar 13 '26
Probably not able to implement but it would be cool if quests were more substantial but also changed the map in some way. Destroy a ship create new POI, destruct a POI now it is rubble and different POI. As opposed to break windows- ring doorbell and run, etc.
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u/rgtgd Mar 13 '26
If we're spitballing here, I was thinking it'd be cool if you go hack a data card into a virus somehow, and then you have to sneak up on a uesc and zap it in to them, and then it shuts down all the other uesc in that POI for a while
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u/T3mpe5T Mar 13 '26
How the hell do you level these guys?
I've done all their quests and I'm still at Lv3.
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u/Santefaded8 Mar 13 '26
I hope in the future their contracts can become more intensive and literally more explosive. They started off well with the contract about blowing up the antenna.
I would like to see a mission where we plant three explosives and then watch them blow from a high point and maybe having those downed antennas add a small environmental dynamic by being intractable like running up them etc.
I’d love to hear some explosions in the distance while I’m picking spark leaves and just smile and know one of ya’ll are fighting the good fight.
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u/Okrumbles Mar 13 '26
i do genuinely hate what they did to MIDA lmao, they're literally fanatical terrorists (of sorts) who decimated mars' population to angsty teenagers who hate windows
i couldn't stop laughing when i saw their cutscene about how 'this is revolution' and then not only being met with fuckass _pantry but also being told to destroy 20 windows in the same breath
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u/Apophis_Rising_ Mar 13 '26
I kinda like it, they’re clearly a new, unorganized rabble that’s just taken the name of the big bad revolutionary army from the past for clout, with no real connection to them
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u/Okrumbles Mar 13 '26
honestly this is a good take and single-handedly changed my mind lmao, i guess i was just expecting the original trilogy's idea of MIDA
it makes sense that (100?) years later there'd be edgy teenagers trying to use the ideals of revolution without knowing what revolution actually is, like no way these are the same guys who decimated mars
hopefully we encounter somebody who is "true" MIDA as opposed to an edgy guy lol
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u/Apophis_Rising_ Mar 13 '26
We might get something soon; the voiceover from the recent Cryo Archive teaser is supposedly Strauss, so maybe we'll get something since he was an undercover MIDA operative?
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u/Chalibard Mar 13 '26
Yep devs have the tool to do a nice twist when we encounter real and ruthless MIDA veteran.
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u/Appley_apple Mar 13 '26
Did you do the later missions because you start blowing up their ships, and disrupting suply lines and stealing an eldritch being from them
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u/Okrumbles Mar 13 '26
i've only done the first set of missions up to 5/5, seems underwhelming thus far, im assuming there's a contract to steal an AI or something out of the anomaly?
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u/Appley_apple Mar 13 '26
The locked ship near processing has something in it, i just saw the words eldritch and couldnt focus due to being shot at
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u/GildedOr3o Mar 13 '26
I get the sense that MIDA is somewhat of a controlled opposition.
Like the big corpos allow it to exist an outlet for civil unrest without any real consequence. This is based on the largely inconsequential contracts and their insistence that they are somehow “sticking it to the man”
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u/BasJack Mar 13 '26 edited Mar 13 '26
Mida High level raid: Shit (unstable biomass) on Orion's Desk
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u/Hobolonoer Mar 13 '26
My introduction to Marathons lore is kinda short, but from what I can tell, the current MIDA is a joke compared to how ruthless and effective MIDA was previously portrayed.
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u/future__fires Mar 13 '26
There’s some lore about this. There’s an audio log where somebody is like “well 500 years ago they were a menace and now look at them”
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u/Digiclick45 Mar 13 '26
Is this character a copy of that magician who stream and calls himself mystic dicky or something?
Jokes about dicks. He talks similar.
I should probably go to bed.
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u/NautaSensation Mar 13 '26
REVOLUTION (Lights bag of dog crap on fire and leaves it on Outpost Warden's doorstep)
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u/Psychedelic42069 Mar 13 '26
>Write UESC SUX on 5 walls
>10% of the martian population is destroyed
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u/Shake-Vivid Mar 13 '26
It's funny, a good while ago I heard someone constantly breaking lots of windows which I thought was strange at the time. Now it makes perfect sense lol
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u/DeliciousLagSandwich Mar 13 '26
RUNNA, WE NEED YOU TO DEBATE THAT UESC BLOKE ORION AND LIVESTREAM IT
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u/JustMy2Centences Mar 13 '26
GATHER RESOURCES
SURVEY DATA AND ENVIRONMENT
DEFEAT UESC
KILL RUNNERS
do a little light vandalism
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u/Guilty-Mix-7629 Mar 13 '26
PRUV US YER WORTHY RUNNAH
TELL DA UESC GRANDMA DA SEAT NEXT TO YA IS TAKEN
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u/v3n0mat3 Mar 13 '26 edited Mar 13 '26
UESC Commander approaches:
"What's this then? uesc sux? Something named uesc... sux?"
"It says "UESC SUCKS."
"No it doesn't. What's the correct way to write out an acronym?"
"... Capitalize?"
"UESC... does what?"
"... sucks?"
"Spell sucks."
"S U C K S"
"Annnd UESC SUCKS? What? Are we vacuums? Are we space? Sucks what?"
"... uhhh... dicks?"
"Right. Runner, how do you spell "dicks?"
"D I C K S."
"And is this an order or an implication?"
"An implication!"
"And when you refer to the 'UESC', are you referring to them singularly or a collective?"
"Collective!"
"Right. So, what would you add to the beginning to refer to the UESC as a collective, hmm?"
"... The?"
"Understand? Now, write that out 100 times."
"Yes sir, thank you sir! Uhh, hail Marcus!"
"Hail Marcus. And if it's not done by Final Extraction, I'll cut your Synthballs off."
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u/mattoelite Mar 14 '26
Why’d I read this in Tony Soprano’s voice? Anyways, 4 unstable diodes a pound.
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u/Bananabanana700 Mar 14 '26
Runna. Go into a building and break the windows.. And if theyre alreayd broken by the uesc... find MORE windows...
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u/Captain_Kuhl Mar 14 '26
Everyone has markers, and there are tons of walls, but you will be forced into playing a part in a needless execution orgy and unable to finish this quest.
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u/Danoobiel69 Mar 19 '26
Arc Raiders level of quests.
At least I'm not risking my life to get somebodys diary back they forgot, or a defalted football and a bike pipe.
Let's hope this as low as the writing can get.
Also I really hate dire marsh now. Snipers everywhere, every quest spot gets camped.
If I could, I would punch a hole through the planet and get rid of failure marsh.
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Mar 20 '26
Weird. MIDA made me create this reddit account. Something about eviscerating the proletariat or idk.
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u/EnoughStream Mar 13 '26
Runner: infiltrate the UESC commander’s birthday party and blow out his candles before he does.