The One has left the community! The One was a young outsider with a sharp wit and a talent for programming, and he vanished early this May due to conflict on the Pfhorums, and woe is us! We’re in a lot of trouble!

So, a nerdy, childish forum-goer decided he had better things to do than become involved in the Marathon community. What does that got to do with the price of rice, right? And why is that woe to us? Because you and the other hundred visitors of this site are reading this article right now. Because less than 3 percent of you people understand literary allusion. Because less than 15 percent of you play on Total Carnage. Because the only truth you know is what you get through JFO. Right now there is an entire generation of Marathon players who never knew anything that didn’t come out of JFO.

JFO is the gospel, the ultimate revelation. JFO can make or break mappers, administrators, writers, and artists. JFO is the most awesome goddamn force in the whole godless community, and woe is us if it ever falls into the hands of the wrong people, and that’s why woe is us that The One left the community! This site is now entirely in the hands of the CLIQUE, and there’s a new community leader, a man called Jon Irons, taking The One’s place in dominating the Pfhorums. And when one of the most influential Marathon groups controls the most awesome goddamn propaganda force in the whole godless community, who knows what shit will be peddled for tru7h on this website.

So, you listen to me. You listen to me! JFO is not the tru7h. JFO’s a goddamn amusement park. JFO is a circus, a carnival, a traveling troupe of trolls, mappers, artists, writers, pornography peddlers, and programmers. We’re here to assuage our own boredom!

So if you want the tru7h, go to the Story Pages. Go to the MSF archives. Think for yourselves! Because that’s the only place you’re ever going to find any real tru7h. But, man, you’re never going to get any tru7h from us. We’ll tell you any shit you want to hear, and we’ll lie like hell. Oh, we’ll tell you that Ryoko always bans the trolls, and that nobody in the CLIQUE ever makes a bad netmap, and no matter how much trouble the Marine is in, don’t worry, just look at the remaining level count. At the end of the game, he’s going to win. We’ll tell you any shit you want to hear. We deal in jokes and illusions, man, none of it is true! But you people sit there on the metaserver and the forums, day after day, night after night — all ages, colors, creeds. JFO is all you know!

You’re beginning to believe the illusions we’re spinning here! You’re beginning to think that the CLIQUE is reality and that your own posts are substandard. You do whatever the CLIQUE tells you — you map like the CLIQUE, you review like the CLIQUE, you force your friends into Marathon like the CLIQUE. You even think like the CLIQUE! This is mass madness, you maniacs! In God’s name, you people are the real thing. We are the illusion!

So close your web browser right now. Close it now! Close it right now! Close it and leave it closed. Close it right in the middle of this sentence you’re reading now! Close it!!

(With apologies to Chayefsky.)