Yrro and Pthia
For Concert Band
Long before their hit Halo franchise, Bungie Software published another trilogy of sci-fi shooters. The Marathon series, originally published for Macintosh in the mid-90s, saw the player take the role of a security officer aboard the colony ship Marathon, fighting off an invasion of alien slavers with the help of the ship’s computer AI. These games had a deep and complex story, told through computer terminals found throughout the game levels. In the second game, Marathon 2: Durandal, the player is taken to the desert homeworld of one of the game’s many alien species. Deep in the earth, below an alien citadel, a terminal explains the aliens’ creation mythos, the story of Yrro (Eer-roh) and Pthia (Thee-a):
Current Version 1.1
In primordial space, timeless creatures
made waves. These waves created us and the
others. Waves were the battles, and the
battles were waves.
Fleeing all W’rkncacnter, Yrro and Pthia
settled upon Lh’owon. They brought the
S’pht, servants who began to shape the
deserts of Lh’owon into marsh and sea,
rivers and forests. They made sisters for
Lh’owon to protect and maintain the paradise.
When the W’rkncacnter came, Pthia was
killed, and Yrro in anger, flung the
W’rkncacnter into the sun. The sun burned
them, but they swam on its surface.
Yrro became an angry master, bleeding for
his failure, grieving for the loss of
Pthia. He broke the S’pht into eleven
clans, and spread them over Lh’owon.
And he spoke, yet covered in blood from his
exertion,
“I Yrro, who was your master, have failed
to preserve you. Take your royalty to
guide you, and live upon the paradise that
you built for me.”
–Six Thousand Feet Under, Terminal 2 (Marathon 2: Durandal)
Instrumentation:
Piccolo
Flute 1
Flute 2
Oboe
Bassoon
Bb Clarinet 1
Bb Clarinet 2
Bass Clarinet
Alto Sax 1
Alto Sax 2
Tenor Sax
Baritone Sax
Bb Trumpet 1
Bb Trumpet 2
Horn in F 1
Horn in F 2
Trombone 1
Trombone 2
Bass Trombone
Euphonium
Tuba
Percussion – 6 Players
Timpani – 5 Drums
Mallets 1 – Glockenspiel, Xylophone
Mallets 2 – Vibraphone
Percussion 1 (2 Players) – Snare Drum, Bass Drum
Percussion 2 – Tam-tam, Crash Cymbals, Suspended Cymbal, Hi-Hat