If this is too weird blame it on all those articles linking marathon and myth. I'm also expanding some to frame it in a more realistic context, and I'm not going to offer any evidence, I just am writing it down before I forget it. Since I haven't played any marathon since 94 I'll steer clear of marathon-specific stuff, save the W'rkncacnter (a chaos being).
I think that the Myth world could have been originally populated by Ghols and Mauls. Ghols would have dominated temperate areas while the Mauls would have existed in harsher arid regions, where water was scarce. A dormant W'rkncacnter beneath the earth in the center of what is now the great devoid, whose dreams and nightmares manfested themselves on the world above, could have twisted some ghol into the hideously nightmarish Mykridia, and the nature of the chaotic force that created them could account for thier varied descriptions (expectations of TFL compared to the reality of SB).
So one night as the Ghols and Maul are worshipping thier own gods and worrying about the reports of Myrkridia from travellers to the recently populated areas when, in the night sky, a huge jump gate opens in a spectacular burst of light and through it comes the starship wyrd, who's mission is to colonize a planet in that system (being remote enough to prevent detection and capable of supporting life). Suddenly a second ship, Nyx comes through the gate an immediately destroys the gate, and opens fire on Wyrd. In the ensuing battle both ships are crippled, but the Wyrd, critically so, and it crash lands Deep in the Forest Heart(though the entire world was much more barren at the time), but not before releasing a series of terraforming devices designed to seed earth-like plantlife over the face of the planet, alter the atmosphere, etc. As the alien race made preperations to land they saw the tremendous energy signature let off by the W'rkncacnter. so they land nearby, only to be immediately tied up containing the myrkridia. The humans, in turn, are splitting into small groups and spreading out as fast as possible with the goal of surviving a few seasons until there is enough vegetation that permenant dwellings can be established, many reside in caves in mountainous regions.
Meanwhile, Ghol artisans began to carve off the faces off the greatest statue of thier highest deity, in preparation for a statue to the new gods, who had collectively shown them their power through the "one dream" they had all seen.
After they contained the Myrkridia, the aliens (let's call them the callieach) begin to experiment on the remaining Myrkyrdia(most of whom had been placed in a state of stasis), and they boldly realize if they could influence the W'rkncacnter's dreams, they could control the corporal mainfestations. The first product of this manipulation was the Trow, stone giants who could, build, mine and fight as required. Other giants followed, the Forest Giants, who harvested lumber and managed the forests, and the Sileh'hei Sulphur Giants (I'm totally making this bit up, based on my belief that MJ just made the Sileh'hei up anyway), who could burn thier way through mountians and lived in Volcanic areas excluding Tharsis (then current home of the Trow). Then the Callieach began altering humans they've captured in the interest of creating many races who they could create tension between in order to prevent all of thier servants from uniting. They created Oghres as Builders and artisans, dwarves as smiths for an on-site foundry at the largest Trow mine and out of vanity they created from ghols and humans the fir'Bolg as personal slaves. This left the Callieach free to live lives of leisure, master thier newfound powers and Hunt the humans (and Ghol) scattered across the planet to extinction. The human slaves proved to be problematic, often violent and frequently trying to escape, the entire populations were executed, leaving only the lucky few that had escaped through the years into the wilds. The dwarves had not yet caused a problem, but distrust of thier human origin and Trow requests for fighting another errant slave race (the Sileh'hei) made the callieach hedge thier bets by giving them forging technology, in exchange for manufacture of alloys for the callieach (a service the dwarves had previously provided) and entered the dwarves into a conflict with the native Ghol population by ambushing the Ghols major city (I'm thinking Pueblo style here), and utterly destroying it and most of it's inhabitants. All that was left was the huge unshaped slab that had previously been a statue of thier god until the "one dream". The Ghol swore to an aesetic lifestyle until they had rid the world of thier invaders and more importantly, the dwarves.
Eventually however, the trow population swelled to huge numbers, which were carefully hidden from the callieach, and falsely reported casualties meant the callieach still regularly created large numbers of trow, who they believed had a human-like lifespan. During this time the worship of the power of Nyx became abstracted, and the Spacecraft became viewed as a temple to the god Nyx that the Callieach had defiled. The entire population took up the armor they had been secretly creating. Before reports could get back to the Nyx the Trow were up it. As a bold last attempt the callieach speculated they could turn the W'rkncacnter's power on it's own being, and destroy the very power that allowed the Trow to exist, Instead this took a huge area of the world and converted the matter into a pocket universe with properties very different from our own. The Very stone the Trow were conposed of melted away leaving the dying husks of Trow all around, The Callieach cheered victory in the darkness around a few isolated light sources... That is until a few hours later when the Myrkridia began to awaken from stasis.This leaves the 5-15,000 year old crashed human wyrd hull deep in forest heart the only evidence of futuristic technology, and even though the callieach are long dead humans no longer remember the true significance of the "wyrd"
Much of the W'rkncacnter's power had already become a latent part of the Myth world even giving a noncorporal existance to even the former gods of the Ghol and Maul, this discovery, by a fir'Bolg living in a Ghol community led him to pursue worship of the the chief of the older gods, to which the statue had been defaced. They reasoned if each person contained some of this power people could be sacrificed and thier power conveyed to thier god b'Y'laggo. But in true megolomania style, one priest believes if through daily prayer, spellcasting and meditation they can allow b'Y'laggo to manifest in a human, or many humans at once and draw power through people's alleigence to them, and in completion of the ritual, he would absorb their power. Thus he would grow continually more powerful, only able to be destroyed by a manifestation more powerful than themselves and only able to be weakened by the negative force of hatred and loathing of others.
So in this Sci-Fi reality the leveler is the physical manifestation of b'Y'laggo or the ancient god of the Ghol brought about by the W'rkncacnter's power and the bre'Unor's devotion. And the real whackiness is that would mean the fallen heros would actually be seeking to aid mankind by weakening the power within them.
Well, at least maybe it was entertaining reading...
