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sh1njuk1 The scene transitions from Sad Grandma running her fingers through her half-destroyed high tech instrument to the exact same scene from decades earlier, where a much younger Sad Grandma - now perhaps better called Cheerful Princess - is playing the same tune in an up-tempo, lit up dramatically on stage, in front of a packed and intact auditorium. It's the same melody as the sad one at the campfire, just in a major key. She finishes with a flourish, stands up, and bows. The auditorium rings with enthusiastic applause, but the crowd is polite - no one stands up or yells. A pre-recorded message announces by loudspeaker "The concert has finished. Please attend to your next appointment." The audience files out in an orderly fashion.
In this flashback, Cheerful Princess is dressed in some sort of floaty pink thing with a fancy hairpiece, and her hair is white-blond - almost indistinguishable from her current gray. She has the pale eyes that the whole family inherited. The blue MacGuffin hangs around her neck. As she adjusts her hairpiece, Boyfriend (a very average-looking guy--as in handsome, but not dressed much different from the rest of the crowd) comes out from the side of the stage and hugs her. "You were great!" "I know!" she replied happily. "I think that one was the best yet! I should learn another instrument for more of a challenge..."
Cheerful Princess isn't mean, per se--but she is very obviously coddled, privileged, self-interested, and even a bit ditzy.
CP and Boyfriend exit the auditorium straight into... well, something sort of like WALL-E crossed with Star Trek. The city is nice enough - there is running water, and strictly maintained greenery - but it's also a corporate, bland, iPhone type of place, with way too many machines watching and tracking every single movement the human inhabitants make. Notably, there are no children or noticeably aged people anywhere in the crowd. Everyone has to be scanned (they all have barcodes on their arms) to access each part of their city. CP rolls her eyes at this and strides ahead of the line, waving her blue MacGuffin, which gets a "WELCOME DOCTOR EMERSON" from the loudspeakers.
Boyfriend laughs a bit nervously after catching up to her (he had to stay behind and scan like everyone else) and says in a low voice, "Aren't you going to reprogram that someday?" "Oh, never!" she replies airily. "I like feeling like my father is always with me." The camera pans over to the large statue of the two men, the "fathers" of the city. We can see their names now - ROBERT EMERSON and RICHARD GOLGOTHA.
(For whatever reason these are the only two actual names that popped up for me in this entire story. Also, yes, even I know that the name "Golgotha" is wayyyyy extra. Since this is psychology and not publishing, though, I'll let myself be extra....)
As they're sitting and having something like a milkshake in the middle of the plaza, a large ominous-looking black hovercraft comes down from the sky and lands nearby. The loudspeaker announces: "PLEASE WELCOME DOCTOR GOLGOTHA." The rest of the people milling about jump up and stand at respectful attention, including Boyfriend - CP scowls and sighs, "Ugh. What does he want now?"
The shuttle lands kind of like Darth Vader's shuttle, and a lone man strides out of it onto the plaza. He is wearing a white coat, and has partially gray hair, and a stern unsmiling face. He's obviously the less outgoing member of the statue pair. He calls CP by name, and tells her "I need to use Robert's key."
I don't know exactly how this conversation goes, but within it we confirm that CP really is the child of Dr. Emerson, who created her himself in a lab... then died immediately after she was born (strongly suggested to be a suicide). The good doctors Emerson and Golgotha were the founders and unelected rulers of the city, the masters of this enclosed universe, but for ~20 years now it's just been Golgotha at the helm. The society they built is planned to the nth degree and hermetically sealed from the outside, but also lacks hunger, sickness, and even death, due to the two founders' brilliant scientific advancements. Dr. Golgotha is apparently almost 250 years old (!!). Population increase is not desirable, every citizen is medically adjusted to remain physically middle-aged, and children are strictly forbidden - CP only exists because the founders have/had absolute power in their city, and according to Dr. Golgotha, "Robert was overtaken by a crazy fancy and stopped listening to anything I said..."
Dr. Golgotha is visibly contemptuous of CP, and she returns the favor. It's clear that he doesn't see her as anything close to a sufficient "replacement" for "Robert" who was at minimum his best friend. At one point there was an attempt to 'train' her into being another Dr. Emerson, but she clearly wasn't suited for it or interested in it, and cracks a joke about how all she ever learned about the city's cutting-edge renewable power system was that if you just messed with a couple switches, all the power stations would go kaboom! Dr. Golgotha rolls his eyes, and makes some dismissive comment that at least she'd found music to occupy her time. She sticks her tongue out at him the moment he turns away. Nevertheless he does at least talk (down) to her, as opposed to poor Boyfriend, who stands there unacknowledged by either of them in the background.
Eventually CP (and only CP) follows Dr. G into a secret passageway beneath the statue in the plaza (well, it isn't secret as literally everyone can see them go, but only by inserting his red key can Dr. G open the passage to the staircase). There's an explanation of how the two-key system works. Both the blue and the red keys are extremely powerful w/in the closed system, and can activate almost everything in the city by themselves. But there are a few operations that are programmed to require both keys to be used at once in order to activate - representing total agreement between the two founders.
CP and Dr. G walk down a dark passageway which is cold enough to make CP shiver in her frothy pink thing. Eventually Dr. G flips some lights on, and the background reveals row after row of vicious-looking attack robots, lined up as far as the eye can see, clearly being prepared for launch. "What's this?" asks CP with a frown. "We have enemies approaching. It doesn't concern you--I have handled it," is Dr G's response. "Okay, fine. You need to get a better interior decorator down here!" replies CP airily, and gives Dr. G her key. He inserts both into the control panel, which dramatically lights up his face half blue and half red, and officially commands that the launch of the robots should commence at the command of his key alone, instead of both. "We can't have any dependencies," he mutters to himself.
On the way back up, CP comments that perhaps Dr. G could at least put some plants down there or something, seriously, it's awful. He rolls his eyes, but they have the warmest exchange of the movie where he reminisces that Robert was often doing something or other with plants. His former laboratory division is still going on and on about making plants that can survive in biomes outside the city - a useless expenditure, of course, but Dr. G humors them, for the sake of his memory. We see on his face that he still misses his friend, painfully so.
Once they get back up to the plaza CP begs to be able to drive the hovercraft and DR. G bluntly refuses, saying that she would just crash it.
As soon as he flies off, CP leans over and vomits into a nearby plant, as if she'd been holding that back. Boyfriend rushes over and asks if she needs to get a medical adjustment - she says "No, I'm going to my father's lab! I don't want Dr. G to spy on me." Then she waves goodbye, as no one with regular citizen clearance can get into that lab.
The lab is actually a pretty nice place - bubbling water, soft cushions, plants all over the place. (One of them looks suspiciously like the popcorn plant.) There's wacky pictures of Dr. Emerson and Dr. Golgotha on the wall - Dr. Emerson was clearly a bit of a goofball, playing pranks on Dr. G. Because I like these sorts of background gags, I think there should also be a goat stuffie on his former desk.
CP goes over to a scanning station and inserts her key to activate it. It beeps out "CONGRATULATIONS! YOU ARE PREGNANT."
Cue hilarious scene where CP doesn't actually know what that means - she has to look it up on a nearby screen. When she recognizes that a smaller human is growing inside her, she is shocked - and then excited.
Cut to her grabbing Boyfriend's hands in their home after announcing it to him, and seeing at least 5 different emotions flash across his face. "How is it possible --it's been outlawed for--65 years!" He counts on his fingers. Boyfriend is probably almost a century old himself, like many of the citizens. Finally he ends up in cautious joy and a half-pleading statement that "Well - it'll all be okay - they forgive you anything - of course it'll be okay!" Cue cute scene where they come up with a secret hand signal that shows that they both know about the (secret) pregnancy, which looks like making a heart with cupped hands.
Not long after that, there's an announcement that goes out in Dr. G's voice: "There is an important medical patch scheduled for immediate delivery. Please return to your homes and receive the patch." We see a montage of citizens leaving the common spaces and calmly filing back into their homes, where they sit down next to a station which has a robot arm that injects them with a clear liquid. Boyfriend sits down and gets his, but CP goes "Ugh! No spying!" and waves her blue key to bypass the required shot.
The Boyfriend gets back up and they start to go about their routine... but suddenly Boyfriend stops, winces, and pulls up his sleeve. Around the shot, there's a visibly spreading, sickly green-black patch. He makes a call for medical assistance, but the recording says "ALL SERVICES ARE FULL." In a flash of intuition, he grabs CP and throws her out through their front door - then the door slams shut before he can follow her, with the loudspeaker blaring "SICKNESS DETECTED. YOU ARE UNDER QUARANTINE UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE." Horrified, CP runs to the window - he gestures to her, telling her to go and get help, then makes the heart signal against the pane... then winces, doubles over, and slumps down out of sight.
CP backs away from the house - the camera pans away to show that she is alone in the street.
Going to call it here for tonight - most likely I am 2/3rds into the story now. I'd like to get something else done today, and I've already been writing for 3 hours.
In this flashback, Cheerful Princess is dressed in some sort of floaty pink thing with a fancy hairpiece, and her hair is white-blond - almost indistinguishable from her current gray. She has the pale eyes that the whole family inherited. The blue MacGuffin hangs around her neck. As she adjusts her hairpiece, Boyfriend (a very average-looking guy--as in handsome, but not dressed much different from the rest of the crowd) comes out from the side of the stage and hugs her. "You were great!" "I know!" she replied happily. "I think that one was the best yet! I should learn another instrument for more of a challenge..."
Cheerful Princess isn't mean, per se--but she is very obviously coddled, privileged, self-interested, and even a bit ditzy.
CP and Boyfriend exit the auditorium straight into... well, something sort of like WALL-E crossed with Star Trek. The city is nice enough - there is running water, and strictly maintained greenery - but it's also a corporate, bland, iPhone type of place, with way too many machines watching and tracking every single movement the human inhabitants make. Notably, there are no children or noticeably aged people anywhere in the crowd. Everyone has to be scanned (they all have barcodes on their arms) to access each part of their city. CP rolls her eyes at this and strides ahead of the line, waving her blue MacGuffin, which gets a "WELCOME DOCTOR EMERSON" from the loudspeakers.
Boyfriend laughs a bit nervously after catching up to her (he had to stay behind and scan like everyone else) and says in a low voice, "Aren't you going to reprogram that someday?" "Oh, never!" she replies airily. "I like feeling like my father is always with me." The camera pans over to the large statue of the two men, the "fathers" of the city. We can see their names now - ROBERT EMERSON and RICHARD GOLGOTHA.
(For whatever reason these are the only two actual names that popped up for me in this entire story. Also, yes, even I know that the name "Golgotha" is wayyyyy extra. Since this is psychology and not publishing, though, I'll let myself be extra....)
As they're sitting and having something like a milkshake in the middle of the plaza, a large ominous-looking black hovercraft comes down from the sky and lands nearby. The loudspeaker announces: "PLEASE WELCOME DOCTOR GOLGOTHA." The rest of the people milling about jump up and stand at respectful attention, including Boyfriend - CP scowls and sighs, "Ugh. What does he want now?"
The shuttle lands kind of like Darth Vader's shuttle, and a lone man strides out of it onto the plaza. He is wearing a white coat, and has partially gray hair, and a stern unsmiling face. He's obviously the less outgoing member of the statue pair. He calls CP by name, and tells her "I need to use Robert's key."
I don't know exactly how this conversation goes, but within it we confirm that CP really is the child of Dr. Emerson, who created her himself in a lab... then died immediately after she was born (strongly suggested to be a suicide). The good doctors Emerson and Golgotha were the founders and unelected rulers of the city, the masters of this enclosed universe, but for ~20 years now it's just been Golgotha at the helm. The society they built is planned to the nth degree and hermetically sealed from the outside, but also lacks hunger, sickness, and even death, due to the two founders' brilliant scientific advancements. Dr. Golgotha is apparently almost 250 years old (!!). Population increase is not desirable, every citizen is medically adjusted to remain physically middle-aged, and children are strictly forbidden - CP only exists because the founders have/had absolute power in their city, and according to Dr. Golgotha, "Robert was overtaken by a crazy fancy and stopped listening to anything I said..."
Dr. Golgotha is visibly contemptuous of CP, and she returns the favor. It's clear that he doesn't see her as anything close to a sufficient "replacement" for "Robert" who was at minimum his best friend. At one point there was an attempt to 'train' her into being another Dr. Emerson, but she clearly wasn't suited for it or interested in it, and cracks a joke about how all she ever learned about the city's cutting-edge renewable power system was that if you just messed with a couple switches, all the power stations would go kaboom! Dr. Golgotha rolls his eyes, and makes some dismissive comment that at least she'd found music to occupy her time. She sticks her tongue out at him the moment he turns away. Nevertheless he does at least talk (down) to her, as opposed to poor Boyfriend, who stands there unacknowledged by either of them in the background.
Eventually CP (and only CP) follows Dr. G into a secret passageway beneath the statue in the plaza (well, it isn't secret as literally everyone can see them go, but only by inserting his red key can Dr. G open the passage to the staircase). There's an explanation of how the two-key system works. Both the blue and the red keys are extremely powerful w/in the closed system, and can activate almost everything in the city by themselves. But there are a few operations that are programmed to require both keys to be used at once in order to activate - representing total agreement between the two founders.
CP and Dr. G walk down a dark passageway which is cold enough to make CP shiver in her frothy pink thing. Eventually Dr. G flips some lights on, and the background reveals row after row of vicious-looking attack robots, lined up as far as the eye can see, clearly being prepared for launch. "What's this?" asks CP with a frown. "We have enemies approaching. It doesn't concern you--I have handled it," is Dr G's response. "Okay, fine. You need to get a better interior decorator down here!" replies CP airily, and gives Dr. G her key. He inserts both into the control panel, which dramatically lights up his face half blue and half red, and officially commands that the launch of the robots should commence at the command of his key alone, instead of both. "We can't have any dependencies," he mutters to himself.
On the way back up, CP comments that perhaps Dr. G could at least put some plants down there or something, seriously, it's awful. He rolls his eyes, but they have the warmest exchange of the movie where he reminisces that Robert was often doing something or other with plants. His former laboratory division is still going on and on about making plants that can survive in biomes outside the city - a useless expenditure, of course, but Dr. G humors them, for the sake of his memory. We see on his face that he still misses his friend, painfully so.
Once they get back up to the plaza CP begs to be able to drive the hovercraft and DR. G bluntly refuses, saying that she would just crash it.
As soon as he flies off, CP leans over and vomits into a nearby plant, as if she'd been holding that back. Boyfriend rushes over and asks if she needs to get a medical adjustment - she says "No, I'm going to my father's lab! I don't want Dr. G to spy on me." Then she waves goodbye, as no one with regular citizen clearance can get into that lab.
The lab is actually a pretty nice place - bubbling water, soft cushions, plants all over the place. (One of them looks suspiciously like the popcorn plant.) There's wacky pictures of Dr. Emerson and Dr. Golgotha on the wall - Dr. Emerson was clearly a bit of a goofball, playing pranks on Dr. G. Because I like these sorts of background gags, I think there should also be a goat stuffie on his former desk.
CP goes over to a scanning station and inserts her key to activate it. It beeps out "CONGRATULATIONS! YOU ARE PREGNANT."
Cue hilarious scene where CP doesn't actually know what that means - she has to look it up on a nearby screen. When she recognizes that a smaller human is growing inside her, she is shocked - and then excited.
Cut to her grabbing Boyfriend's hands in their home after announcing it to him, and seeing at least 5 different emotions flash across his face. "How is it possible --it's been outlawed for--65 years!" He counts on his fingers. Boyfriend is probably almost a century old himself, like many of the citizens. Finally he ends up in cautious joy and a half-pleading statement that "Well - it'll all be okay - they forgive you anything - of course it'll be okay!" Cue cute scene where they come up with a secret hand signal that shows that they both know about the (secret) pregnancy, which looks like making a heart with cupped hands.
Not long after that, there's an announcement that goes out in Dr. G's voice: "There is an important medical patch scheduled for immediate delivery. Please return to your homes and receive the patch." We see a montage of citizens leaving the common spaces and calmly filing back into their homes, where they sit down next to a station which has a robot arm that injects them with a clear liquid. Boyfriend sits down and gets his, but CP goes "Ugh! No spying!" and waves her blue key to bypass the required shot.
The Boyfriend gets back up and they start to go about their routine... but suddenly Boyfriend stops, winces, and pulls up his sleeve. Around the shot, there's a visibly spreading, sickly green-black patch. He makes a call for medical assistance, but the recording says "ALL SERVICES ARE FULL." In a flash of intuition, he grabs CP and throws her out through their front door - then the door slams shut before he can follow her, with the loudspeaker blaring "SICKNESS DETECTED. YOU ARE UNDER QUARANTINE UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE." Horrified, CP runs to the window - he gestures to her, telling her to go and get help, then makes the heart signal against the pane... then winces, doubles over, and slumps down out of sight.
CP backs away from the house - the camera pans away to show that she is alone in the street.
Going to call it here for tonight - most likely I am 2/3rds into the story now. I'd like to get something else done today, and I've already been writing for 3 hours.