Steins;Gate

Steins;Gate logo

Steins;Gate is a 2009 Japanese visual novel developed by 5pb. and Nitroplus. An anime TV adaptation aired in 2011.

Quotes from the videogame

PlayStation 3 English version (2015)

• There is no end though there is a start in space. — Infinity.
  It has own power, it ruins, and it goes though there is a start also in the star. — Finite.
  Only the person who was wisdom can read the most foolish one from the history.
  The fish that lives in the sea doesn't know the world on the land. Were they to possess wisdom, they too would fall into ruin.
  It is funnier that man exceeds the speed of light than for fish to start living on the land.
  It can be said that this is a final ultimatum from the god to the people who defy.
  • Intro text

• Perhaps everybody remembers their experiences from other wordlines. Those memories may be vague and tenuous, but they're there. They speak to us in the form of dreams, visions, and deja vu.
  • Rintarō Okabe, Mayushii ending

• Nice to meet you, me from 15 years ago. I'm sending this movie mail from 2025. It uses the same principle as D-mails. Upon reaching this β World Line, you dismantled the Microwave Phone (Temp). Correct? But I... you will, not even in one year, turn back to time travel theory. And you'll stick to it for 14 years. That's where I am now. Along the way, I succeeded at making a device that surpasses the D-mail's limit of 36 bytes.
  The fact that you're listening to this movie mail means that you've failed to save Kurisu, doesn't it. Painful, isn't it? I know how you feel. After all, I am you after 15 years. That's right. I also failed. After I failed, 15 years have passed. You do understand why I made you fail, right? It was necessary. Necessary for me to think through my 'obsession' for these 15 years. You tried to save Kurisu, and failed. You, yourself, killed Kurisu. That bitterness. That guilt. They tied you to me, who completed this plan in 2025. Its because of that obsession itself that I'm able to send you this movie mail.
  Just as you know, the world converges due to attractor fields. Normally, if you just time traveled, you would be unable to save Kurisu. That's why you had to fail once, to create cause and effect. Preparatory measures. Because you failed, I've been doing nothing but studying for these past 15 years. Doctor Nakabachi started a worldwide controversy on time travel, and the world ran to war. All the while, I survived underground, continuing my own time travel research. The time machine Suzuha uses was created using my and Daru’s research, but the basic theory was constructed by SERN - It was developed by Makise Kurisu in the world line you 'undid'.
  The model number is 'Type C204'. The C stands for 'Cristina'. I think you understand what that means. Anyway, cause and effect has been established. Let's talk about the final stage of the plan. The plan to change Divergence and reach the unknown world line - the Steins Gate. By the way, the one who named it the Steins Gate was me. You of all people should understand why it's the Steins Gate.
  "It doesn't really mean anything."
  Right?
  There are two requirements to reach that Steins Gate. One is to save Makise Kurisu's life. The other is to consign into oblivion the Nakabachi Thesis that Doctor Nakabachi brings to Russia. 'But trying to change that past was pointless' - that's what you should be thinking now. The world will converge. That force didn't let you change the past. Correct? But without a doubt, there is a way. You can save Kurisu. Listen well.
  On that day, July 28th. The first you should've come to Doctor Nakabachi's presentation without knowing anything. You must not undo what that first you saw himself, because that's the decided past, the world line's convergent result. But...
  You can 'deceive'.
  You want to say 'What does that mean?' don't you? Calm down. I'll explain now. Who you'll deceive is you, yourself. The first you witnessed Kurisu collapsed in a puddle of blood. If you hadn't seen it, then everything you've done until now, and everything I've done until now would become a time paradox. Understand? Upon witnessing Kurisu's death, you sent a D-mail, which was intercepted by Echelon, which tipped off SERN.
  Remember what you experienced in the α World Line. All that happened there was Mayuri's death. You met again with the living Kurisu. You forcefully made her a lab mem, and together you made the Time Leap Machine. It was only three weeks, but for you, that was the time you spent with the person named Makise Kurisu. The you there now. The me here now. Neither of us is the Okabe Rintarou who only lived in this β World Line, where Kurisu died on July 28th. You remember going into the α World Line, living with Kurisu, sacrificing many memories to save Mayuri... But you still kept struggling for those three weeks. That's the sort of being you should be. If you didn't see Kurisu collapsed in a puddle of blood in Radio Kaikan's dim passage, you wouldn't have sent Daru a D-mail, and Echelon wouldn't have intercepted it. You wouldn't have spoken strangely to Kurisu when you met her again afterwards. Kurisu wouldn't have gotten interested in you. And then... you wouldn't be standing there right now, thinking 'I want to save Kurisu even if I have to time travel'. The me in 2025 wouldn't have made the plan to reach the Steins Gate. The me in 2025 wouldn't have sent you this movie mail. Daru wouldn't have perfected the time machine in 2036. Suzuha wouldn't have appeared to you with her time machine.
  You mustn't deny those mere three weeks you experienced drifting through world lines. You mustn't undo them. You are right here, having traveled through many world lines with the strong desire to save Kurisu. I am right here, having spent my whole life until 2025 developing the time machine with the desire to save Kurisu. Where you're standing right now is the arrival of the moment we wished for to save Kurisu...! I, who did not move a single world line, never arrived in that moment. Everything that happens has a meaning. The preparatory measures of my plan are complete. Everything else depends on you.
  ...Let me explain the summary of your last mission, Operation SKULD (Norn of the Future). Change the result, without changing the decided past. Kurisu collapsed in a puddle of blood, observed by Okabe Rintarou. That past has been decided. But conversely, that means that's all that has been decided.
  Deceive the first you.
  Deceive the world.
  That is the choice to arrive at the 'Steins Gate'.
  I pray for your success, you insane mad scientist. El...Psy...Congroo.
  • Rintarō Okabe, Open The Steins Gate - Video Mail from 2025

• Everyone has Reading Steiner. Even if the worldline changes. Even if the past and the future are rewritten. Your memories remain. You've merely forgotten. All it takes is a push, and you can remember. The memories of those lost three weeks. The memories we made together. "Welcome back, my assistant, Makise Kurisu -- no, Christina." I reach into my pocket and take out the last pin. Nobody knows what the future holds. And that is why, just as this reunion demonstrates, the possibilities are endless. I place this pin in Kurisu's hand. I gently close her hand in mine. And, holding back my tears, I tell her... "This is the choice of Steins Gate."
  • Rintarō Okabe, True ending

Quotes about Steins;Gate

• Taking one of science fiction's favorite paradoxes and turning it into a must-see TV series, Steins;Gate is one of the cleverest shows of its year, quite possibly of its decade. It cloaks its true nature under layers of geek-friendly psychobabble and fluff for long enough to draw you in to the world of this infuriating yet endearing pair of man-children and their acquaintances […] Piling up the genre references into an Aladdin's cave of dreams and wishes and setting the whole thing in otaku dreamland Akihabara are master strokes, but they only set the scene for the twists and turns to come. In a way, it's a good thing for the rest of anime that the style doesn't match the plotting. That would have made it unbeatable.
  • The Anime Encyclopedia, 3rd Revised Edition: A Century of Japanese Animation by Jonathan Clements and Helen McCarthy, Stone Bridge Press, 2015.