To the Moon
To the Moon is a 2011 role-playing adventure video game developed and published by Freebird Games.
Dr. Eva Rosalene
[edit]- The ending isn't any more important than any of the moments leading to it. The important thing is that over here, they are happy.
- The world would be a lot more beautiful if people just remembered faces more.
- When it comes to rain, 'through' is better than 'onto'. I don't mind it regardless.
Dr. Neil Watts
[edit]- Putting up a sign when they live in the middle of nowhere is like asking to be robbed.
- [to a multi-coloured paper rabbit] Well aren't you special? Having two colours when all your siblings look like they drowned in bleach. What's that? You think you're really creepy? Why yes, I agree!
- Don't you miss the days when memory-audio-to-MP8 conversion was legal? I think I brought home over two thousand songs during my first year on this job.
Act 1
[edit]- Lily: [to Dr. Rosalene] How does it work? Do you just write him another life like a novel?
- Dr. Rosalene: No. We can't just make new memories out of thin air.
- Lily: Then…how do you do it?
- Dr. Watts: Not us. The machine does most of it. Naturally, since we aren't paid enough to get our hands dirty.
- Dr. Rosalene: In a nutshell, we simply travel through his memories to as early as possible. When we do, we would then transfer his registered desire of going to the moon…
- Dr. Watts: …to the reconstruction of the world and himself at the early state! And with the help of a wiki of data and his own, the machine would then simulate a rerun.
- Dr. Rosalene: Except this time, he'll have the motivation of his registered desire with him all his life.
- Lily: So you'd be depending on him fulfilling his own wish by simply having the desire to? How could that be? Everyone has ambition for things, but most don't accomplish them.
- Dr. Rosalene: That's because in the real world, ambitions fluctuate…and fade. People start things with a passion, but eventually they lose that initial drive and slow down. But imagine if you locked onto that initial push through your entire life, never wavering. [pause] …It's more powerful than it seems.
- Dr. Watts: That being said, no ambition's gonna help a dead man. We'd better go get started.
- Lily: Oh, of course. Sorry.
- [Dr. Rosalene and Watts meet Johnny and Lily at the cliffside by the lighthouse through his memories]
- Dr. Rosalene: Johnny?
- John: What a pleasant surprise… We don't get many visitors around here.
- Dr. Rosalene: My name is Dr. Eva Rosalene, and this is--…
- Dr. Watts: Dr. Von Matterhorn… Dr. Lorenzo Von Matterhorn.
- Dr. Rosalene: …Dr. Neil Watts. [Neil peeves] Are you familiar with the Sigmund Agency of Life Generation?
- John: Oh, are you two from the agency? How convenient; I've just been thinking of calling you. Lily, get us some tea please. [John stares at Lily for a pause] …Lily?
- Dr. Rosalene: Actually, you've already called us. [Lily disappears entirely in front of John; he backs away from Eva and Neil] …We're here to fulfill our contract from the relative future.
- Dr. Watts: Careful there. If you slip off the cliff, we're gonna have to reload this memory.
- Dr. Rosalene: [hushes] [Watch it Neil, show some respect.]
- Dr. Watts: [Eh, it's just a program y'know.]
- Dr. Rosalene: [I know. But this is his last accessible memory, and we need its co-operation.]
- Dr. Watts: [Worst comes to worst, we can just reboot it.]
- Dr. Rosalene: [Why would you waste time like that?]
- John: So, can you do it? Can you take me to the moon?
- Dr. Rosalene: We can't, but you might be able to.
- Dr. Watts: Why do want to go there?
- John: I don't know.
- [...]
- Dr. Rosalene: It's fine, you can tell us. It's essential for helping us to get you to go there.
- Dr. Watts: Do you want the fame? The money? You've got to have a motive.
- John: I'm sorry, but I really don't know. I just…do.
- Dr. Watts: [I can already tell that this is gonna be a pain in the ass.]
- Dr. Watts: Why, is that a bottle of pickled olives you're sporting?
- John: Yeah. Are you a fellow olive lover?
- Dr. Watts: Indeed I am! Just got a fresh bottle of them myself, in fact! Mind if I join you?
- John: Sure, why don't you grab a seat? We'll down a bottle together.
- Dr. Watts: Oh… Yeah, that sounds just swell. [Eva, disable taste simulation, NOW!!]
- Dr. Rosalene: [Oh Neil, I don't think I feel like it.]
- [...]
- Dr. Watts: […I'm so gonna get you back for this.]
- Dr. Watts: [transported on top of lighthouse] CRIKEY NUTCRACKERS!
- Dr. Rosalene: You aren't Australian.
- Dr. Watts: Who cares?! We're like 20 billion nanometers off the ground and standing on a damn flag pole!!
- Dr. Rosalene: Just jump down; it's not like you can be hurt here.
- Dr. Watts: Are you kidding me? It's a fricken sky-dive!! You can't stay on here, you can't get off, God, I hate it when it happens! I swear if this plac-- [gets kicked off by Eva, falls down the lighthouse] EVA, WHAT THE $@%#?!
- Dr. Rosalene: …Wuss.
- Dr. Rosalene: [looks at an old baby grand piano] How the heck did they move this thing upstairs?
- Dr. Watts: Who knows, but I bet it'd be a piece of cake for the TARDIS.
- Dr. Rosalene: Not really; you can't even get it through its door.
- Dr. Watts: …Mm, true. Well, that settles it: moving pianos is a pain in the arse for everybody. It'd probably take an entire episode to get it inside. [both pause for a beat]
- Dr. Rosalene: …I wouldn't mind seeing such an episode.
- Dr. Watts: Me neither. It sounds pretty epic.
- Isabelle: Everyone with it is different, John. Just because she and I share the syndrome, doesn't mean we share the same head.
- John: But you must be able to help somehow… Everything was okay at first, but now, she's more aloof than before. Even when we're in the same room, she's never really… there. It's starting to take a toll on me. I just don't know how to take it anymore.
- Isabelle: Well, I can't speak for her, but many of us do long for connections. …Though, being to articulate it is a different story. Just because she struggles to express it, it doesn't mean she doesn't feel anything. She's still there, right? Sometimes you just have to have faith that she cares.
- John: That's pretty difficult to do, day in and day out.
- Isabelle: I know.
- Nicolas: Wait, but why do you seem so normal, Izzy? I mean, don't you have the same condition?
- Isabelle: For one, I was diagnosed when I was still young. With effort, it's not impossible to acquire a guise of social norms systemically. But you know what? I both envy and pity River. Me… I'm an actress, because I've been doing it all my life. Not only on-stage, but off-stage… and at practically every moment. I've gotten good at it, because acting is the only option I have. It's the only way for me to be 'normal'. But River… She never did that. She remained an outcast and refused to learn to step against it. …I don't know if it was by choice or by limit, whether bravery or cowardice.
- [...]
- Isabelle: …There are days when I just can't stand faking it anymore. And then, I realize that it's too late. The Isabelle that people know is all an act, and the real me has long become a stranger. I think in the end… I just envy her.
Act 2
[edit]- John: I have a question. If you could make Lily disappear, that means you can alter this world. Then… can you not simply make things happen, and fulfill my wish here and now?
- Dr. Watts: That would work, if this were your true set of memories.
- John: What do you mean? What is this, then? What am I?
- Dr. Watts: This is just a copy… A canvas for us to work with, if you will. As for you… You are merely an algorithm traced from Johnny. Enough to reflect his likeness, but far from complete. [John pauses] All we can do is to prepare this canvas in a logically consistent way. And then, when we transfer your registered desire to your childhood, the machine will generate your new life, one where the desire dictates your behaviour. The result of that, would then be written to the real John. So you see, even if we satisfy you, you are merely a 'read-only' program. I mean, we could reset you over and over again, and--
- Dr. Rosalene: That's enough.
- Dr. Watts: Oh, don't be so sensitive. He's not real, you know.
- Dr. Rosalene: If you truly believed that, why did you even care to explain?
- [in the memory between old Johnny, Isabelle and the unfinished house]
- John: …We can't afford to finish this house, Isabelle. We can barely afford to pay for her treatme-- [Neil pops out of nowhere in front of them]
- Dr. Watts: But can you afford the LUNAR-TRIP LOTTERY? If you sell this house, YOU SURE CAN!!
- [transition to John and River in Dr. Lee's office]
- John: …Is the diagnosis certain?
- Dr. Lee: Yes. In fact, we rarely have anyone-- [Eva walks into his office]
- Dr. Rosalene: Did you know that NASA has excellent health-care plans? It's true! For both you and your spouse!
- [transition to John and River riding their horses as Neil gallops fast behind them]
- Dr. Watts: FREE PONY RIDES IN SPAAAAAACE!!!
- [transition to John and River's wedding feast; Eva pops in]
- Dr. Rosalene: Oh look, a wedding. Good for you. But here's a riddle: Guess where you should go for the honeymoon?
Act 3
[edit]- [the simulation is being destabilzed with Eva and Neil in it]
- Dr. Watts: What's happening to this place?!
- Dr. Rosalene: …It's been de-stabilized. [turns to Neil] Get out.
- Dr. Watts: What?
- Dr. Rosalene: Get out of his memory. Now.
- Dr. Watts: What're you talking about?
- Dr. Rosalene: If the system doesn't restabilize soon, the shock might permanently damage whoever's in here.
- Dr. Watts: You got to be kidding m… Why aren't you getting out, then?!
- Dr. Rosalene: I can't, Neil! If both of us get out under this state, all our work will be reset… There won't be enough time to redo all we've done before Johnny--
- Dr. Watts: Oh, you freakin… Don't pull that contrived crap on me! This ain't no movie and you're no hero, you're just being a moron!
- Dr. Rosalene: Then why are you being one too? Get the hell out of here!
- Dr. Watts: Screw that! If you're gone, they'll probably pair me up with Alistair! Do you know badly he smells? Worse than the roadkill!!
- Dr. Rosalene: Damn it, Neil… This is what I get for helping you cheat through the entrance exams.
- John: [gazing the moon and stars] So… what do you think they really are? The stars, I mean.
- River: I… I've never told anyone, but… I've always thought they were lighthouses. Billions of lighthouses…stuck at the far end of the sky.
- John: Wow, it must be so lively up there.
- River: But it isn't. [John looks to River for a beat] They can see all the other lighthouses out there, and they want to talk to them. But they can't, because they're all too far apart to hear what the others are saying. All they can do…is shine their lights for afar. …So that's what they do. They shine their lights at the other lighthouses, and at me.
- John: Why you?
- River: Because one day... I'm going to befriend one of them.
- Dr. Rosalene: He can always find another River, Neil... but he will only have one brother.
