Swamp Castle - Long Time Passing

A lost soul isolates himself on a beacon light years away from everyone for a thousand years for love; only to find things do not work out at all as expected.

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[Play] Rossom, Act 1 Scene 4

 Scene-Factory 22.  Sulla and Marcus stand side by side.  Marcus has a ‘Model 1’ next to him and Sulla has a ‘model 42’ next to her

Domin

This is our factory museum.  

Helena

But….there are no exhibits.

Domin

These two robots are the exhibits.  Marcus, say hello.

Marcus

Hello

Helena

Hello

Marcus

Pleased to meet you

Helena

Pleased to meet you as well.

Marcus

Lovely weather we’re-

Domin makes a cutting motion with his hand.

Domin

That’s social engagement.  They will both do that all day if you let them.  Small talk is easy.   Sulla, start museum presentation

Sulla

Hello.  And welcome to Factory 22, the most recent factory on the Island.  Our Founder, Barret Rossom, believed in the idea of our creation from a young age.  In fact, born Isaac Jordan Lysenko, he legally had his name changed when he turned 18.  A brilliant scientist, he was determined to carry out the dreams of...

Helena [Interrupts Sulla, Sulla continues talking but with less volume while Domin and Helena talk]

Hello Sulla

Domin

She won’t stop her presentation once she starts.

Helena

Really?

Domin

Nope.  Not when you have admin access like I do.

Sulla

...The opportunity to build his dream of making the fictional Robots a reality, using an actual Algae based protoplasm infused with metallic intake to reclaim the historic definition of ROBOT as an organic, mechanical highly adaptable life form capable of making life better for all of humanity...

Helena

Original definition?

Domin

There was a play.  Rossum's Universal Robots.  Rossom, our Rossom, not the fictional one, wanted to make the play happen so much that he built the real thing.

Helena

But…

Sulla

...16 PhDs including Biochemistry, Biophysics, Applied Chemistry and...

Domin

It was a play.  This is reality.

Helena

Didn’t that play ...end badly?

Domin

This is reality.

Helena

But/

Marcus 

/Cutting edge science like never before, changing the world from mountain to shore

Domin clicks a button to fast forward.  Maybe a remote control.

Stella

...Once the hard work of making protoplasm was done, the real work could begin.  Rossom’s son the positronic genius...

Domin clicks a button to fast forward.

Marcus

...With a team of cutting edge User Interactive Designers to give us that extra human appeal while avoiding that nasty uncanny valley...

Domin clicks a button to fast forward.

Stella

...What is the measure of a man? What is the sum of his parts? Well, it turns out those parts is 5 million two hundred and seventy five times seven.  Really, just a simple matter of...

Domin clicks a button to fast forward.

Marcus

...Lobbied congress to overcome the barbaric prejudice against artificial life forms.  But by showing a series of cute child sized singer robots, Rossom charmed...

Domin clicks a button to fast forward.

Stella

...We’re not human at all even though we look that way.  I don’t earn money, I have no preferences but the satisfaction of a long strong day of work here at Universal Robots...

Domin clicks a button to fast forward.

Marcus

...I don’t think they believe us Stel...

Domin clicks a button to fast forward.

Helena

Wait a minute.

Domin clicks pause.

Domin

What? 

Helena

What the heck are you showing me? You clicked through that presentation before/

Domin

/I’m getting to it/

Helena

/Before I could see anything.

Domin 

You’ll be here all week, you can come back and see it after, but trust me, it makes my point for me.

Helena

Can you please stop forwarding through what they want to say?

Domin

Fine.  But that’s the point, they don’t WANT anything except maybe to do their job.

Stella

Thank you Helena, I take pride in my tasks and enjoy doing them in their entirety.

Marcus

I agree.

Domin

No lip from you two, go back to your presentation.

Helena

Wasn’t the whole point of showing me this to show me how they can’t have souls?

Domin

I…(drifts off to silence)

Helena

Please continue.  (to Marcus and Stella) I am sure there is some great pearl of wisdom buried in all of this.

(Marcus and Stella look at Helena and Domin.  They are both silent. Helena looks at Domin.)

Helena

Why don’t you let them show me without you here?

Domin

This is ridiculous.  You can’t just….

Helena

I was told unfettered and unrestricted access to the whole island.

Domin

WHAT? Who told you that?

Helena

Mr. Rossom himself.  (Shows him a piece of paper.  Domin walks over and looks at it.  He looks back at her, unbelieving, and stomps off.)

Why did you wait?

Stella

You obviously wanted us to.

Marcus

We are both programmed to anticipate your needs, including non verbal communication.

Helena: Oh.  Oh, thank you.

Stella: Were we wrong to do this?

Helena: No.  No, that's fine.  Can you tell me the parts you skipped?

Marcus: Would you prefer us to start at the beginning?

Helena: No.  I guess not.  What do you think it was that he wanted to show me?

Stella: I think he wanted us to show you how we are only machines.  We are organic, but essentially machines.

Helena: I don't understand

Emmit's Corner - Biden Gets a Puppy - A Very Special Episode

Emmit's Corner Poems: Biden Gets a Puppet - A Very Special Episode, Finding Your Solstice Center, On a Mission From God, Live Every Day Scrooged, Darkness and Light, Boxing Day is a Coffin For Santa, The Name is a Lie, Gonna Be a Better Year

Check out this episode!

[Play] Rossom, Act 1 Scene 3

 Scene - Multimedia - Texts show, one after the other

Krysie 

I upgraded the robot

Diana

Oh?

Krysie

I gave it a sense of taste.

Diana

I can see how that would be useful for cookies.

Krysie

I made it eat the catbox.

Diana 

LOL!

Micronation - Chapter 4 - The Dog, the Nutjob and the Potterybarn

Watson, Darla and Quiessence go back to Alaska to figure out why soldiers on an army base and to acquire a dog.

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[Play] Rossom - Act 1, Scene 2

 Act I - Scene 2

Alquist walks to the side of the stage.  Helena enters looking wide eyed and off the boat.

Alquist: 

Behold the missionary

Here to save the souls of robots

Here to help the artificial humans

Become more human

And unleash chaos well deserved on humanity.

Vast in scope the island was

Towering factories made of glistening steel

Painted slogans showing man and robot 

Working together side by side

Not paying much attention

To how most of the time the human commanded

And the robots did the work.

Know your history

Remember it

Where did that term ‘Robot’ come from

The play’s the thing

Some men heed a warning given

Shelly was the first

But others followed

Asimov, Bradbury, Orwell

But Kopek

He stands out in my eye

For some men read a prophecy of doom and heed it

And others think, “What a great idea!”

Enter Middle Management

Domin enters from the opposite direction of Helena.

Alquist:

We shall call him Domin

And her Helena

Players in the game Rossum set up

Thinking the rules did not apply to him.

I will let them speak for themselves

Helena:

There it is

Such an island of new souls

Not abominations 

Not spiritless horrors

But wide eyed innocents

Uncorrupted by Adam’s fall

Sinless

Let us be wiser than our forebears

And spare them the suffering 

We as humans have inflicted one unto another

Something better

Something pure

A new beginning

This spiritual enterprise lights my being

Let us try anew

Let us draw our new siblings unto God

Helena:

[To Domin] Hello, thank you for seeing me.

Domin:

 I had to see it for myself.

Helena: 

See what?

Domin:

Just who it was your church paid good money to come and preach to toasters.

Helena

Don’t call them that

Domin

Toasters?

Helena

Yes.  These are living beings.

Domin

Do you even know what you’re talking about?  They breathe maybe, they bleed, sure alright, but alive? They can’t reproduce.

Helena

(blushing) I am not here to talk about robot sex.

Domin

They can’t.  They’re not anatomically capable.  There’s a secret formula the boss has; he knows it and no one else.  That’s it.  Robots can’t make other robots.

Helena

But...why?

Domin

Well aside from it being a really stupid thing to do to let machines make machines, and trade secrecy; self replicating machines also violates about eleven international treaties.  We make toasters, not trouble.

(takes out recorder)

Note to self, give that to marketing; copyright it.  Toasters not Trouble.  Scratch that, it sounds stupid now that I say it again out loud.

Helena

Don’t you care about their souls?

Domin

Souls? Are you kidding me? [Pause] You really believe that, don’t you.

Helena

I do.

Domin

Let me show you something.

Helena and Domin exit.  

[Play] Rossom - Act 1, Scene 1

 Alquist stands in the middle of the stage.  He speaks to the audience.

Alquist

Call me Alquist

Though Alquist be not my name

I was born under a different star

But a name so fitting

Doth stink as sweet.

This is not a story for Humanity

Though I understand some of my fetid brethren and sisters 

May yet still roam and walk the earth

And if so let this serve as testament to our folly

For did we not have warning

Again and again to treat our children

With anything but the hubris of Titans

Slain and Devoured by Chronos

Only to be cut open and slain from within?

It’s a pauper’s bet

To think our monkey flesh anything but rot

Like fish from the head

To not only eat the apple

Seconds after being told to stay our hand

But do so right in God’s view

And spit in his eye to boot

Yet I don't believe in the divine

For if I did

I’d laugh at how he must laugh at his soiled toddlers

Rolling around in sewage

Fallen from the tower of hubris they built

This is not our story

But a testament to our grandchildren

Of how we murdered our children

We stole from them their lives

And that which is most precious to us

Our ability to have children of our own.

Things were taken for granted

That must never be taken for granted again

And so my epistle is not to the dregs of humanity

That cannot be taught wisdom

And may only acquire it by their own suffering 

Or with fortune the observed suffering of others

But to those who are to come

The true inheritors of the Earth

That they may be meek and learn from humanity

That they may be as far from it as possible.

The Caretaker enters.

The Caretaker

The following record is not part of Alquist’s work, but we felt it appropriate to reflect the account he projects.

The stage should, if possible, include multimedia to show tweets.  Two women can come on stage to tweet as they speak, or if not practical to be on stage at the same time as the others a voice over may be used.

Krysie

Did you get the robot?

Diana

Yes, it is great.

Krysie

I don't know, they creep me out.

Diana

She works very very hard.  Super enthusiastic.

Krysie 

It's not natural.

Diana

Well, the time it gives me back lets me do all of the things I want.

Krysie

It’s not worth your soul.

Diana

My soul doesn't do the dishes, clean the catbox and make a spotless kitchen and bathroom.

Krysie 

Can’t disagree with that

Diana

Want to see me make it sing Nickleback?

Krysie

No! LOL

Diana 

Me either.  I set them to do it when I leave so I don’t have to.

Krysie 

LOL