/- Oops.
I've heard from various people that the time machine can only go into the past, but unfortunately, I only heard this AFTER I played ToT, so I didn't look for it in the script. I can't remember whether or not it actually says so in-game, and the site that used to host the transcripts appears to be down for the time being.
What I DO remember, though, was a passage that proved beyond a doubt, for me at least, that Ecco was from some distance in the past. I hope to illustrate this in the following chapter, and I just checked that it was accurate on my old, dusty Genesis. =P
Now if, after I get access to the original scripts, I learn that the time machine actually does only work by sending into the past, I'll probably invent some long, poorly-thought excuse involving multiple dimensions, several separate timelines, and the thought that Time can be viewed as a moebius strip.
Or, I'll just call for suspension of disbelief, whichever's easier. :)
Happy Reading! -- Icebreaker -/
"So, wait Doc. The thing actually WORKS? I am, right now, talking to... to a dolphin?!"
The sun was shining down on the rickety wooden pier, glinting off the continuously changing contour map of the ocean. Nicholas was seated beside a stunned Donovan, his legs hanging off the edge and dipping into the water.
"Well, that's the idea. What, you expected that I was getting a little... slow in my old age?" Nicholas fiddled with some of the knobs on the box in his lap, of whom's twin was on the seafloor under them. "Six years is quite a long time to get something right."
Donovan finally managed to close his hanging jaw, and took a seat next to the old man. He still wasn't fully convinced... perhaps the old doctor had just programmed in simple speech recognition and English reply tools. It was, after all, what they had been worried about at the university...
"Okay, then, dolphin," Donovan said, directing his voice toward the box, "if you can really hear me, then what color is the hull on my sailboat?"
Ecco, who was currently floating in the water about ten feet under the pair of humans, looked at the black box with amazement. "Honestly, these Atlantean creations keep getting more and more useful. Certainly, there is a certain flatness of tone associated with its singing, but you can't expect an artificial dolphin's voice to be as good as the real thing."
He glanced toward Trellia, who was floating beside him. "Trellia," he whispered, "how do I use the machine to talk to the humans above? I sang towards it before, is that all that I need do, or is there something more... complex?"
Trellia shook her head slightly. "From my understanding," she whispered, "Nicholas does all the complex stuff. All we have to do is sing towards the box, and the humans up above will hear us."
Ecco nodded and thought back to when he had first arrived, formulating a reply to Donovan's question.
"Your... craft, human, had a coating that was a deep green as of old algae, with various designs composed of orange lines on its underside."
Donovan leaned back, propping himself up with his palms. "Well, I'll be damned. Don't suppose there's any way you could've known that, Nicholas."
The old man rolled his eyes and put a hand over the microphone. "Allright, doubting Thomas, hopefully that'll be proof enough for you. However, if you don't mind, there is the matter of these aliens or whatever that needs attending to."
He took his hand off the microphone and cleared his throat. "Allright, new guy. I don't believe you ever gave us your name..."
Ecco turned and looked up at the pier before speaking. "As I have already told Trellia, my pod calls me Ecco."
Nicholas grinned at the box in his lap. "Ah, so you have met Trellia, then. She's made an excellent companion to me, and I'm sure you two will get along just fine."
"Why thank you, Nicholas," Trellia said as she came up for a breath of air. The minuscule geyser caused by this act covered Donovan in a fine mist of saltwater, and he brushed a hand across his face to remove the worst of it.
"Am I to assume then, that the old one's name is Nicholas?" Ecco inquired.
Nicholas adjusted a crick in his neck, and the loud pop unnerved Donovan slightly. "That's correct. My name is Nicholas Card, Ecco, pleasure to meet you."
"It is well to be in your presence also," replied Ecco. "And the other human? The one I met on his 'boat'?"
"Oh, him? His name's Donovan Rescii, I wouldn't worry too much about him..."
"I can speak for myself, Dr. Card," quipped Donovan, who was getting rather tired of remaining mute throughout this exchange. "But, uh... yes, he got the name right. I'm Donovan, Donovan Rescii, pleased to meet both of you dolphins."
"The same to you, Donovan. Now, I also assume that you're both creatures of Atlantis, correct?"
Nicholas started to speak, but Donovan had already formed a reply for this one. "Ecco, I'm not entirely sure where you're from, but here on Earth, Atlantis is but a legend. There never was any real proof of its existence, and no one has ever found the city."
There was a lengthy pause before Ecco spoke again. "But, if this is true, then why do you look so much like the Atlanteans depicted in the statues of old? And where did you get your knowledge of machinery?"
Nicholas pushed his glasses up on the bridge of his nose. "Now, hold on a second. Let's work this through step-by-step." Donovan started to speak, but Nicholas held a finger up to his lips, signaling him to be quiet.
"First off, Ecco, where are you from?"
Ecco pondered this for a moment. "Well, here, I suppose. Albeit, I come from sometime in your past."
"WAAAY back in your past, if my feelings are correct," he thought to himself.
Donovan's mind kicked into overdrive at this comment. "So it's true! Time itself can be controlled just as easily as space! Now that I think about it, the form in which he entered the ocean back at the boat equates nicely with the test functions we were doing back at the lab..."
While Donovan went over temporal field equations in his head, Nicholas tapped his chin with his forefinger. "So, you're saying that you time-traveled, then, Ecco?" he asked.
"Well, yes. I think that I traveled into the future... although I am not sure of the length of time I have transversed..."
"Is this the first occurance of your time-traveling?" Nicholas asked, glancing towards Donovan, who appeared to be wrapping up his calculations. "Have you traveled, say, into the past before?"
"I have, in fact," replied Ecco. He glanced at Trellia, who was currently occupied with trying to catch a small fish. "The Asterite sent me into the past once... he gave me a song that would take me back 55 million years..."
"Holy hell, 55 million years!" Donovan exclaimed, rudely awakened from his reverie. "That's incredible..."
Nicholas, as usual, kept a level head. "Can you perhaps describe what the environment was like, Ecco, when you traveled to the past?"
Ecco thought back to his first and only trip into the past. "It was... ancient. A red sun hung low over the sky, and the jellyfish and eels were HUGE. There were some fish with long, pointed teeth, shelled things that swam like lightning, and a humongous, winged creature that carried me from pond to pond."
Nicholas sighed. "Ecco, you've pretty much described the Cretaceous period, which was a VERY long time ago... I think it ended 65 million years ago, in fact, and began -"
"130 million years ago," Donovan interrupted. "Which means that if you really went back 55 million years, then you could be anywhere from 10 to around 60 million years old... at least from our standpoint." He brushed the back of his hand against his forehead, it was starting to get hot outside under the Florida sun.
"Have I really traveled that far?" Ecco asked himself, thinking back to his home, with crystal clear water, waving palms, plentiful fish...
"I really have traveled far beyond the time of the dolphin-fliers..."
Nicholas composed his thoughts and continued. "Allright, now that we have a very general idea of where you're from, can you tell us how you managed to travel through time? None of us have managed it yet..."
"That's debatable," thought Donovan, but decided to say nothing.
"Certainly, Nicholas... I basically time-traveled through two different methods. The first was using the time machine that was located in Atlantis, and the second seemed to stem from the powers of the Asterite himself..."
"A time machine I can understand," said Donovan, "but this Asterite... is he like your god or something? You mentioned him before, I think."
Ecco paused before continuing. "The Asterite may very well be a god, but we do not treat him as such. We worship Delphinus as most dolphins do, but she is immaterial, you can feel her influence but you cannot see her... The Asterite you can talk to, and he actually has a physical form, but as far as I know, he is immortal... in fact, he is alive on this planet now, and we must find him!" Ecco grew agitated once more, churning his tail up and down. "I must find the Asterite to get the answers to my questions!"
Nicholas held up a hand. "Calm down there, chief. We can help you find your Asterite if he really is alive... can you explain what he looks like, perhaps?"
Ecco calmed down slightly. "I suppose I could... he's composed of two strings of globes that circle around each other in a strange sort of dance. Each globe is about half as long as me, and are painted in four different colors with an overlay of mottled brown."
Donovan groaned at that. "Damnit, could this day get any stranger?"
Nicholas turned his head and peered at Donovan. "What's the matter, Rescii? Too much information to handle?"
Donovan shook his head. "No, it's not that... although that is just the teeniest bit stressful. No, what bugs me is that this dolphin just perfectly described the Indestructibles..."
There was a pause.
"The WHAT?!" exclaimed Nicholas and Ecco simultaneously.
"Mmmf?" added Trellia, who was munching on a fish and wondering what all the commotion was about.
I've heard from various people that the time machine can only go into the past, but unfortunately, I only heard this AFTER I played ToT, so I didn't look for it in the script. I can't remember whether or not it actually says so in-game, and the site that used to host the transcripts appears to be down for the time being.
What I DO remember, though, was a passage that proved beyond a doubt, for me at least, that Ecco was from some distance in the past. I hope to illustrate this in the following chapter, and I just checked that it was accurate on my old, dusty Genesis. =P
Now if, after I get access to the original scripts, I learn that the time machine actually does only work by sending into the past, I'll probably invent some long, poorly-thought excuse involving multiple dimensions, several separate timelines, and the thought that Time can be viewed as a moebius strip.
Or, I'll just call for suspension of disbelief, whichever's easier. :)
Happy Reading! -- Icebreaker -/
"So, wait Doc. The thing actually WORKS? I am, right now, talking to... to a dolphin?!"
The sun was shining down on the rickety wooden pier, glinting off the continuously changing contour map of the ocean. Nicholas was seated beside a stunned Donovan, his legs hanging off the edge and dipping into the water.
"Well, that's the idea. What, you expected that I was getting a little... slow in my old age?" Nicholas fiddled with some of the knobs on the box in his lap, of whom's twin was on the seafloor under them. "Six years is quite a long time to get something right."
Donovan finally managed to close his hanging jaw, and took a seat next to the old man. He still wasn't fully convinced... perhaps the old doctor had just programmed in simple speech recognition and English reply tools. It was, after all, what they had been worried about at the university...
"Okay, then, dolphin," Donovan said, directing his voice toward the box, "if you can really hear me, then what color is the hull on my sailboat?"
Ecco, who was currently floating in the water about ten feet under the pair of humans, looked at the black box with amazement. "Honestly, these Atlantean creations keep getting more and more useful. Certainly, there is a certain flatness of tone associated with its singing, but you can't expect an artificial dolphin's voice to be as good as the real thing."
He glanced toward Trellia, who was floating beside him. "Trellia," he whispered, "how do I use the machine to talk to the humans above? I sang towards it before, is that all that I need do, or is there something more... complex?"
Trellia shook her head slightly. "From my understanding," she whispered, "Nicholas does all the complex stuff. All we have to do is sing towards the box, and the humans up above will hear us."
Ecco nodded and thought back to when he had first arrived, formulating a reply to Donovan's question.
"Your... craft, human, had a coating that was a deep green as of old algae, with various designs composed of orange lines on its underside."
Donovan leaned back, propping himself up with his palms. "Well, I'll be damned. Don't suppose there's any way you could've known that, Nicholas."
The old man rolled his eyes and put a hand over the microphone. "Allright, doubting Thomas, hopefully that'll be proof enough for you. However, if you don't mind, there is the matter of these aliens or whatever that needs attending to."
He took his hand off the microphone and cleared his throat. "Allright, new guy. I don't believe you ever gave us your name..."
Ecco turned and looked up at the pier before speaking. "As I have already told Trellia, my pod calls me Ecco."
Nicholas grinned at the box in his lap. "Ah, so you have met Trellia, then. She's made an excellent companion to me, and I'm sure you two will get along just fine."
"Why thank you, Nicholas," Trellia said as she came up for a breath of air. The minuscule geyser caused by this act covered Donovan in a fine mist of saltwater, and he brushed a hand across his face to remove the worst of it.
"Am I to assume then, that the old one's name is Nicholas?" Ecco inquired.
Nicholas adjusted a crick in his neck, and the loud pop unnerved Donovan slightly. "That's correct. My name is Nicholas Card, Ecco, pleasure to meet you."
"It is well to be in your presence also," replied Ecco. "And the other human? The one I met on his 'boat'?"
"Oh, him? His name's Donovan Rescii, I wouldn't worry too much about him..."
"I can speak for myself, Dr. Card," quipped Donovan, who was getting rather tired of remaining mute throughout this exchange. "But, uh... yes, he got the name right. I'm Donovan, Donovan Rescii, pleased to meet both of you dolphins."
"The same to you, Donovan. Now, I also assume that you're both creatures of Atlantis, correct?"
Nicholas started to speak, but Donovan had already formed a reply for this one. "Ecco, I'm not entirely sure where you're from, but here on Earth, Atlantis is but a legend. There never was any real proof of its existence, and no one has ever found the city."
There was a lengthy pause before Ecco spoke again. "But, if this is true, then why do you look so much like the Atlanteans depicted in the statues of old? And where did you get your knowledge of machinery?"
Nicholas pushed his glasses up on the bridge of his nose. "Now, hold on a second. Let's work this through step-by-step." Donovan started to speak, but Nicholas held a finger up to his lips, signaling him to be quiet.
"First off, Ecco, where are you from?"
Ecco pondered this for a moment. "Well, here, I suppose. Albeit, I come from sometime in your past."
"WAAAY back in your past, if my feelings are correct," he thought to himself.
Donovan's mind kicked into overdrive at this comment. "So it's true! Time itself can be controlled just as easily as space! Now that I think about it, the form in which he entered the ocean back at the boat equates nicely with the test functions we were doing back at the lab..."
While Donovan went over temporal field equations in his head, Nicholas tapped his chin with his forefinger. "So, you're saying that you time-traveled, then, Ecco?" he asked.
"Well, yes. I think that I traveled into the future... although I am not sure of the length of time I have transversed..."
"Is this the first occurance of your time-traveling?" Nicholas asked, glancing towards Donovan, who appeared to be wrapping up his calculations. "Have you traveled, say, into the past before?"
"I have, in fact," replied Ecco. He glanced at Trellia, who was currently occupied with trying to catch a small fish. "The Asterite sent me into the past once... he gave me a song that would take me back 55 million years..."
"Holy hell, 55 million years!" Donovan exclaimed, rudely awakened from his reverie. "That's incredible..."
Nicholas, as usual, kept a level head. "Can you perhaps describe what the environment was like, Ecco, when you traveled to the past?"
Ecco thought back to his first and only trip into the past. "It was... ancient. A red sun hung low over the sky, and the jellyfish and eels were HUGE. There were some fish with long, pointed teeth, shelled things that swam like lightning, and a humongous, winged creature that carried me from pond to pond."
Nicholas sighed. "Ecco, you've pretty much described the Cretaceous period, which was a VERY long time ago... I think it ended 65 million years ago, in fact, and began -"
"130 million years ago," Donovan interrupted. "Which means that if you really went back 55 million years, then you could be anywhere from 10 to around 60 million years old... at least from our standpoint." He brushed the back of his hand against his forehead, it was starting to get hot outside under the Florida sun.
"Have I really traveled that far?" Ecco asked himself, thinking back to his home, with crystal clear water, waving palms, plentiful fish...
"I really have traveled far beyond the time of the dolphin-fliers..."
Nicholas composed his thoughts and continued. "Allright, now that we have a very general idea of where you're from, can you tell us how you managed to travel through time? None of us have managed it yet..."
"That's debatable," thought Donovan, but decided to say nothing.
"Certainly, Nicholas... I basically time-traveled through two different methods. The first was using the time machine that was located in Atlantis, and the second seemed to stem from the powers of the Asterite himself..."
"A time machine I can understand," said Donovan, "but this Asterite... is he like your god or something? You mentioned him before, I think."
Ecco paused before continuing. "The Asterite may very well be a god, but we do not treat him as such. We worship Delphinus as most dolphins do, but she is immaterial, you can feel her influence but you cannot see her... The Asterite you can talk to, and he actually has a physical form, but as far as I know, he is immortal... in fact, he is alive on this planet now, and we must find him!" Ecco grew agitated once more, churning his tail up and down. "I must find the Asterite to get the answers to my questions!"
Nicholas held up a hand. "Calm down there, chief. We can help you find your Asterite if he really is alive... can you explain what he looks like, perhaps?"
Ecco calmed down slightly. "I suppose I could... he's composed of two strings of globes that circle around each other in a strange sort of dance. Each globe is about half as long as me, and are painted in four different colors with an overlay of mottled brown."
Donovan groaned at that. "Damnit, could this day get any stranger?"
Nicholas turned his head and peered at Donovan. "What's the matter, Rescii? Too much information to handle?"
Donovan shook his head. "No, it's not that... although that is just the teeniest bit stressful. No, what bugs me is that this dolphin just perfectly described the Indestructibles..."
There was a pause.
"The WHAT?!" exclaimed Nicholas and Ecco simultaneously.
"Mmmf?" added Trellia, who was munching on a fish and wondering what all the commotion was about.
