.................................
To leave Commie, hyper to
http://commie.oy.com/commie_leaving.html
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Surely sendmail reeled when thusly spake Lundgren Jarmo:
>
> http://sites.inka.de/alcatraz/retros/2001/script.html
>
wow! this doesn't match the film !
way down at the end is this.
some of it sounds like less like the abstract Kubrick film,
and more like the original Arthur C Clarke novella "The Sentinel".
or even like Iain Banks.
IN ORBIT WITHIN THE NARRATOR
RINGS OF SATURN, WE For two million years, it had
SEE A BLACK, MILE circled Saturn, awaiting a
LONG, GEOMETRICALLY moment of destiny that might
PERFECT RECTANGLE, never come.
THE SAME PROPORTIONS
AS THE BLACK ARTIFACT In its making, the moon had been
EXCAVATED ON THE MOON. shattered and around the central
PRECISELY CUT INTO ITS world, the debris of its creation
CENTRE IS A SMALLER, orbited yet - the glory and the
RECTANGULAR SLOT enigma of the solar system.
ABOUT FIVE HUNDRED
FOOT LONG ON THE SIDE. Now, the long wait was ending.
AT THIS DISTANCE, THE On yet another world intelligence
RINGS OF SATURN ARE had been born and was escaping
SEEN TO BE MADE OF from its planetary cradle. An
ENORMOUS CHUNKS OF ancient experiment was about to
FROZEN AMONIA. THE reach its climax.
REST OF THIS SEQUENCE (con't)
IS BEING WORKED ON NOW
BY OUR DESIGNERS.
THE INTENTION HERE
IS TO PRESENT A
BREATHTAKINGLY BEA-
UTIFUL AND COMPREHEN-
SIVE SENSE OF DIFFERENT
EXTRA-TERRESTRIAL
WORLDS. THE
NARRATION WILL SUGGEST
IMAGES AND SITUATIONS AS
YOU READ IT.
NARRATOR (con't)
Those who had begun the expriment so long ago had not been men.
But when they looked out across the deeps of space, they felt
awe and wonder - and loneliness.
In their explorations, they encountered life in many forms,
and watched on a thousand worlds the workings of evolution.
They saw how often the first faint sparks of intelligence
flickered and died in the cosmic night.
And because, in all the galaxy, they had found nothing more
precious than Mind, they encouraged its dawning everywhere.
The great Dinosaurs had long since perished when their ships
entered the solar system, after a voyage that had already
lasted thousands of years.
They swept past the frozen outer planets, paused briefly above
the deserts of dying Mars and presently looked down on Earth.
For years they studied, collected and catalogued.
When they had learned all they could, they began to modify.
They tinkered with the destiny of many species on land and in
the ocean, but which of their experiments would succeed
they could not know for at least a million years.
They were patient, but they were not yet immortal. There was
much to do in this Universe of a hundred billion stars. So they
set forth once more across the abyss, knowing that they would
never come this way again.
Nor was there any need. Their wonderful machines could be
trusted to do the rest.
On Earth, the glaciers came and went, while above them, the
changeless Moon still carried its secret.
With a yet slower rhythm than the Polar ice, the tide of
civilization ebbed and flowed across the galaxy.
Strange and beautiful and terrible empires rose and fell,
and passed on their knowledge to their successors.
Earth was not forgotten, but it was one of a million silent
worlds, a few of which would ever speak.
Then the first explorers of Earth, recognising the limitations
of their minds and bodies, passed on their knowledge to the great
machines they had created, and who now trnscended them in every way.
For a few thousand years, they shared their Universe with their
machine children; then, realizing that it was folly to linger when
their task was done, they passed into history without regret.
Not one of them ever looked through his own eyes upon the planet
Earth again.
But even the age of the Machine Entities passed swiftly. In their
ceaseless experimenting, they had learned to store knowledge in
the structure of space itself, and to preserve their thoughts for
eternity in frozen lattices of light. They could become creatures
of radiation, free at last from the tyranny of matter.
Now, they were Lords of the galaxy, and beyond the reach of time.
They could rove at will among the stars, and sink like a subtle
mist through the very interstices of space.
But despite their God-like powers, they still watched over the
experiments their ancestors had started so many generations ago.
END OF SCREENPLAY
END OF FILE
