Comic #4 Script: Master

Page 1

Narrator: [Straightforward narration]

• The faint warmth of recollection envelopes your mind in a woolen fog. You suddenly remember everything! Our heroes are in an impossible paradoxical dilemma! A double bind, a deathly choice, an impenetrable prisoner’s dilemma! Will they choose to work against each other or align to coordinate? What is at stake?

RG Characters: [Does not matter which character is speaking]

• We should have stayed together.
• The treasure is this way! Let’s go!
• Let’s capture the defectors and see if we can salvage a reward.
• Let’s go back and kill the Leshy! It got us into the mess!
• I need to rest for a minute… Let’s stay here.

Character up on the hill, peering at the distant vista, whispering:

• I give up. I surrender.

Page 2

Narrator: [bottom left, in the tavern frame]

• Returning to the tavern, the Raiders settle into their fate.

RaidGuild Characters:

• uuuuugggghhhaaaa!

Page 3

[The voice of the narrator begins to turn dark, as represented by a shift in the aesthetics of the speech bubbles. The Narrator becomes MOLOCH moving forward.]

Moloch:

• I see you… inside and out.
• I follow everything you do.
• I’ve always been with you.

RaidGuild Characters:

• Let’s forget this futile quest!
• Forgive us!

Moloch:

• You must survive… at all costs.
• You deserve to thrive… at any price.
• You should strive for more… you’re worth it.

Page 4

[The voice of the narrator is now completely consumed by the presence of Moloch. The color and shape of the speech bubbles represent this transformation.]

Moloch:

• And you… who do you think you are?
• You think this life is yours to live?
• Your thoughts… your gaze… your mind… your body.
• Your perverse, degenerate, self-obsessed nature makes it so easy to control you.
• Dream, child. Keep dreaming…
• Your fantasies keep you bound to me…

Page 5

[ The voice of Moloch turns META. The RaidGuild characters speak from off the page, depicted with their speech bubbles. Moloch’s speech bubbles become degraded and convoluted. Disperse the words around the page so they seem to emerge from the images.]

Moloch:

• I’ve always been with you…
• since the beginning of time…
• throughout all your history…
• You worship false gods. I am the only true god.
• I feed off your blind devotion.
• Persevere! Stay alive! Keep desiring for more!
• I feed upon your ambition!

Page 6

[Words are scattered across the page.]

Moloch:

• You’re dream of efficiency…
• progress…
• control…
• in your relationships…
• your psychology…
• your very nature…
• your insistence that the world is your own…
• will be your downfall.

Pages 7-12

[For the following pages, there are 2 monologues representing the light and dark. These ideas are supposed to be disorienting. Later we will discover that both voices are the interior monologue of the protagonist Anon who is asleep in her room. These pages represent the nightmare of Anon like she is talking to and through her own subconscious fears and desires. The words can be freely composed on the page to best integrate with the images, but the light and dark voices should be balanced evenly as though suspended in an eternal tug-of-war. There is more dark content that light, so the final pages might be predominantly dark and nightmarish. Some of this might be edited if it proves to be too long.]

Dark Voice (Moloch):

• It has always been a struggle for land, resources, time and space.
• We’re just trying to survive. Survival is for the fittest.
• The fittest are the deserving, those that use their superior intelligence to accumulate the most loot and protect it from others.
• We can’t be held accountable for our nature, for the crisis of the species.
• If the others can’t figure it out then they’re obviously not worthy.
• Our values are the way. Our society is open to those that know how to access it.
• Others will come to recognize the virtues of our path.
• We are forging the path that others will follow.
• You have always been against us!
• You covet our keep!
• You try to take from us that which we have labored so hard to procure!
• We are fighting for the salvation of our people!
• We were here first! This is our land! You have no right to challenge us!
• We have always been here.
• We have secured our fate in war and peace, vanquished our enemies to claim our rightful bounty.
• We exercise our right to this place, to comfort, to security.
• I have provided for you and it is not without cost!
• I demand payment! My price is your future!
• I have invented you!
• I made your city. I am your city.
• I am the bedrock that you stake your dreams upon.
• You are my utensil, a tool, a plaything. Nothing more!
• You remain in service to me until I have conquered this world and every other.
• You will go and claim them for me!
• You will create maps of my kingdom.
• All must be made visible.
• All must be made legible.
• All must be known.
• All must be owned.
• Do you think this story will protect you from your fate?
• You are my slave.
• I own you.
• You can accomplish nothing without me.
• You are nothing without me.
• You need me.
• Your future is my creation.
• Your thoughts are not your own.
• There is no escape.
• You are expendable.
• This is not your story, it is mine.
• You cannot defeat me.
• You are mine.
• You are me.
• Our name is Moloch!

Hopeful Voice (Anon's Conscience):

• It hasn’t always been this way.
• We once lived in peace with each other and the earth as an integral wholeness.
• Our ancestors told us of a time before…
• We built mega structures…
• Monuments of egalitarian partnerships, comradery, and conviviality.
• And now we choose to remember these traditions.
• We are preparing a better world for our children that share this planet.
• Our future is bright!
• We must protect the plants and animals that support us.
• We are entangled with each other.
• We are not at war with each other, but with our failure to coordinate!
• Everything can change. Everything will change.
• We will shift the direction of history.
• We will shift the tides of cooperation.
• We will build a world where every creature is tended to with great care.
• We are the stewards of the light.
• We are the people.
• We are never alone when we are together.
• We rely upon each other.
• We have difficult decisions ahead of us.
• We have caused a lot of harm, but we can also orchestrate reparations.
• We will secure a regenerative future.
• We can heal the wounds of the past.
• This nightmare will eventually end. We are sure of it.
• Technology is the key to our understanding.
• It allows us to rise above the churning tides of chaos, confusion, and uncertainty.
• It is the high water mark of our collective sanity.
• The horizon of hope.
• We are builders.
• Now is the time for building.
• We will leave no one behind.

Page 13-14

[The scene changes suddenly. We see Anon waking up from a dream, safe in her room.]

Anon: [to the left of the frames on Page 13]

• mmmhh… oooowaaaah?
• ughhh…
• hmmmm…

Narrator: [on page 14, returned to the same neutral Narrator word bubble style as Page 1, with little drips of Moloch darkness and blood around the edges of the word bubbles like a residue.]

• Was it just a dream?
• A delusion? A hallucination?
• A vision into the future?
• This is exactly what I have been trying to prevent, but now it seems more real than ever.
• There's no way I can forget this now…
• But what can I do?
• How can I act? What comes next?
• I'm so tired… maybe I'll just rest my eyes a little while longer…