The Talos Principle

Helga subscibed to a philosophy course that the Archive scholars were organizing.

“So you’re saying that if wasn’t here then, I wouldn’t be here now?” she asked Elwin. “Then when does this happen?”
“Now,” replied Elwin. “Everything that happens now is happening now.”
“Now? What happened to ‘then’?” she continued.
“We passed ‘then’,” was the answer.
“When?” Helga looked puzzled.
“Well, ‘now’,” said Elwin, a hint of frustration creeping into his voice.
“Can we go back to ‘then’?” pressed Helga.
“Now?”
“Not ‘now’, ‘then’.”
“’Then’, when?” Elwin cried in desperation.

After Elwin nearly short-circuited, future philosophy courses were postponed indefinitely.

After she moved in to Yaqut’s place, Miranda got a luxurious chess set from her father as parting gift. She tried to teach Yaqut how to play the game, but he wasn’t really attuning to it. Their cats, however, seemed to love it.

Just like now, when they were sitting by the board, and Bean was poking at the tallest figure, almost as if attempting a Queen’s Gambit. Bruce’s response to the move was to sprawl across the board, rolling over and knocking down almost all figures.

Check-mate, thought Miranda, as she was picking up fallen pieces from the floor.

Among Jeremy’s responsibilities was also moderation of New Jerusalem’s discussion forums, which could be tedious at times.

Just like now, when he was going through the thread “Are frogs people?”

Jeremy read the debate with increased dismay. Occasionally he replied to individual posts, urging the discutees to refrain from offensive language and remain civil, but deep down he knew it was futile; when it came to toxicity in debate, the academics were by far the worst.

Finally, he came to conclusion that enough was enough, and banned the entire thread. It made him feel like he just saved New Jerusalem.

As their cats were quite demanding when it came to quality food, Damien and Atal were going to invent a new food type for them.

They set a large pot on the heater, and threw in things that cats were eating, like some dead rodents, insects, or a cup of catnip. The latter proved to be disastrous however; the concoction suddenly boiled over, spilling out of the pot and onto the floor, and started fuming heavily.

“What now?” asked Damien after shutting off the fire alarm.

Atal looked at the mess. “Maybe we could try honeysuckle next time?” he suggested.

Barzai viewed his latest artistic project: a large maze he named “Blooming Corals”. It was made of sculpted perma-plaster, depicting sea corals adorned with figurative flowers, to celebrate the beauty of nature as the ultimate sculptor. “Lose yourselves in Nature!” the promotion prospect said.

Problems arose when people started getting themselves lost in the maze literally.

Almost a quarter of visitors were sending distress signals for emergency extractions; several had to be evacuated after running out of battery power, and one desperate citizen even crashed through the walls to get out.

Better rebuild it into a unicursal labyrinth, decided Barzai.

As their cats were quite demanding when it came to quality food, Damien and Atal were going to invent a new food type for them.

They set a large pot on the heater, and threw in things that cats were eating, like some dead rodents, insects, or a cup of catnip. Once the concoction was ready, they put it into a food bowl and gave it to the cats.

One cat approached the bowl and sniffed at the content. It screamed, its fur stood on end, and it bolted out like greased lightning.

“Maybe we should’ve tried honeysuckle?” commented Atal.

Mayor Hermanubis was reading the latest correspondence that was forwarded to him.

There were several complaints about Melville coming from Ovis and Malduc, citing numerous cases of blasphemy towards the Founder and general criticizing of everything that the Goal represented.

Hermanubis briefly considered summoning Melville to his office. He had no doubt that she would give him hell, but the prospect of just seeing her, just to hear her voice… it was too tempting.

He sighed. No, it wouldn’t be appropriate to misuse the power of his office like this. He will have to find another pretext to meet her.

The Archives were having a problem with mice infestation. To mitigate it, the Archive Scholars tried to use a cat, but to no success.

Firstly, the orange cat that Rand obtained from Atal was quite fat. It was sleeping all days, making no effort whatsoever to hunt any mice, and giving Rand reproachful looks every time its food bowl was empty. He even witnessed a situation when a particularly cheeky mouse was stealing its food, and the cat just watched it dispassionately.

Rand decided to try some mousetraps instead. He wondered if he could use the cat as bait somehow.

Athena was always busy. There were so many things to do. She was so absorbed in her work that she didn’t notice Cornelius walk in.

“I’ve come to take you away,” he announced.

She blinked. “Excuse me?”

“You’ve been working too hard in the past years, you deserve a break,” he told her.

“But I’m busy–“ she tried to protest, but he stopped her with raised hand.

“I’ve set up camp near the lake. You’re going to be busy with me there for couple days at least.”

Athena smiled; she knew that resisting Cornelius was futile. “Very well, let’s go.”

Neith and her team were working in the birthing lab, assembling a new citizen.

It was always a laborious process. Their bodies were incredibly complex, and they had to be very careful to avoid any mistakes that could prove catastrophic.

She lifted the headplate, and paused. “Why is this all perforated?” she asked the assistant engineer.

He shrugged. “It’s an improved design, it’s supposed to help with brain cooling.”

“Is it water-tight?”

He hesitated. “I… think so?”

Neith set the headplate back down, and hoped that she wouldn’t have this one back in her lab to fix after first rainfall.