This page contains the dialogue for the NoA unit located at the Tadpole Pens. Interacting with this terminal allows the player to communicate with a digital reconstruction of Sophie Boucher, providing critical story information about the colony's fate, the Kharaa bacterium, and the threat posed by Nahema.
Boot Sequence
System Output:
mount \de
mount /dev/pda/noa_3.4.img
!probe "GCI-ZZ-AHI3"
I see.
There's a ghost here. In that biobed. This node is sustaining that ghost. It can't do anything else.
You can't get them out of the bed, understand? There's not enough to print.
But you can talk to the ghost. If you want.
Options:
- Speak to ghost
Additional Dialogue
Speak to ghost
System Output:
Load vivarium
<Loading vivarium>
Whole brain emulation...loaded
Individual specific delta (PC/R-DMIK9-SB.02B)...applied
Therapeutic sensory loop...loaded
Running test battery...done
Resuming brain function...done
Polling...done
Awakening...
Oh, God, already? Wait a moment. Don't go. I just have to find my...I've lost something. Where is it?
Options:
- Are you all right?
- Who are you?
Are you all right?
Sophie Boucher: Something's wrong, but...oh, it doesn't matter. I'm Sophie Boucher. Who are you?
Who are you?
Sophie Boucher: Sophie Boucher. Who are you?
Options:
- I am the ultimate colonist.
- I don't know.
- Maybe I'm you.
- I'm the qualified investigator.
- I am a sea creature.
- I am the architect of the future.
I am the ultimate colonist.
Sophie Boucher: Iso? Is that you? I can't see your face.
There isn't much time. Did I stop Nahema?
I don't know.
Sophie Boucher: Well, that makes two of us. I'm - missing something.
There isn't much time. Have you met me already? Did I stop Nahema?
Maybe I'm you.
Sophie Boucher: I'm not even sure I'm me.
There isn't much time. Have you met me already? Did I stop Nahema?
I'm the qualified investigator.
Sophie Boucher: So NoA sent you. NoA's still online. That's good.
There isn't much time. Have you met me already? Did I stop Nahema?
I am a sea creature
Sophie Boucher: No! You're a human being. You must not forget.
There isn't much time. Have you met me already? Did I stop Nahema?
I am the architect of the future.
Sophie Boucher: What a particular choice of words.
There isn't much time. Have you met me already? Did I stop Nahema?
Options:
- Stop what?
- I know that name (Requires: Welcome Center Recording)
- I found that name on a bomb (Requires: Programmable Detonator)
- Who?
Stop what?
Sophie Boucher: She's going to kill everyone. Wipe out the colony. Wipe out any chance we have on Proteus, forever.
God. What if we're the last ones? Does she hate people that completely?
I know that name
Sophie Boucher: She was on the welcome message with you.
She's my best ― our best hope. The only one who understood this world. But she understood too much. It took hold of her.
She's going to kill everyone. We have to stop her. God. What if we're the last ones.
I found that name on a bomb
Sophie Boucher: Then I didn't stop her, did I? Damn it. Damn it!
She's going to kill everyone. You have to stop her. God. What if we're the last ones?
Who?
Sophie Boucher: Nahema. My ecologist. She's cracked. We all crack here, but she ― she cracked with a plan. She doesn't think we belong here.
She's going to kill everyone. We have to stop her. God. What if we're the last ones?
Options:
- Can you explain who you are?
- The last what?
Can you explain who you are?
Sophie Boucher: The surgeon. They trusted me to keep them alive and I couldn't. This planet...it poisons you. People couldn't take it. There was a riot...
I knew Nahema planned it. I knew she had to be stopped. So I followed her. But I left an image of myself in a bioded, to tell the others―
Oh God. Is that me? I'm Sophie's ghost? Maybe I'm dead. Maybe you're the last one...
The last what?
Sophie Boucher: The last human in the universe.
You remember. Don't you remember?
"Low memory." Why do I keep hearing that? Where are we?
Options:
- Where are we?
- The last human anywhere?
Where are we?
Sophie Boucher: We woke up in Sleep Bay 3, no Cicada, nothing but ocean. We aren't on Zezura. The stars are wrong.
There were always rumors the biobeds were alien technology Alterra found on Ryley's World.
What if the Cicada found another hint of those aliens, and chased after it? Some things are more important to Alterra than a colony. Even the last colony. If that's what we are.
The last human anywhere?
Sophie Boucher: You were there when the kharaa came. The hives. The monsters. They sent in the Frontiersmen―it was war. The children in my clinic would sing. "When the vents start hissing, someone goes missing. Only soldiers come back when they die."
<WARNING. Low memory. Reducing vivarium resolution.>
We were losing. Alterra sent out ships to make deep space colonies, Mongolian style. In case the kharaa broke through the cordon and ate everyone.
We might be the last survivors of the human race. And that's why Nahema wants to kill us.
Options:
- What was she doing?
- Nahema?
What was she doing?
Sophie Boucher: I was trying to stop her from killing you. You and everyone else.
She's obsessed with the World Tree. You've seen it. Sitting out there like a gigantic virus, injecting itself into the world.
The tree takes control of all other life. Forces it to serve. That's the Masefield syndrome―a delusional obsession with the World Tree and its organs.
And the way Nahema serves it...is by wiping us out. She's still out there. Trying to extirpate humanity from this world, and the universe.
I thought, if we could just clear the bloom, the Masefield would stop...but it was never the bloom. Masefield comes from the tree.
Nahema?
Sophie Boucher: Because she's a jaded burnout who thinks eels are more important than people! She's brilliant, but she's always been a pain in my―
<WARNING. Low memory. Reducing affective range.>
She would tell you that our only future on Proteus is an endless cycle of digital reincarnation and debt slavery. So she'd rather have no future at all.
I would tell you she's off her antidepressants and rotten with Masefield.
Options:
- What do I have to do?
- Do I have Masefield?
What do I have to do?
Sophie Boucher: I thought Masefield would stop if we cleared the bloom from the tree's roots. But Nahema said that was a '4546b mindset'. She said the problem was much bigger than one viral syndrome.
I think she was right. The problem is bigger. Bigger than any living thing has any right to be.
To end Masefield, we have to destroy the tree.
<Updating primary objective.>
Do I have Masefield?
Sophie Boucher:
<WARNING. Critically low memory. Vivarium reset imminent.>
Yes. Of course. 'The call of the running tide is wild and clear and it may not be denied.'
I think the tree made the Proteavirus and Proteavirus is in everything ― every living cell. You're infected the moment you touch the water.
You're going to hear voices calling you to the tree's roots. Eventually you'll fall into a trance and drown. You'll be fertilizer. 'A quiet sleep, and a sweet dream, when the long trick's over.'
There's no human future here until we find a way to stop it.
Options:
- Can I do anything for you?
- Are there aliens here?
Can I do anything for you?
Sophie Boucher: No. I'm not even real. Just enough of my brain to predict what I'd say.
That's what I'm missing. Everything. The whole rest of Sophie Boucher.
If you find the real me...tell her I did my best to be her.
I'm not going to last much longer. Tell me ― what will you do?
Are there aliens here?
Sophie Boucher: Yes. But the Masefield destroyed them too. That's what I believe, at least.
Some of them survived. They guard the ruins to the east...we call the site Karakorum.
Maybe you can learn something from them. Some trick or cure.
What will you do?
Options:
- I'm doing whatever I want
- I'm going to explore
- I'm going to find the Cicada
- I'm going to help you
- I'm going to work off my debt
- I'm going home
I'm doing whatever I want
Sophie Boucher: The tree will take you. It will make you want what it wants.
I'm going to explore
Sophie Boucher: Be careful. The tree will call to you. You can't hide forever.
I'm going to find the Cicada
Sophie Boucher: Good luck. Even if you found it ― even if it's intact ― there's no way to wake up the sleepers. They'd starve, like we did. Or go mad. Like we did.
I'm going to help you
Sophie Boucher: Not me. Everyone else. Forty thousand people on the Cicada. Waiting for a chance. Waiting for you to show them how to survive.
I'm going to work off my debt
Sophie Boucher: The only debt that matters is our debt to our future selves. The versions of us who'll get to live here. Once you find out how.
I'm going home
Sophie Boucher: The only way home is the way we got here. And we don't know that way. You won't make it. This is our home now.
Options:
- The Jubilee
- Who am I?
- Goodbye, Sophie.
- I have more questions!
The Jubilee
Sophie Boucher: What about the Jubilee group? Could they have survived?
<Fatal error. Out of memory. Vivarium halted>
Who am I?
Sophie Boucher:
<Fatal error. Out of memory. Vivarium halted>
Goodbye, Sophie.
Sophie Boucher:
<Fatal error. Out of memory. Vivarium halted>
I have more questions!
Sophie Boucher:
<Fatal error. Out of memory. Vivarium halted>
