Xenogears Chapter 00: The Prologue

"I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last."

[Begin music: "Light from the Netherworlds"]

---EXT. SPACE---
[A long shot of the space cruiser Eldridge, panning over it from front to back slowly. We then see a closeup of a part of the ship: a door opens in the top and we see some sort of light flash DANGER! in a bay marked E-5. The camera then continues on to the back of the ship -- the bridge. As the camera gets there, the bridge lights up red all over. The camera flies through the wall into the bridge, and shows us the red warning lights flashing EMERGENCY signs that are the cause of the bridge turning red.]

--INT. BRIDGE--
[Lights and screens are active everywhere. Something serious is happening on this ship. The computer voice begins speaking impassionately.]

ELDRIDGE COMPUTER
"This is an emergency. Level one alert."

[An operator, most likely the chief operator in the ship, a woman with blond hair, apparently in her early twenties is responding to the alert. Her face is lit up almost sheer white by the instruments in front of her.]

OPERATOR 1
"Omega 1 restarting. Alpha 1 G-Nome...restructuring."

[The operator continues to work at her panel as the screen shows: It displays the word "COUNTING" and then rotates a alien-shaped lifeform that is obviously their chief concern. ]

OPERATOR 1
"Confirming exon replacement. Base code 85 million, 100 million! It's speed is overwhelming!"

[Another operator, this one with green hair begins to speak information as well as she can.]

OPERATOR 2
"Alpha 1 to Razael Central. Access confirmed. Initializing fake net. Disconnected. Activating emergency shelter...denied. "

[A red line is streaking through blue cell-shaped bays as the operator speaks as fast as the red line spreads. The red line appears to be the "contamination" they now speak of.]

OPERATOR 1
"Contamination is spreading widely. Captain!?"

[The operator turns to the captain sitting at the back of the bridge. The captain wears a uniform not unlike that of a naval officer, a fairly aged man with brown hair, a mustache and a small beard. His reply to the operator is as calm as the operator's speech has been frantic.]

CAPTAIN
"Cut off the cables manually."

OPERATOR 1
"Roger. Activating self destruct ports."

[The operator throws a switch. In a passageway in the ship, a door is blown off its hinges with extreme force.]

OPERATOR 1
"Confirming? No good, nothing happened!"

[The room behind the door lights up with some kind of electricity bolts now.]

[A shot of a rather large area, perhaps the interior of the ship.]

OPERATOR 2
"Omega 1, they are attacking! We can't stop them. 98 percent of our weapons have been taken over!"

[The captain is silent and still as he listens to the reports. The chief operator is struggling but manages to sound somewhat calm as she begins to report what she is seeing on a holographic image in front of her.]

OPERATOR 1
"Auto pilot system Faust has been accessed. And its phase space logic is being rewritten. Ergo area is increasing. An internal plane is forming. Switching to space displacement mode."

[The operator continues as a hologram of a sphere of some sort flashes in front of her face.]

OPERATOR 1
"Alpha 1, confirming transfer coordinate codes. Coordinates input, coordinate NX128EZ061. The main planet!!!"

[The captain rises to his feet.]

CAPTAIN
"Damn. So they're planning on attacking."

[The captain is now concerned. He picks up a phone at his command module.]

CAPTAIN
"Engine room. Activate the emergency sealing system."

[The other end of the phone line. The phone is hanging and there are tubes flying out of both walls, rooted at one end. But no one is there to receive the call, a receiver is just dangling in the air.]

CAPTAIN
"Engine room? Engine...!"

[The phone cord breaks and the receiver falls harmlessly to the floor.]

[The captain frowns, and puts the phone down very slowly.]

[A message comes down every line of the main screen repeating over and over - at this range it is hard to make out, but the reaction of the bridge to the message is a kind of stunned silence. The message treads over the camera's shot of the captain's shocked eye. The captain breaks the silence quickly.]

CAPTAIN
"See that all civilians and passengers are safely transported to the escape shuttles. I will send a dispatch after evacuation is complete. I am evacuating the ship. All of you. Evacuate...now."

[The captain gives a salute to the three operators as the scene changes.]

ELDRIDGE COMPUTER
"Evacuate. Evacuate. Evacuate the ship immediately... All passengers please board the shuttles in a calm and orderly fashion."

[It appears to be close to bedlam. Many people are running over what appears to be a sort of skybridge inside the ship, while astronauts are outside observing the pandemonium and doing their own tasks, holding what appear to be light sword-shaped flashlights. A ship takes off with passengers in it, and zooms out the launch dock. It flies over the roof of the Eldridge, until all of a sudden it disappears in a puff of orange fire. A look at the back of the ship reveals that the weapon systems of the main ship have been activated and are now destroying all the escape pods. The captain looks through the main window in horror as the screen fades but we see what it has been repeating over and over..."YOU SHALL BE AS GODS." The ship's hull now has very strange looking hose-shaped rods breaking in and out of it at will. Whatever is causing the problems on the ship, it is in almost complete control at this stage. The captain slumps into his chair desperately.]

[The captain knows he has little choice in the matter now. He takes out a gold pocket watch and looks sorrowfully at the picture embedded in the case. It is a picture of a mother and a daughter, smiling. His family. He manages a sad smile at the picture that no one can see. They look very similar to each other, both beautiful in their own way. But he cannot dwell on this, he knows what he must do. He sits down at the main console and a screen opens up in front of him. The pocket watch sits silently on the window sill behind him. After but a moment's hesitation that seems like an eternity to the captain, he presses several buttons. He sits back in his chair. The pocket watch sits silently behind him.]

[The Eldridge explodes above a planet with a ring around it. We pull back to see the ship disappear in orange flame.]

--EXT. BEACH/SWAMP--

[It has been a short period of time since the explosion. A chunk of the ship has landed on a small swamp next to the ocean and is a smoking, burning ruin. But that's not what the interesting sight is to see here. Something rises up in front of the blown-off piece of the ship. It is a woman. On further inspection as the woman stands to her feet, slowly, she appears as if she were taking her first steps. She is naked, but she does not seem to care. Her hair is indigo blue. Her eyes reflect back the falling sparks of the pieces of the ship that has fallen to this world. Her look is one that would appear that of sadness...or is it determination? She gazes towards the ocean, her long blue hair blowing in the wind. The sparks continue to fall like falling stars into the ocean, as the sun rises to greet a new day... and a new inhabitant.]