Ghosts in the Machine is an episode of the 2009 TV series Caprica.
Plot[]
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Joseph Adama and Emmanuelle continue walking through New Cap City. So he can avoid being killed they are taking streets instead of the Maglev. She gives him an "Amp", which is a commonly used hack users take which enhances their reflexes. They have the physical appearance of recreational drugs, but are taken as eyedrops. These have real-world effects by stimulating the user.
Daniel Graystone talks to the U-87 as Zoe-A, hoping to get her to talk. He decides she is refusing to talk to him and is angry at his actions. He offers to download her out of the Cylon and build a more human-like body, but will only respond to him if he calls her U-87.
Act 1[]
Joseph Adama and Emmanuelle head towards Adama's home in New Cap City. Along the way they spot an "amphead", a user who has become addicted to the stimulation given from taking Amps. Emmanuelle keeps Joseph walking and takes out a gun to protect him; she reveals that not only does she look nothing like her online character, but that she is being paid real money to help him.
Back at the lab, Zoe-A is being forced to assemble and re-assemble a firearm. While doing so, Daniel talks of the fire that happened at their old house; it started in his upstairs computer room and quickly enveloped the wooden house. As their daughter, Zoe, lived upstairs, she was cut off from her parents who were not in bed when the fire started. He remembers the screams she made. When he accidentally burns himself with a match, he triggers a reaction from the U-87, which should have continued with her task.
In V-World, Zoe-A realises what Daniel is trying to do when talking to Lacy Rand, that he is trying to trick her into revealing herself. Since he does not see Zoe-A as his daughter, she has no reason to believe he will be serious in his offers and therefore cannot do so. Her only choice is to follow his orders unquestioned until he stops trying.
Joseph and Emmanuelle arrive at the apartment. As it is locked, he suspects Tamara is inside, but instead finds another Amphead living there. When Emmanuelle confirms no one else is here, Joseph asks if he has seen Tamara, showing her a photograph. He recognises her as the "dead girl", someone talked about a lot recently. He believes her to be a well-crafted NPC introduced to the game, and echoes the group chats about how "you can't kill her because she's already dead". He doesn't know where to find her for definite, but it is some club called Mysteries.
Act 2[]
Another player enters the room, heaving heard what Joseph said about Tamara. He thinks he is lying, as he also believes Tamara to be an NPC, but as Tamara killed off two of his online friends he decides to level the score by killing Joseph. Emmanuelle bluffs her way out by claiming she only followed Joseph to the apartment because he said it was a place to score Amps, and is able to kill the man and his friends.The man is slow to de-rezz, and is able to shoot Emmanuelle before fading. Emmanuelle is only grazed, though he causes pain for a few seconds. She refuses to work with Joseph again unless he learns how to play the game, having seen him freeze when holding a gun to the man.
Joseph takes U-87 out to the garden and chastises Zoe-A for not talking to him. He tells her he still loves her regardless of what she is, but has no choice but to set the ground below U-87 on fire by tossing a match into a ring of petrol. The robot can handle the fire just fine, but he knows Zoe-A couldn't. Due to her childhood experience, he expects the robot to leave the ring against direct orders to stay. Zoe-A clenches the U-87's fists, but does not leave the wing.
Act 3[]
Sam Adama visits Joseph, finding him looking at a birthday from Tamara. Sam takes the card off him, as he should not be thinking of her again. Joseph asks Sam how he feels when he kills people, but Sam is disgusted by the question. He tells Joseph the only way is to tell himself it's not real, so they're not really people he'd be shooting.
Joseph returns to New Cap City to meet with Emmanuelle outside the night club. Mysteries is a cabaret bar where all firearms have to be handed over to gain admittance in exchange for tickets. The two are searched again by bouncers on the way into the bar itself. Joseph gets the attention of the club's drag queen, who forces him to participate in the next act as his new Prometheus. He takes out the photograph again, but the drag queen rips up the photograph and offers help only if he gets a riddle of his correct. If he fails, he will be killed by the bouncers. Asked a riddle on the relationship between the Titans and Olympians, and man's relationship to his children, Joseph insists on asking about Tamara. The drag queen loses interest in him and has him taken away to audience boos and thrown out rather than killed.
Act 4[]
Seeing a symbol drawn on the wall in lipstick which resembles Tamara's signature, Joseph realises she really was at the bar. Taking Amp, he collects his gun from the attendant and then kills him. Joseph storms Mysteries and begins killing bouncers and a girl who got in the way. He demands everyone else de-rezz, until only he, Emmanuelle and the drag queen are left. The drag queen finally admits Tamara was there, having stumbled into the bar seeking answers about the afterlife. Failing a riddle, she was shot and failed to die. As the club experienced an upturn in the time since she arrived, the drag queen asks he offer Tamara a job at the bar on his behalf. Leaving the bar, Joseph notices that Tamara's symbol has been painted onto a nearby wall repeatedly.
Tomas Vergis arrives at the Graystone residence to talk to Amanda. He reveals his suspicions of Daniel's guilt, but is asked to leave. Daniel Graystone meanwhile is in his lab, and has resorted to a final test to determine if Zoe-A is inside the U-87, having recognised the dog's interest in her. She is given a handgun and asked to shoot Caesar at the count of five. She does so, and shoots the dog three times, though they turn out to be blanks. Satisfied Zoe-A isn't inside the robot, he orders U-87 to shut down.
Act 5[]
Daniel returns from his lab to find the house empty, and watches old home movies of Zoe-A as Amanda sites outside.
Zoe-A talks with Lacy again in V-World. She reveals she knew the gun wasn't armed with real bullets so could go along with the test. She begs Lacy to hurry and free her, as she would have turned the gun on him had they been real.
Production[]
Writing[]
An early version of the script was to focus more on Tomas' use of Amanda to get to Daniel, with him placing actors resembling her brother to gaslight her. This was rejected as it was deemed to be begging too much suspension of disbelief from the audience. Instead it was re-written to suggest her sightings of Daniel are the result of Zoe's death. The scenes recorded that did suggest gaslighting were deleted and are to be considered non-canon. They were replaced with the Tomas/Amanda scene that was in the televised version.
The cabaret scene was written in a manner as to highlight the lack of interest in helping Joseph. Players in New Cap City can change their appearance with ease and it is accepted for people to take on a whole new persona online. As a result, no player has any reason to take Joseph seriously and, as suggested by David Eick, more likely believed his search for Tamara to be some teenager searching for a girl he wants to have sex with.
An earlier version of the story was to end with Zoe-A shooting Caesar with live ammunition. This was not liked by the studio, so a scene was added where the dog is revealed to be alive and was just scared by the blanks.
Deleted scenes[]
- Amanda Graystone is taking a trane, as a cabaret event takes place at Myseries, and Joseph Adama is on the Holoband rather than working. The drag queen performs his routine, starting in a Cerberus mask. He introduces his act by describing the endless cycle.
- The drag queen goes on, introducing the men, women and those "deciding". The singer describes his upcoming riddle as the "same old story" played time after time, offering the possibility of an answer that will set everyone free.
- The drag queen brings up the story of the dozen primal Titans, such as ocean, land, sun, and moon. He recites the slaying of Uranus by Chronos (Deity).
- Keon talks about the upcoming meeting of Monotheists to Lacy while putting up posters, saying that a meeting of such scale has not been done before. He hints that Barnabas' actions are unauthorised acts of violence divorced by the Gemenese-based STO leadership, claiming they "don't have the stones" to commit to the revolution his cell has planned. They talk about Lacy's interest in joining the STO, but he warns her about what Barnabas might do if she fails him.
- Dr. Daniel Graystone talks to the U-87, trying to get Zoe-A to reveal herself. He first does so by joking about how she must like being told what to do as she joined a "Monotheistic terrorist group". He then takes out a Caprican marines textbook, it being the first text he uploaded to the U-87's internal computer. He tries to trick Zoe-A into revealing herself by asking the U-87 to move in a manner only a soldier would.
- Emmanuelle takes Joseph down a street. He notices his apartment block nearby; she took him intentionally, explaining if she wants to go home she'll go to the digital recreation.
- The cabaret club has the actors pretend to shoot one another, as the drag queen talks about the Olympians' overthrow of the Titans.
- Olaf shows Clarice a flyer Nestor found on Main Street. The stylisation of the bicycle art is similar to an STO symbol used covertly, which Olaf and Nestor suspect to mean Barnabas is reaching out to members outside his cell for a meeting. As Clarice is officially in charge of the Caprica cells, it represents a possible overthrow by Barnabas the Gemenese leadership may allow. She realises they have to act quickly to get Zoe's program.
- At Mysteries, the drag queen moves on to the start of his Prometheus riddle act. He starts by describing Prometheus as the Titan who gave fire to mankind and was punished.
- Zoe-A sits on a staircase in V-World with Lacy, disturbed over the fire incident. She understands that her father really does not care about her. Lacy tells her Daniel cannot now think she is inside the U-87, that she beat him, and he won't hurt her anymore.
Credits[]
- John Pyper-Ferguson as Tomas Vergis
- Leah Gibson as Emmanuelle
- Dmitry Chepovetsky as Cerberus
- Phil Granger as Tanner Willow
- Anita Torrance as Mar-Beth Willow
- Panou as Olaf Willow
- Jim Thomson as Voice of Serge
- Jesse Haddock and Johnston Gray as Darius
- Stefan Arngrim as Amphead
- Ron Selmour as Shotgun
- King Lau as Bouncer #2
- Amos Stern as Cigarette Man
- Patrick Sabongui as Weasely Bouncer
- Kailyn Stratton as Six-year-old Zoe-A Graystone
- Kassandra Kingsborough as Young Amanda Graystone
- Hannah as Caesar the Dog
- Kirstyn Konig as Female Dancer
- Crystal Yuan-Jui Lai as Female Dancer
- Paula Giroday as Female Dancer
- Aryn Savard as Female Dancer
- Christian Vincent as Male Dancer
- Scott Augustine as Male Dancer
- Kenny Mugisha as Male Dancer
- Marco Arimare as Male Dancer
Gallery[]
Sources[]
External links[]
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