And I thought the Americans had it tricky...
Athenian citizenship was limited to adult males who were not slaves and who had one parent who was an Athenian citizen (sometimes citizenship was further restricted to require both parents to be Athenian citizens).
Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy (emphasis added)
No very original insight here; I just raised my eyebrows noticing that it's not just my College that has a centenary this year.
1909: Parliament passed the Cinematograph Act in order to give local councils licensing power over cinemas.
Intent: that it should be used in the interests of fire prevention.
Result: it was subsequently turned into the basis for botched-together local censorship regimes.
2009: still paving that road.
Intent: 'The Ministry of Justice has denied suggestions that Britain's comic industry would suffer from [a proposed new] law. A spokesperson said: "[...] It is not our intention to criminalise the possession of material that does not fall foul of the Obscene Publications Act or to criminalise the legal entertainment industry..."'
Looking at the latest silly scare poster from London – in the tradition of the odd-seeming photographer poster, the all-purpose suspicion poster and the Eyeballs In the Sky watchful eyes poster – I'm tempted to think that somewhere in the unseen depths of the national bureaucracy someone (probably a Kizhist relaxing between sessions) has decided to take 'security theatre' literally. What purpose could these things serve but as a public art installation?
Of course, the trouble with this mode of explanation is that it accounts for too much. Surprising outbreaks of disease? Art, orchestrated by deranged epidemiologists with maps to colour in and the tradition of serial-killing-as-a-canvas-of-blood to outdo. The decline of public libraries and 'phone boxes? Elegiac art, a poetics of cutbacks. A flush of roadworks in Spring (known in my family as 'the breeding season'), leading to elaborate traffic diversions? Art.
I have found the philosophical equivalent of the blend of simultaneously chuckling with gleeful schadenfreude and sincerely cheering the narrator on which I usually associate with masocore commentary ROMhack videos, in an account of the research student's darkest fear that combines academic frankness with raw, passionate expressiveness, like this:
I hoped that Mackie would make this mistake, because that would give me an opportunity to present my own ideas. However, I was sorely disappointed. Mackie almost immediately shows that he recognizes this false dichotomy, and that he is not going to make that mistake himself... It was as if Mackie turned his attention to me and said, "Alonzo, others may make that mistake. However, I do not."
The jerk.
Few ethics textbooks cut so deeply to the heart of human predicaments.
Still, Mackie has now stated that he believes that objective values do exist, in the sense of 'being such as to fulfill the desires in question', and that we cannot arbitrarily select the 'desires in question'. However, this is not the type of objectivity he is disputing when he says, 'There are no objective values.'
I hate him.
He was a graduate student's worst nightmare. Well, he was THIS graduate student's worst nightmare.
Few, indeed, exhibit such refreshing openness about philosophical practice in academia.
Okay, I still had the thesis that moral values in specific are soft objective values that refer to desires other than those of the person making the moral claim. At this point, Mackie had largely only presented options and distinctions. He did not defend any of them, except for a few passive remarks, and his obvious attack on hard-objective values.
Then, Mackie wrote, "'Ought' is never purely egocentric; it always points to reasons of some kind other than the speaker's attitude, though it can in part indicate that the speaker gives that reason his backing."
AAAAARRRRGGGGGGHHHHHH! Stab! Stab! Stab! Stab! Stab!
Mackie had pretty much stated most of the major elements of what I thought was true about value.
Once my tutees have all mastered remembering to hand in the bibliography along with the essay, getting the pages in the right order, etc. maybe I should commend 'AAAAARRRRGGGGGGHHHHHH! Stab! Stab! Stab! Stab! Stab!' to them as a mode of philosophical writing worthy of emulation. Or not...
I hadn't posted this previously because I haven't thoroughly checked whether it is unused or whether I just missed it, but SaGa Frontier seems to have become the theme of the month, and maybe this will remind me to ask people about it: battle arena 0x70 is obviously Kylin's Maze, but I don't recall ever fighting in that area...
If nothing else this shows a smidgeon of what can be done by way of field script manipulation: entering a battle against a backdrop of my choosing. I've managed to get the cut Kurenai scene partly functional now, by the very rough method of inserting a jump opcode into a different piece of script, but I'd need to find out more about flags to do a smoother job... (It's especially odd that I can't get Asellus's sprite to change, since there's no clear reason for that to fail. It's possible that the video someone else managed to create hacked in that aspect artificially – after all, having checked a disc of the Japanese version I've found that it too seems not to have dialogue for Nashiira in the 'right' files, reinforcing my suspicion that someone worked out how to reconstruct those scenes in the script – but for the time being I had better assume it's down to my coarse methods.) At present, though, I'm more concerned with working out how field locations are put together as a whole...
Curious about reactions to the unused dialogue in SaGa Frontier, I learnt that bybyr on the GameFAQs fora has now discovered corresponding videos on Nico Nico Douga: Asellus meeting Nashiira and escaping Facinaturu via Kurenai. [Links updated to evade the login wall; I hadn't known that was possible.] It would be interesting to know whether these were reached by, say, manipulating storyline flags or whether more elaborate reconstruction was involved—especially since in the Western version's files the dialogue for the Bio Research Lab isn't actually present on those maps.
On a similar and happily embeddable note, these videos of FFVII's unused scenes by BrutalAl have been around for almost a year now (these days further digging into FFVII's cutting room is someone else's project), but it makes sense to include them below.
I'd like to take a short detour and talk about culture and heritage as... phenomena, one might tentatively say: culture as we encounter it in the world. I've remarked previously on an affective, perhaps even a poetic aspect to our encounters with culture: a monument or an ancient book giving a sense of the quasi-presence of past generations, for example. (We may not necessarily perceive exactly what it is that provokes such responses: it comes as news, for example, that Stanford students have been exhibiting increasing preferences for music recordings containing barely audible MP3 compression artefacts. 'All that sizzle is a cultural artifact and a tie that binds us. It's mostly invisible to us but it is something future generations looking back might find curious because these preferences won't be obvious to them.') If that's something we need to take into account when we talk about the moral value and moral patiency of cultural items, then we shall encounter epistemic difficulties which, given the tinge of inwardness such experiences may have, social epistemology may not be able to address adequately; at best, we shall face looming difficulties with cross-cultural understanding, for if my inhabitation of my own culture has important aspects which I find hard to articulate, then when we consider cultures in the plural these complications will surely grow.
Indeed, we don't so much encounter our own culture as find ourselves already at home in it; and what to us appears striking, consequently interesting, and consequently of some possibly apparent value in some culture of which we know little is likely to be what is exotic in it—which is to say, the respects in which it differs from our own. So in asking what culture is, or what cultures are, I'm already estranging myself from this sort of direct, commonplace experience.
One possible way of denying that any distinctive complication exists here is to say: if moral value is involved, it's subjective value, and the problems associated with subjectivity of value are in no way specific to the value of culture. Yet my concern is precisely that there is something about being at home in one's own culture, or being suddenly surrounded by a foreign culture, or gradually becoming more familiar with the ways of a culture, or feeling increasingly estranged from one's own culture, which is perhaps not (subjectively) valued in a manner similar to many other things. If I subjectively value my experience looking at a beautiful painting, say, then although the experience may be influenced by all kinds of things – the lighting, my knowledge of associated art history, personal memories triggered by the scene depicted, the state of my digestion, and so on – nevertheless, it seems fair to say that my act of valuation is heavily anchored in the painting, the determinate thing in front of me. A culture, in contrast, doesn't manifest itself so conveniently. The distinctive complication is not so much that the concept of a culture is abstract – for no doubt people value friendship or wealth or liberty equally capably – but, again, the way in which this particular abstraction presents itself in our experiences.
What I'm not anxious to do is sketch out a kind of phenomenology of enculturation; even supposing I could extract such a thing from my own experiences, it would be difficult to establish to what extent the result was parochial. Yet we still seem to be dealing with a kind of evaluative experience which, while we might well call it subjective, and while it lacks a clearly determinate object, is clearly different from, say, paranoia (in which what one disvalues is quite imaginary).
This is not, of course, the only occasion on which I've wondered whether dealing with the nature of a kind of valuation may be outside the scope of my project; but my most common strategy is to appeal to the possibility of expertise: art critics for æsthetic value, historians for historical interest, and so on. Here, on the other hand, I'm dealing with a kind of valuation fully open to everyone—but whereas when I previously considered the difficulties involved in conducting surveys about cultural value I imagined that if the knowledge existed anywhere it was present in common among people of a given culture, and that the main potential problem was potential disagreement, now I face the possibility that we could ask people about the value of some item within their culture and they might quite reasonably stare at us and ask what we were thinking, if we imagined that the worth people find simply in being within their culture, and in the familiarity of its products, could be grasped and quantified.
Insofar as I need a working understanding of what culture is, then, I probably should take it into account that a culture is something 'within which' one can find oneself. What about the remains of past cultures, though: is there any sense in which I can find myself amidst the culture of Anglo-Saxon England, or only amidst its material and linguistic/literary remains? Do I perhaps just find myself amidst English culture, with any Anglo-Saxon artefacts I encounter serving to remind me of its history? In fact, I doubt that what I actually experience is so finely distinct to begin with – no wonder, given the difficulties associated with assigning boundaries or temporal continuity to cultures – and that leads me to wonder whether it's 'safe' to speak of experiencing cultures, or whether a philosophical treatment ought to favour some more cautious formulation: 'encountering cultural phenomena', perhaps.
At any rate, instead of trying only to talk generally about 'cultures' as though with a 'view from nowhere' I probably should take it into account that we do encounter cultures as already familiar or alien to us: that it's an aspect of what we encounter under the heading 'culture' that it offers us the potential to find ourselves at home or abroad in certain cultural surroundings. Of course, one then understands that surroundings alien to oneself will be familiar to someone else, and vice versa. (Travel writing, for example, tends to juxtapose 'someone like us' as an observer with people and places decidedly unlike us; Notes From a Small Island then gets read in Britain as a semi-inversion of the genre, and for that matter Persian Letters was both inverting and fictionalising it in 1725.) Similarly, I take other 'members' of my own culture to feel at home in it much as I do: this is one respect in which 'culture' becomes linked to 'community'. So one of the things a culture is is a kind of dwelling.
Of course, that paragraph oversimplifies the range of relations one can have to one's 'home' culture, let alone to any other. For example, someone might feel in some respect estranged from his familiar culture even as he has to recognise the hold it still has on him: people can become sceptical about the moral values they were brought up with, or embarrassed by their humble and rustic origins after encountering 'high' culture. Conversely there's the sense of being one of all-too-few maintainers of a traditional way of life, of being closer to the essential life of one's culture than people from the same background who slough off their inheritance. Moreover, might there be degrees or even different kinds of familiarity? Some purposes and habits may be so familiar I don't think to question them without prompting: we sit on chairs and differentiate them linguistically from stools, and this is never going to strike me as remarkable (except, of course, when I require an example of the unremarkable to remark upon). Other practices I grasp intellectually even though they don't quite seem part of the natural order of things: bool example() {return true}; will forever have a feeling of artificiality for me, computers having been barely, and computer code not at all, a manifest part of my early childhood.
I was going to say that there are other phenomena which I also grasp intellectually although, unlike computer languages, they have an indelible aura of the foreign; but on reflection I'm not sure that's (straightforwardly) so. In the realm of literature, for example, take Dictionary of the Khazars: aspects of it seem very peculiar to me, but I'm in no position to determine whether I'm witnessing Serbo-Croat literature doing things differently, or just a very idiosyncratic authorial style. What about a British writer's novel set in foreign climes, or even in a fantasy location? Or a cosmopolitan work such as The Manuscript Found In Saragossa, written in French by a Polish author and set in Spain? I hesitate to say that these are simply blends of the familiar and the exotic. In any case, the sort of critical and æsthetic analysis required to address the question in the literary sphere alone must be considered beyond the scope of this enquiry.
Besides such complications as these, there are epistemic difficulties that arise if we try to build dwelling into our understanding of culture: given such an apparently subjective approach to cultural membership, how should we set about trying to deal with differences of opinion about whose a culture is and what its significance is and should be for them? Suppose we have a case of people migrating to a place with a culture which is initially very alien to them, but in the years after settling there becoming gradually more familiarly engaged in it and in their new community. What determines whether they have become at least partly paid-up members of the indigenous culture? Whether they feel at home in it? Whether people whose culture it definitely is feel at home with them? Without being confident that there is some state of affairs to which such feelings (do we want to call them judgments?) might be answerable, it's tempting to shrug one's shoulders: maybe we shall conclude that what we require is an expressivist analysis of talk about cultural membership. Yet that looks excessively extreme: for example, surely it's a plain enough matter of fact, supported by the straightforward evidential basis that I have had little to do with and know little of them and their way of life, that I am not in any way a member of Maori culture.
It might help (at least, in clarifying exactly what epistemological problems arise) to ask whether a feeling (a judgment?) of being at home in a culture (or not), or of inhabiting the same cultural backdrop as someone else (or not), can be mistaken. It's practically a platitude that our knowledge of ourselves and of how we fit in amongst other people can be deeply flawed: if we can make mistakes about whether we're boring our present company or whether we can rely on those we consider our friends, maybe we can also be mistaken in our sense of belonging. Similarly, the realisation that one has misjudged somebody is a commonplace experience; perhaps we can be mistaken in our sense of whether somebody is fully 'one of us'.
What I probably need to do at this point is acknowledge that if some sort of 'judgment' is indeed involved in such cases, it's going to be a heavily evaluative/normative judgment (though still one responsive to evidence, no doubt). So one asks not only what things we have and don't have in common with other people, but also what associations should count in such deliberations: do people who've lived in a neighbourhood for five years therefore deserve to be considered locals, for example? Similarly, one's own sense of belonging is a kind of appraisal: 'I am suited to these surroundings', i.e. 'these surroundings suit me'.
Of course, the question persists: what standard makes such a judgment or feeling about cultural membership a reasonable/justified one? Trying to offer a general answer to that in any but the broadest terms might prove a mistaken enterprise; I think I've remarked before that a culture may incorporate its own standards of membership, perhaps including overt ceremonies of investiture, perhaps instead being wholly informal. That line of thinking suggests that what counts as relevant expertise is knowledge of the kind possessed, perhaps, by a local historian; but then again, where practices surrounding membership are more about informal involvement than about conventions of ritual or other overtly recognised rules, maybe that's not altogether the right kind of knowledge. Perhaps in either case we end up with some sort of hermeneutic circle; but there remains the question of what one should make of it when disagreement arises...
While it could have been worse, I still don't know quite what to make of this:
"The body parts are very realistic and we don't want people to be alarmed by them. They've all been taken from their original positions, but we now have no idea where they are," a Capcom rep said in a statement.
"If you have them, please either return them, or dispose of them in a responsible and careful manner," he continued.
Somewhere, careful and responsible people have gone through the following:
I have no decided views about the status of graphology in general, but this degree of counterfactual speculation would be ridiculous as 'news' whatever kind of research it was based on:
If Anne [Brontë] had been born 60 years later and had been physically stronger she may well have been a key figure in the suffragette movement, according to [graphologist Diane] Simpson.
She would also have fascinated metaphysicians of personal identity.
I ended up pulling dialogue out of SaGa Frontier's field files with, of all things, Firefox (for ease of SHIFT_JIS decoding), since although I understand a fair amount of its field script by now, there's a lot I still don't know about how it works with other parts of the game data. The result is basically context-free dialogue, but in concert with available information about The Essence of SaGa Frontier it provides some insights into what the game was once intended to be like. Below is GlitterBerri's translation of the unused Japanese text Square never bothered to translate (leaving out the テストです – 'it's a test' – that appears on several maps, and any debug room text), with my commentary added to try to make some sense of it all.
Most of the map descriptions were taken from here.
0x009 | Junk battle arena
|
よぉ！ ポンコツ！！ まぐれもここまで続けば、モノホンだぜぇ～～。 俺っちも、あやかりてぇ！ |
Yo! Loser! If you got this far by chance, you're the real thing~~ I need your luck! |
0x011 | Koorong street
|
ルーンを刻んだ石？ こんな町中に、そんなでかい石があるわけ無いだろう。 |
A stone engraved with runes? There's no reason for such a big stone to be in the middle of this town. |
|
石？地下の下水道の、そのまた下に洞窟があるんだ。 石ならそこにごろごろしてるぜ。 |
Stones? There's a cave beneath the underground sewer. There are stones scattered all over the place down there. |
Doubtless these are additional lines planned for the chap who directs you to Annie or Dr. Nusakan if asked about Koorong's Rune Stone.
0x04F | Koorong, Dr. Nusakan's operating room
| これは、変わった患者が来たな。 | What have we here... a transformed patient. |
| 私を人間に戻して！ | Change me back into a human! |
|
これを見ろ。 紫を作るのは簡単だ。 だが、これから青と赤が作れるか？ 無駄なあがきはよせ。 お前は、その運命と共存するしかない。 |
Look at this. It's easy to make purple. But will we be able to make blue and red from now on? Cease this pointless struggling. There is nothing for you but to live with your fate. |
|
やっぱりダメなのね‥‥ 一つ聞いていい。 私、今でも女だよね。 血をもらったからって、半分男になったりしないよね？ |
I knew it was hopeless.... Let me ask one thing. I'm still a girl, right? I won't become half male because I received blood, right? |
|
妖魔の血は、お前達人間の血とは異なる。 単なる物質ではない。 お前はオルロワージュの妖力を受け継いでいる。 女殺し、というわけだ。 普通の人間の娘などいちころだ。 そんなつもりは無いよ。 いやだよ、そんなの。 ならば自分の力で押さえるのだな。 |
The blood of mystics is different from your human blood. It is not mere substance. You are inheriting Orlouge's spirit power. He killed a woman, you see. Knocked off a regular human girl. He didn't intend for that to happen. He didn't want that at all. So he used his own power to prevent it. |
| なぜ、こんな所で医者をやっているの？ | Why are you practicing medicine in a place like this? |
|
リージョン界は広い。 面白い病がたくさんある。 多くの病と出会いたい、それだけだ。 |
The region worlds are wide. They abound with interesting diseases. It is simply my wish to encounter as many as I can find. |
| あなた、異常だわ。 | You're weird. |
One of the lost scenes from Asellus's quest: not much new information (why would it bother Orlouge, not the most pleasant of souls, that he unintentionally killed a human?), but her being told to accept her fate like this would have added a little more depth to her predicament.
0x066 | Yorkland, scenic view; plus outside area with dancers
|
聞いたぞ お前、出稼ぎに行かないつもりだと？ |
I heard that you don't intend to go look for work in the city? |
| だって、俺はオヤジの後を継ぎたいもん。 | I want to follow after my old man. |
|
若いうちに都会で、沢山の情報と人間にもまれねば 老いぼれを気づかって未来を狭める必要はない。 |
If you go to the city while you're young and make people and information your business you won't have to narrow your future, following after a senile old man. |
| オヤジが都会に行けば出世するだろうなぁ。 | If my old man went to the city, I'm sure he'd be a success. |
| ヒヒ～～ン | Neigh~ |
| この村は、人も馬も長生きなんだ。 | In this village, humans and horses live a long time. |
| 編み込みは、働く女の身だしなみよ。 | Braided hair is the sign of a working woman. |
Some of this is clearly incidental text, like an alternative line for the woman with braided hair, but we also get to hear Lute talk about his father, presumably when leaving Yorkland in his opening scenes. Given how ridiculously quickly the avenge-your-father's-murder plot of Lute's quest is introduced and finished, it's annoying to see this morsel left out.
0x080 | Baccarat, scenic view from outside
|
Ｆ_ＭＯＵＳＥ→ どちらまで（仮）？ ・カジノフロア ・バーフロア ・ホテルフロア ・駐車場 ・利用しない |
F_MOUSE→ Where to (temporary)? ・ Housekeeping floor ・ Bar floor ・ Hotel floor ・ Parking floor ・ Don't use |
Debug text, presumably from before the lifts were implemented. F_MOUSE→ probably has something to do with sprite movement; there are similar lines in the debug rooms, and an F_BORO→0C in the Junk crater (map 0x007).
0x091 | Rootville, fiery cave
| はい、本当です。 | Yes, it's true. |
|
それじゃ、 ここに飛び込めば‥‥ 焼き尽くされるでしょう。 ・ゾズマを信じる ・あんな奴信じられない |
Well, if we plunge in here.... we'll be burnt to a crisp. ・Believe Zozma ・Don't believe him |
| 私もご一緒しますわ。 | I shall accompany you as well. |
|
白薔薇‥‥ いいの？ |
White Rose... are you sure? |
|
オルロワージュ様はアセルス様の 教育をお命じになりました。 アセルス様について行くのが 私の役目です。 |
I have been charged by Lord Orlouge with the education of Lady Asellus. It is my duty to accompany her. |
| ありがとう、白薔薇。 | Thank you, White Rose. |
|
白薔薇姉さま‥‥ご無事で。 アセルス様を御護り下さい。 |
Be safe, White Rose.... Please protect Lady Asellus. |
| ありがとう、紅姫。 | Thank you, Princess Kurenai. |
Another scene cut from Asellus's quest, showing why Kurenai was included in the game; in the final version she's still present in Rootville, but after greeting Asellus she serves no function in the plot at all. This escape scene apparently follows the unused scene in Asellus's bedroom (0x1A9 below) and leads to arrival in Mosperiburg (0x1F3 below).
0x094 | Koorong, outside port
| そっとしておいてください | Please put it down gently. |
Goodness knows. Judging from its position in the file, this line may have been intended for the merchant.
0x0D6 | Baccarat, hotel rooms
| 鼠のフラグを初期化する | Initialize mouse flag |
Debug text.
0x0E6 | Scrap, Caballero Factory large room beneath gunners
| フラグ初期化 | Initialize flag |
0x124 | Shrike, outside map
|
武王はデッカイ龍をあやつってシュライクを統一したっていう神話があるんだ。 今はシュライクには龍はいないけど、昔はいたんだろうな。 |
The legends say that King Mu controlled a giant dragon and united Shrike. There are no longer any dragons in Shrike, though it seems there were in the distant past. |
A little background information on Mu's Tomb, maybe also accounting for the EarthDragon boss in the Bio Research Lab.
0x135 | C.T.C Building, lobby
| 上へ参りま～す。 | Going up~ |
0x155 | TimeLord's Region, 5th room
| 砂を落とす | Drop sand |
Maybe's it's placeholder text.
0x16B | Shingrow Palace, room with strange glowing machinery
| やめろ！！ | Stop!! |
| アルカイザー！！ | Alkaiser!! |
| 仲間を助ける。 | I'll help my friends. |
| 行こう、ベルヴァを倒すんだ。 | Let's go defeat Berva. |
| レッドは？ | What about Red? |
| 彼なら大丈夫だ。 | Red'll be alright. |
Another scene in which Red has just turned into Alkaiser out of sight; it sounds pretty similar to the one that takes place on entry to Red's final dungeon, so maybe it was removed to avoid repetition.
0x16D | Shingrow Palace, three circular cages
|
ここは‥‥どこだ？ キーキーどこへ連れていく！ |
Where is this place...? Keekee, where are you taking us? |
| アルカイザー！！ | Alkaiser!! |
| 行こう、ベルヴァを倒すんだ。 | Let's go defeat Berva. |
| レッドは？ | What about Red? |
| 彼なら大丈夫だ。 | Red'll be alright. |
Another version of the same scene. It's BlackX troops who are apt to say 'Kee', but beyond that the first line is a mystery.
0x1A0 | Trinity Base, small room south of bunkbed room
This dialogue isn't fully formatted in the game files, so the divisions here are added for readability.
| こんな連中に捕まってしまうなんて、まだまだだね君は。 | Getting caught by these guys, pah! You still have a ways to go yet. |
| 誰？ | Who's there? |
| この程度の縛め、ちょっとした力で破れるのに。 | Being tied up this tightly sure wears a guy down. |
|
ゾズマ！ ここで何を？ |
Zozma! What are you doing here? |
|
アルバイトしてるわけじゃないよ。 妖魔をもてあそんだ連中に、火遊びが過ぎるとどうなるか、思い知らせてやるのさ。 もう数人侵入して、手はずを整えてるところだ。 ずいぶんと仲魔思いだな。 さあ～どうかな？ とにかく、楽しい宴になりそうだよ。 |
Not a part-time job. I'll show those idiots messing around with mystics what happens when they play with fire... Already some of our number have broken in and are preparing... You care about them, don't you? Who knows, eh? Anyway, looks like it's going to be a fun banquet. |
| ゾズマめ、何をやらかす気だ‥‥？ | Zozma, what have you done.....? |
| 始まったな。 | It has begun. |
| 白薔薇！ | White Rose! |
| アセルス様、大丈夫でしたか？ | Lady Asellus, are you alright? |
| ああ。ゾズマに会ったかい？ | Yes. Did you meet Zozma? |
| いいえ、では、これはゾズマの仕業ですか？ | No, is this his doing? |
|
うん。 とにかく、逃げよう。 巻き込まれるのもバカらしいや。 |
Yes. Anyway, let's get out of here. He was a fool to get involved. |
| 君、シップをドライブできる？ | You can drive a ship? |
| は、はい、何とか。 | Y-yes, somehow. |
| じゃあ、御願い。 | Then, please. |
More Zozma, and another escape scene cut from Asellus's quest.
0x1A9 | Chateau Aiguille, Asellus's bedroom
| いつまで、こんな城にいるつもりだい？ | Just how long do you intend to stay in this castle? |
|
私だってイヤだけど、 どこにも行き場がないんだもん。 |
I don't like it here, but I don't have anywhere else to go. |
|
いいこと教えてあげよう。 町外れの焼却炉。 あの炎は別のリージョンからの 炎なんだよ。 |
I'll teach you something useful. The incinerator outside of town... the flames there come from another region. |
|
火の中に 飛び込めって言うの？ |
You're saying I should jump into the fire? |
| それは君次第さ。 | That's up to you. |
|
じゃあね、 こんどは別のリージョンで会おう！ |
Alright then, I'll see you again in another region! |
|
君が望めばいつでも帰れるさ。 君のリージョンだ。 |
You can return home whenever you want. Back to your own region. |
Preceding the scene with Kurenai above (0x091).
0x1C6 | Chateau Aiguille, throne room
If you're thinking not all the dialogue here belongs on this map, you're probably right. A lot of it is incompletely formatted, too (line breaks are added in this transcript), so maybe someone just took the dialogue for a whole extended scene and dumped it into this file to work on later. (The FFVII team's habit of leaving duplicate scripts lying around their files makes it seem plausible that something like that happened.)
|
そのころ、針の城では、 こんな事件が起きていたのです‥‥ |
This is what was happening at the Chateau Aiguille around that time... |
| イルドゥンを陥れそこなったな、セアトよ。 | Ciato... you tricked and caused harm to Ildon. |
|
何用だ、ラスタバン。 オルロワージュ様に取り入ったところで、貴様の妖魔の格が上がるわけではない。 |
What is your business, Rastaban. You aren't making nice with Orlouge to advance yourself as a mystic. |
| 何を！ | What! |
|
お前では、私に傷一つ点けることは出来まい？ 妖魔の格とは、そういうものだからな。 やってみなければ分からん！ 来るか？ お前が負けても、オルロワージュ様には黙っていてやろう。 |
You cannot hurt me at all, can you? Such is the character of the mystics. If you don't try, you'll never know! Coming? I promise not to tell Orlouge if you fail. |
| ラスタバン！！ | Rastaban!! |
|
ハ、ハ、ハハハハハハハハ、勝ったぞ、ラスタバンに勝ったぞ！！ 力が、力がみなぎってくるぞ！！ハハハハハハ そうだセアト‥‥壁を越えろ‥‥破壊しろ‥‥ |
Ha, ha, hahahahahahahaha, I won, I won against Rastaban!! The power, the power is swelling!! Hahahahahaha. Right, Ciato.... overcome the barrier.... destroy.... |
|
後にイルドゥン様は、 これがラスタバン様の企みだったのだと 語ってくれました‥‥ |
After that, Master1 Ildon told me that this was all Rastaban's plan. |
| この街に上級妖魔が住んでいる。 | There are greater mystics living in this village. |
| こんなごみごみした所に？ | In this squalid place? |
| 変わり者なんだ。 | They're people who've been transformed. |
| 君と一緒か。 | Like you? |
|
まあね。 タイプはかなり違うけどね。 |
Something like that. But they're a different type. |
|
そいつは医者をやってるんだ。 普通じゃ治せないような類のことを専門に扱っている。 |
That guy's working as a doctor. His specialty is treating the kinds that don't heal normally. |
| 普通じゃ治せない‥‥私は‥‥ | Don't heal normally.... I.... |
|
ここは普通の研究所に見えるだろう？ でもね、妖魔の研究をしてるんだ。 もちろん、人間に捕まるのは弱い下級妖魔だけどね。 |
This looks like a regular research laboratory, right? It's really for researching mystics. But of course the ones caught by humans are lesser mystics. |
|
見学の方ですか？ どうぞ。 |
Visitors? Go on in. |
|
良くいらしたわね。 私はナシーラ。 ここの主任研究員よ。 |
Welcome. I am Nashiira. I am the head researcher of this lab. |
| 妖魔の研究をしているんですか？ | Are you researching mystics? |
|
え、まさか。 ここでは植物を中心に生命力の謎を解こうとしているの。 あなたの生命力を測定してみない？ ・測ってみる ・やめときます。 |
Why, certainly not. We are aiming to solve the puzzle of the life force found in plants. Would you like to try measuring your life force? ・I'll try ・I'll pass |
|
この数値‥‥あなた、妖魔なのね！ しかも、最上級の。 |
These numbers.... you must be a mystic! But the strongest kind. |
| 私は人間です。 | I'm a human. |
|
ありえないわ。 これだけの妖力値が出る人間はいない。 それにしても、すごい値だわ。 あなた、一体何者？ ・しらばっくれる ・全部話す |
That is impossible. There are no humans with this much magic power. Nevertheless, these numbers are amazing. Just what sort of person are you? ・Feign ignorance ・Tell her everything |
|
きっと、機械の調子が悪いんですよ。 さようなら～。 |
Your machine mustn't be working. Goodbye now~ |
|
すごい話ね。 この数値を見てなかったら、信じられない所だわ。 いらっしゃい、あなたにだけ見せたいものがあるの。 ちょっと刺激が強いと思うけど、大丈夫？ ・たぶん。 ・やめときます。 |
That is an incredible tale. If I wasn't seeing at these numbers, I would not be able to believe it. Come here, I have something that I want to show you alone. I think it will effect you strongly, though. Is that okay? ・Maybe. ・I'll pass. |
| そう、残念ね‥‥ | Is that so, too bad.... |
| じゃあ、こっちへ来て。 | Alright, come this way. |
|
ここは妖魔の檻。 妖魔の妖気を抽出しているの。 大丈夫よ、対妖魔フィールドを張ってあるから。 |
This is the holding area for the mystics. We're extracting their energy. It's quite safe, we've erected an anti-mystic field. |
| ここはさっきの妖魔に生気を供給している生き物の檻。 | This is a jail for living things, it provides the mystics with energy. |
| 生き物って、人間じゃないですか！ | Aren't those "living things" human?! |
|
そうとも言うわね。 高額の報酬に目がくらんで、自分の命を切り売りしているのよ。 それが、魂を売り渡す行為だって気付かずに。 そんな連中を人間とは呼びたくないわ。 |
You could say that. Dazzled by the large reward, they're pawning their lives off piece by piece. That is to say, they're selling their souls without realizing it. I do not wish to call people like that human. |
| あなたがやらせてるんでしょう！ | You're letting it happen! |
|
仕事の内容を説明して報酬を提示したのよ。 やるかやらないかは本人の意志次第でしょう。 実際、説明を受けた人のほとんどが、引き受けないわ。 大丈夫、彼らの不純な献身も無駄にはしないわ。 この研究の目的は人間の不老不死。 そのために妖魔の生命力に着目したの。 |
I explained the subject of my work and the reward. Whether they agreed to it or not, the choice was theirs. In all honesty, most who hear the explanation do not undertake the trial. It is alright, their impure devotion is not without cause. The goal of this research is perpetual youth and longevity. It is for this reason we pay heed to the mystics' life force. |
|
妖魔が、そんな研究に協力するとは思えない。 あの妖魔達は無理やり捕まえたんでしょう？ |
I can't imagine the mystics agreeing to cooperate with this research. These mystics were captured against their will, right? |
|
ええ。 でも、妖魔の支配者の了解は得たわ。 下級妖魔なら、いくら捕まえてもよろしいそうよ。 |
Yes. But we received permission from the ruler of the mystics. It seems as though we can capture as many lesser mystics as we wish. |
|
ひどい。 よく、こんなことが出来ますね。 |
That's terrible. How could you do something like that. |
|
やっていいことと悪いことがあるわ。 私は、研究のためにすべてを捧げているわ。 もし、この研究が間違いだというのなら、 私の存在自体を否定されているのと同じ。 それより、あなた自身、協力しない？ |
There are things that one can and cannot do. I am sacrificing all for the sake of research. If this research is said to be a mistake, it is the same for me as being made to deny my own existence. Nonetheless, will you yourself cooperate? |
| なんで私が！ | Why me! |
|
あなたの妖力、それだけ強い妖力があれば、 あんなザコ妖魔を飼っておく必要もない。 あなたがその気になるだけで、あの妖魔も人間も救うことが出きるのよ。 そんな‥‥あなたには、彼らを救う力がある。 それでも見捨てるのね。 ・仕方がない、協力する。 ・冗談じゃない！ |
If your power has that much strength, keeping those small fry around won't be necessary. If you're bothered by it, you can help those mystics and humans alike. You have the power to save them. ・There's nothing for it, I'll cooperate. ・This isn't a joke! |
|
あなたは本当に人間ですか？ 妖魔よりもずっと魔性を感じる。 悪魔に魂を売ってでも、この研究は成し遂げるわ。 ついて来て、あなた用の特別室に案内するわ。 |
Are you truly a human? The feeling I get from you is even stronger than from the mystics. I'll accomplish this research even if it means selling my soul. Follow me, I will show you to a special room you can use. |
| ここは？ | What is this place? |
|
上級妖魔用の特別室よ。 実際に使う機会が来るとは思わなかったわ。 逃げようとしなければ、フィールドでダメージを受けることはないわ。 |
It is a special room for the use of the greater mystics. Actually, I didn't think that the chance to use it would ever arrive. As long as you don't attempt to escape, you won't be hurt by the field. |
|
私は逃げたりしません。 こんなことしなくても。 |
I won't run away. Even without the field. |
| そうかしら？ | Is that true, I wonder? |
|
うや やめて‥‥ |
Uya... Stop.... |
|
人間は平気なんだけど、妖魔だと苦しいらしいわ。 やっぱり苦しい、やめる？ |
Humans will not be affected, but it seems to cause pain to mystics. It must hurt, shall I stop? |
| 平気‥‥私は人間だから‥‥ | It's fine.... because I'm human.... |
| やっぱり、あなた凄いわ。 | You truly are amazing. |
|
これを見て。 この青い薔薇、妖気を吸わせることで産み出したのよ。 いままでのカス妖魔どもの何倍も輝いているわ。 ありがとう。 |
Look at this. This blue rose was created by absorbing magic energy. It glitters far more than those mystic scum. Thank you. |
| その薔薇のために‥‥ | All for that rose.... |
|
大丈夫？ すこし、弱めましょうか？ |
Are you alright? Shall we weaken it? |
| さっきの話は‥‥薔薇のために‥‥薔薇だって私たちと同じ生き物よ。 | What you were saying before.... all for the rose.... the rose is alive just as we are. |
| 永遠に生きる価値があるわ。 | It has the value of eternal life. |
|
な、なんてこと！！！ どうしてこんな色に！ |
What are you talking about!!! Why this colour! |
|
私の中には人の赤い血も流れているのよ‥‥ 所詮、半妖というわけね。 半妖の血では青い薔薇は咲かせられないのね。 |
The red blood of a human flows inside me.... After all, I am a half mystic. The blood of half mystics cannot cause a blue rose to bloom. |
|
本音は、それか。 あんたの観賞用の薔薇を作りたいだけなんだな。 自分の楽しみのために、他人をもてあそぶな！！ |
So that's your true intention. You just want to make roses to amuse yourself. You can't toy with others for your own entertainment!! |
|
そうね。 こんな連中のために、あなたがその身を捧げる理由はないわね。 あなた、自分で思っているよりもずっと妖魔的よ。 |
True. There is no reason to sacrifice your body for them. You are more like a mystic than you think. |
| わたしは人間です。 | I'm a human. |
| ああは言ったけど、やっぱり放ってはおけないわ。 | You said that, but it cannot be ignored. |
| 何とかしなきゃ。 | I have to do something. |
|
ルミナスのフルド。 下級妖魔って分類になるね。 |
Furdo of Luminous. Classified as a lesser mystic, huh. |
|
無意味な言葉だけどね。 奴は、下級妖魔としては最高の力を持っている。 それで十分だと思うんだけど、なぜか上級妖魔の力を望んでいる。 |
Those words don't mean anything, though. That guy's the strongest of the lesser mystics. You'd think that would be enough, but for some reason he desires the power of the greater mystics. |
| 私には関係ないでしょう。 | It's got nothing to do with me. |
|
確かに、くだらない奴だけど、１つ面白いことがあるんだ。 自分より上級の妖魔に勝つ方法を産み出したらしいんだ。 |
He's worthless, certainly, but there is one interesting thing about him. He has come up with a way to win against mystics greater than himself. |
| それが？ | And that would be? |
|
興味無いの？ 俺はてっきり、君が白薔薇姫を取り戻しに行くものだと思ってたよ。 あの方と戦うことを考えれば、重要な情報だろう？ |
Aren't you interested? I thought for sure you were going to get Princess White Rose back. Won't you need this information if you're thinking about fighting that guy? |
|
オルロワージュと戦う？ なぜ？ 白薔薇には会いたい。 でも、あの人と戦う理由は無いと思う。 |
Fight with Orlouge? Why? I want to see White Rose, but I don't think there's any reason for me to fight him. |
|
事を起こしたのはあの方だ。 君のその血の運命に決着をつけるためには、いつかはあそこへ帰るしか無いと思うな。 |
He's the one that caused all this. If you wish to settle the destiny of the blood in your veins, you'll have to return there sometime. |
| これはこれは、よくいらっしゃいましたアセルス様。 | Well met, Lady Asellus. |
| どうして私のことを？ | How do you know me? |
|
オルロワージュ様の血を受けた高貴なるお方の話は、ずいぶんと耳にしております。 アセルス様に工房を訪ねていただけるとは光栄の極みです。 |
One hears all about the nobles who have received the blood of Lord Orlouge. That Lady Asellus is able to visit the workshop is a great honor. |
|
ずいぶん腰が低いじゃない？ ゾズマの話だと、上級妖魔を倒す方法を編み出したって聞いたけど。 |
Aren't you awfully modest? I heard from Zozma that you'd worked out a way to defeat the greater mystics. |
|
ゾズマ様からですか。 あの方はトラブルメーカー、いろんな噂をあちこちで流しているようですね。 とにかく、私の作品、私のコレクションをご覧になって下さい。 |
You heard that from Master2 Zozma? That fellow is a troublemaker, he spreads many rumors. Anyhow, please take a look at my work, my collection. |
| これって、どうやって作ったの？ | How did you make this? |
|
う～む、技術の秘密は御教え出来かねますが‥‥他ならぬアセルス様です。 特別にお見せしましょう。 後ほど、御一人でいらして下さい。 準備を整えて御待ちしております。 |
Hrm... I hesitate to tell you the secrets of my craft, but... well, you're none other than Lady Asellus. I will show you something special. Please tell no one what you see. A moment while I arrange my equipment. |
|
フルド１来ましたね。 いかがですか、私の真のコレクションは？ |
Furdo1 has come. What do you think of my true collection? |
Perhaps 'Furdo1' is another placeholder for the developers.
So: Furdo would have had a larger role in the game, Nashiira and the Bio Research Lab would have had more of a purpose, and not only Zozma but also Ciato and Rastaban would have had more developed roles in Asellus's quest.
0x1E0 | Cygnus, pilot's room
|
乗客の皆さん、カオスフラックスが乱れております。 多少の揺れが発生しますので、御注意下さい。 |
A notice to all passengers; the Chaos Flux has become disoriented. Slight turbulence may occur, so please be cautious. |
| 大丈夫かな‥‥海賊か‥‥参ったな。 | I wonder if we'll be alright.... pirates.... we're finished. |
| おお、無事か。 | Oh, you're safe. |
|
このシップはパイレーツに乗っ取られた。 危険だから、ここを動かないで。 俺達が、シップを取り戻す。 ・協力する。 ・協力しない。 |
This ship has been captured by pirates. It's dangerous, so stay here. We'll get the ship back. ・Cooperate ・Don't cooperate |
|
まずは、捕まっている乗客を助けよう。 端末で場所を確認して。 |
First off, let's help out the passengers who were captured. Confirm the location with the terminal. |
I wonder whether this might also be from Asellus's quest, given that in Red's quest she and White Rose are travelling on the Cygnus during the pirate attack, and it's unclear from playing Asellus's own quest why they would be doing so. (If that's correct, it would mean that Asellus's reunion with Red might have been intended to occur during her own quest too.) On the other hand...
0x1E9 | Cygnus, engine room
| キグナス飛行シーン | Cygnus Aviation Scene |
(Repeated six times in this file; doubtless a placeholder from before the cutscenes were ready.)
| 誰だ！ | Who goes there! |
|
待て、敵じゃない。 今な、捕まってる客や乗員を助けだす算段を相談してたんだ。 お前、キグナスの乗員だろう？ 協力しろよ。 |
Wait, we're not enemies. We've been trying to figure how how to help the captured passengers and crew. Are you the crew of the Cygnus? Let's work together. |
| ＯＫ | OK |
| パイレーツって何、メイレン？ | What are pirates, Mei-ling? |
| 簡単に言うと、泥棒よ。 | They're thieves, simply put. |
| ふーん。 | Hmm. |
|
君たち、よく捕まらなかったね。 どっかに隠れてて。 |
You haven't been caught yet, huh. Find somewhere to hide. |
| あなたたちは？ | What about you guys? |
| パイレーツを叩きのめす！ | We're gonna beat up some pirates! |
|
ワオ！ 面白そう！！ |
Whoa! Sounds like fun!! |
|
一緒に行こうよ、メイレン。 いい？ |
Let's go together, Mei-ling. Alright? |
| ＯＫ | OK |
So Riki's quest also had cuts: either events were moved to Tanzer or it was decided that the scenes inside Tanzer were sufficient on their own.
0x1F3 | Mosperiburg, large snowy field
| 白薔薇‥‥ | White Rose.... |
|
燃え尽きずに済みましたわ。 肌も髪も再生しました。 服は燃えてしまいましたけど。 |
It's finally burnt out. Your hair and skin have regenerated. However, your clothes were all burned. |
| 寒い‥‥ | It's cold.... |
|
それはアセルス様が 人間の証拠ですわ。 | That's proof that you are a human, Lady Asellus. |
|
私は何も感じませんもの。 ここ、どこだろう？ |
I can't feel a thing. Where is this place? |
|
空は燃え、地凍るリージョン、 ムスペルニブルですわね。 参りましょう。 |
A region where the sky burns and the rest of the land freezes. We are in Mosperiburg. Let us go. |
| どこへ？ | Where? |
|
「妖魔の君」の御一人、 ヴァジュイール様の宮殿です。 心配なさらないで。 ヴァジュイール様は オルロワージュ様と違い 陽気な方だとうかがっています。 |
The palace of Lord Virgil, a lord of the mystics. Do not worry. Virgil is different from Lord Orlouge. I hear he is a merry fellow. |
Following the escape scene with Kurenai (0x091), and followed by the meeting with Virgil (0x25B below). This and the following scene are what the nude sprites seen in the debug rooms (in the lower section of the adjacent image) would have been for. As shown with a partial rip at the top of the image, the developers made a dedicated PEP file (used for playable characters' field sprites) of Asellus for this section, indicating that she'd have been controllable, but didn't bother doing the same for White Rose, presumably because she and Asellus acquire clothes again in the subsequent scene.
0x256 | GoldenGate, container with computer and crates that you hide in
|
現在２番コンテナ（仮 仮移動先を選択 ・最終ターミナル ・第１中継ターミナル ・ちょっと待って |
Presently at container #2 (Temporary Choose temporary destination ・Final terminal ・Chapter 1 relay terminal ・Just a minute |
More placeholder text for debugging, by the look of it.
0x25B | Virgil Palace, Virgil's room
|
これは珍客だな。 その格好、よほど暑い所から 見えられたようだな。 |
This is a rare guest. Looks like you came from a very hot place. |
|
ヴァジュイール様にはご機嫌麗しく何よりでございます。 私、オルロワージュ様に 御仕え致しております 白薔薇と申します。 こちらの方は、 オルロワージュ様の血を受けられたアセルス様でございます。 |
My highest regards to Lord Virgil. I am called White Rose. I am in Lord Orlouge's service. This is Lady Asellus, who was a recipient of the blood of Lord Orlouge. |
|
ほー、そなたが噂の娘か！ オルロワージュも酔狂なことをするよほど退屈と見える。 |
Hoho, so you are the girl from the rumors! Orlouge must be bored, pursuing such whimsical endeavors. |
|
さっそくで失礼とは思いますが、 アセルス様のために 御召し物を賜りたく存じます。 |
I apologize for my haste in asking, but might you spare some clothing for Lady Asellus? |
|
うむ。 やはり、この方が良いな。 人間どもなどは裸の方を 好むようだが、理解に苦しむな。 さて、事情をうかがおうか？ 妖魔の時はゆっくりと流れる。 アセルス殿の時は 激流の様に流れておる。 なかなか楽しめそうだな。 |
Hmm. That's much better. It's difficult for me to understand why humans prefer to be naked. Well, let's hear about your circumstances, shall we? Time passes slowly for mystics. For Asellus, time flows as a raging river. Looks enjoyable. |
| 楽しくなんかない！ | There's enjoyable fun about it! |
|
白薔薇姫、 何か望みはあるか？ |
Princess White Rose, is there anything you desire? |
|
はい。 どこか別のリージョンへ 送って頂きたいと思います。 |
Yes. I want to be sent to another region. |
|
よかろう。 では、さらばだ。 |
Very well. Goodbye, then. |
Presumably musing once they've gone:
|
オルロワージュめ、 己の血によって 破滅するやも知れん‥‥ |
Orlouge, you may destroy with your blood.... |
0x25F | Virgil Palace, maze over spiked floor
| 邪魔よ。 | It's evil. |
0x31A | MagicKingdom (destroyed), room south of room with Hell entrance
|
なぜ戦う？ これでは連中の意図した通りだ。 いいのか？ |
Why fight? This path is simply following the will of the people. Are you happy with that? |
|
俺は、俺の意志で戦う。 キングダムの道具として働くんじゃない。 この封印の向こうにいる敵を叩きのめして、すべてを終わらせる！ |
I fight with my own will. I won't function as a tool of the kingdom. I'll knock down the enemies on the other side of this seal and finish them all! |
An unused moment of self-reflection for Blue/Rouge?
0x31D | MagicKingdom, room with 'MORI' angel statue, and slime that warps you, in a bubble
|
ここから先は帰れないかも（多分） 準備はよくって？ ・覚悟完了 ・ぼくやっぱりかえる |
We might not be able to turn back beyond this point (Maybe) Is your equipment alright? ・I'm ready ・I've gotta change |
0x338 | Kyo, Mind Magic shop
|
・邪術を捨てない。 ・邪術を捨てる |
・Don't discard Evil Magic ・Discard Evil Magic |
Presumably this was to be used if the player took Zozma to Kyo and let him learn Mind Magic, requiring him to give up the opposing Evil Magic he knows.
In conclusion: the major disappointment is that although his sprite was made for the title screen, we don't get to see any apparent remnants of Fuse's quest, the eighth story that might have tied up some loose ends. It's also a shade irksome that we see a little more character development for Lute, for whom it's so sorely lacking, though there's still no clear sign that his quest was ever intended to be much more involved than it ended up.
On the positive side, however, we get a pretty good picture of what Asellus's quest might have looked like, though it's still a fragmented one. Princess Kurenai's existence in the game turns out to have a point, and the actions of Zozma, Ciato and Rastaban become more explicable. Indeed, this perhaps stands out more than Asellus's own character development, except in the scene with Dr. Nusakan: the politics of the Chateau Aiguille ended up pretty sketchy in the final game, and it now turns out that this aspect of the storyline might have developed rather more smoothly.
