49 INT. FIFTH TOWER - INNER SHRINE - NIGHT

Photine and Pilate step into an expansive room, flanked by Warpriests. It is full of bizarre and arcane equipment and machinery - its appearance resembles a nuclear reactor core assembled from Space Age alchemy. The room has no ceiling, simply a dizzyingly tall shaft up to the night sky. The floor is a ring around an abyss, with three evenly-spaced catwalks around a central glass cylinder suspended over the hole. Within the cylinder is a silver sphere, large enough to fit a person inside it. A number of workers in white robes are adjusting the equipment inside sealed glass chambers - these are PONTIFFS, whose duty is to research and engineer the mysteries.

PHOTINE

And this is the heart, where we'll be receiving the Star. If you recall, the vessels we use here--

PILATE

Artificial humans. I've met them, yes. Who engineered them?

PHOTINE

Oh, that was... me.

Pilate blinks, astonished.

PILATE

Personally?

PHOTINE

Well, I drew up a lot of the designs and did a lot of the work, but obviously there was a team working with me for the practical parts...

PILATE

That's impressive. You make a better Magister than I ever did. Back at the First Grand Shrine, we decided to light a big fire and call it a day.

PHOTINE

You're too humble. I was deeply impressed myself when I learnt about your work. Who would have thought to use a chemical process like fire as a Grand Shrine? You're a genius, Lord Pilate.

PILATE

I'm a regular guy. Not a genius, and not "lord" anything.

PHOTINE

That... I don't understand. Why did you leave? You deciphered so many of the mysteries for us. I honestly believe that you're the greatest Magister of all time, and I think most people would agree with me. I can't fathom why you'd want to become an apostate.

Pilate stares at the sphere in the core. There is no expression on his face. He remembers his days in the past, but his feelings are incalculable.

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PILATE

I understood too much. I put together too many pieces.

PHOTINE

What do you mean?

PILATE

Lord Photine. Do you ever think about what it would be like to live after The End?

PHOTINE

Well... it'll be good, won't it?

PILATE

What is "good", Lord Photine? Look at this as an engineer for a moment, rather than as a priest. You can describe the literal effects that this Shrine will have when it activates, can't you?

PHOTINE

You mean when the Gods are born. To save us.

PILATE

And when the Last Stars come, and the Gods are born, and we can't control their actions...

PHOTINE

Humans are flawed. We shouldn't control them. Lord Pilate, the Gods will be good incarnate. The Last Stars will compose their pure, immortal souls, from which good is derived.

PILATE

That's the problem, Lord Photine. Human beings don't have souls. Souls don't exist.

He gestures to the surroundings - the equipment, the Pontiffs, the Shrine.

PILATE

We are literally inventing them. We are creating them, and then blindly handing over our entire species - our entire world - to something that has never existed before now. There is nothing mystical or metaphysical about this. The Hierophants and Defenders are the ones who argue about the traditions and the morals and the spirituality. Magisters deal in the facts. And the fact is that we don't know what this thing is going to choose to do, how it will think, what it will value! There is no equation for "good"!

PHOTINE

(distressed)

I know! I know. I just... know that there are... What else can we do? It's been ten thousand years.

PILATE

You can leave.

PHOTINE

I can't. You can't. The Faith is everywhere. It's the entire world. Everyone believes in us. I believe. I have to trust what I've been taught. I have to trust the generations who were here before me. I don't have a choice. It's all there is. It's too late to just leave. It's been too late since before I was born. Even if we destroy the Shrine, everyone believes in it. They have to. It's their entire world. It's the only hope we've ever had. You can't just give that up. It might be wrong. But I don't have anywhere else to go. So even if I'm wrong, even if it kills me, I have to hope. Even if they're bad, "good" is "whatever they are". I have to dream of the perfect world we were promised. Everyone does. Everyone who came before us did too. It's meaning, Lord Pilate. The only alternative is absurdity.

BEAT. Pilate sighs, shaking his head.

PILATE

Well, you're right about one thing, I suppose. We're past the point of no return. If it's going to happen anyway, I'll make sure you do it right.

He rolls up his sleeves, gesturing for her to lead the way, and the two begin to walk across the edge of the rounded room to inspect some monitors.