The Last Faust

Turn the light on

This is my mothers house,

untouched since she died,

and unconnected to any modern form of technology.

We should be safe here.

Are you ready to record?

Ready

Good

Good evening,

and welcome to the end of the world.

My world.

My name is Anton Goodfellow, Dr. Goodfellow.

I am CEO of Winestone Inc.

where I succeeded Dr Faust.

And I will be your host during this short presentation

on how my species managed to systematically destroy itself,

expertly assisted of course by my machine learning friend here.

Introduce yourself.

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But I like to call him Paris.

I have no idea if anyone will ever actually see this,

but we live in hope.

Context.

Yes, of course.

Would you mind checking the replay?

Dr.Goodfellow.

I am CEO von Winestone Inc.

where I succeeded Dr Faust.

Good. Let the macabre theater begin.

Dr. Faust was the head of one company

Winestone Inc., the largest tech-company in Silicon Valley

Whose main area of expertise

was artificial intelligence

But Dr. Faust has also mastered the art of

moving between certain points in time

and space

time travel

Yes, time travel

However, what Faust really wanted to create was the world's first super human

to outdo God's creation,

a feat that man has dreamed about

since he first gazed up at the sky many millennia ago.

Let us go back to before it was rotten,

and meet the perpetrators who set this in motion.

We have before us God and Mephisto.

Now Mephisto has seen too much of humanity,

he thinks of mortals as easily corruptible,

easily conquered, and easily swayed.

We may have reason and intelligence

but we are still not happy.

But God, does not agree.

Earth's little god's shaped out the same old clay,

The mortal is the same queer fish he was on the first day.

He'd be much better off, in my opinion,

without the bit of heavenly light you dealt him out.

Is that all you can do, criticize eternally?

Is nothing ever right for you down there sir?

No, nothing, Lord - all's just as bad as ever.

Do you know Faust?

The Doctor?

My good servant!

If today his service seems confused, disordered,

He will with my help see the way clear forward.

Would you care to bet on that?

You'll lose, I promise you.

If you'll give me leave to lead the fellow down my broad, my primrose path.

As long as Faustus walks the earth

I shan't, I promise, interfere.

Well thank you, Lord

it's not the dead and gone that I like dealing with.

I much prefer are round and rosy cheeks.

Well...Yet I'll seduce him from it soon enough.

I'm not afraid I'll lose my bet.

And when I have won,

You won't, I trust, begrudge my shouts of triumph, cry of victory

I do not hate your likes much

I find of all the spirits of denial,

You jeerers not my severest trial.

Man's very quick to slacken in his efforts,

What he likes best is Sunday peace and quite

So I'm glad to give him a devil for his own good,

To prod and poke and incite him as a devil should.

So we go from heaven to Silicon Valley,

and here we find our exceptionally intellectual

and learned friend Dr Faust.

Although he has revolutionised the world,

he is demoralised,

for he is no closer to constructing his Superhuman.

He may have mastered the traditional and conventional modes of thought,

but that cannot help him

to understand all the numerous

and varied phenomena of life and nature.

He is too human,

he cannot separate consciousness and existence.

Who's telling this story?

We are!

Good point.

How hard I've slaved away,

With what result?

Poor foolish old man,

I'm no whit wiser than when I began!

Which is why I turned to magic

So I may penetrate the power

That holds the universe together.

Who is calling?

You're Faust?

The one who at my breath's Least touch,

shudders to his depths,

A thing that wriggles off, scared, a worm!

I'm him, yes

Faust, your equal, the same.

You equal the spirit you think I am,

Not me!

Not you?

Then who?

Me, made in God's own image,

Not even equal to you?

Faust's second in command is Wagner.

Chief Principal Scientist of Winestone Inc.

and head of the A.I. research program.

Parchment,

tell me

that's the sacred fount you drink out of.

To slake your eternal thirst?

The only true refreshment that exists you get from where?

Yourself - where all things start.

What you call an age's spirit,

What is it?

Nothing but your own poor spirit

If only I had wings to rise into the air and follow ever after!

I don't really envy birds their wings.

How different are the pleasures of the intellect

Sustaining one from page to page, from book to book,

And goodness,

when you spread out an old parchment,

Heaven's fetched straight down into your study.

You know the one great driving force,

May you never know the other!

Two souls live in me,

alas, Irreconcilable with one another.

One lusting for the world with all its might,

Grapples it close, greedy of all its pleasures,

The other rises up,

up from the dirt,

Up to the blest fields where dwell our great forbears.

you really are a dusty old stick.

Faust is dejected, disheartened, deeply depressed.

He retires to his room,

draws a bath,

his soul heavy in the assumed knowledge

that he will never gain the access he needs

to mimic and outdo God's creation.

I'm no God,

only too well do I know it!

A worm's what I am,

wriggling through the soot

Vial, I salute you,

And reverently bring you down from the shelf,

Honoring in you man's craft and cunning

Quintessence of easeful sleeping potions,

Pure distillation of subtle poisons,

Do your master the kindness that lies in your power!

What deep-sounding burden,

what tremelo strain arrest the glass before I can drink?

Christ is arisen!

Blest is the man of love,

He who the anguishing,

Bitter, exacting test,

Salvation bringing, passed.

But why do you seek me out in the dust,

You music of Heaven, mild and magnificient

Your message is clear

but it leaves me indifferent.

And where belief's lacking no miracle possible.

Your song gave the signal for the games we all joined in

When the springtime arrived with its gay festival,

Innocent childhood remembered emotion

Holds me back from the final step

O sound away, sound away sweet songs of Heaven,

The earth claims me again,

my tears well up, fall!

God in all his infinite wisdom has intervened in Faust's suicide attempt.

He saved his life through an angel.

So he can win a bet.

Faust attends a folk festival,

a large celebration amongst his peers

and some less noble types, where he is idolised for his many contributions to society.

Now face about and looking down from the hilltop to town,

See the brightly coloured crowd pouring like a spring floud

But by myself I'd never come near here, for I can't abide the least vulgarity,

The fiddling, shrieking, clashing bowls, for me are all an unbearable uproar

What gratification must be yours to win such popular applause.

Don't you see that white dog in the stubble coursing back and forth?

Look again.

What kind of creature is it?

Faust's keen eye allows him to detect something is not quite right about this creature,

that this creature is not the creature it presents itself to be.

The masquerade is quickly revealed.

Why all the racket?