“As the world melts, I freeze.”
It’s April 11th, the International Day of Human Space Flight, and Hypergryph released a Friston-3 image song called “In Due Time.” I heard it this morning and haven’t been able to stop thinking about it.
There’s some arguable spoilers in the song itself, but frankly, it’s just an incredibly good song, with a unique and experimental style. I’ve seen people who don’t even play Arknights going “wow this is good” about its self-contained narrative and impeccable vibes. Give it a listen here:
As for less-arguable spoilers, In this essay I will be discussing core story elements of significant parts of Arknights, including but not limited to Lone Trail, the Masses’ Travels, the later Main Theme episodes (particularly 15), as well as plenty of deep lore.
If you are not up to date and don’t want spoilers, skip this post.
“In Due Time” itself is a spoken word song paired with an arrangement of Harry Dacre’s 1882 classic “Daisy Bell.” most famous for being the first song ‘sung’ by a computer, programmed by Bell Labs employees John Kelly and Carol Lochbaum on the IBM 704 using vocoder synthesization in 1961 (yes, the 704, not the 7094 as often claimed; the IBM 7094 came out in late 1962 after all), and for its use in the 1968 scifi epic 2001: A Space Odyssey as HAL9000’s last words.
We can dig as deep into the meaning of this artistic choice as we like, but I feel like the main reasons they chose "Daisy Bell" are:
Friston-3 is an AI who’s represented as a glowing red light, the same as HAL9000, and the song is pretty well-understood as representative of computer voices and computer minds at this point
Friston's characterization is immensely informed by his inability to accept his daughter's marriage, and "Daisy Bell" is a song about a marriage proposal. It fits perfectly, it's great.
(Tangentially, my favorite vocaloid song is this trio of an emulated 704 Vocoder, 7094 speech synth, and Cyber diva singing Daisy Bell.)
Anyway, the song features a voiceover by Trevor Friston, one of the members of Oracle and Priestess’s ‘let’s try to avert the apocalypse’ research team. If you’re unfamiliar with him, I’ll go over a brief summary just so we’re on the same page you’re about to become familiar with him. I’m leaving that strikethroughed fragment as a monument to my hubris.
Who are the precursors?
The precursors (or “predecessors,” as Aegir calls them) are spacefaring humans from tens of thousands of years ago who possessed extremely advanced technology and created many relics and facilities on Terra. There’s an implication in several places that they’re not a monoculture (most notably the “Friston-P” relic in IS4, where it mentions the northern stargate is from “another predecessor civilization”), and they also aren’t the only alien life around. The Doctor is one of them; Kal’tsit was created by the Doctor and Priestess (see my essay on Episode 15 for more details). They were wiped out by a mysterious calamity that turned off stars, destroyed worlds, and ended the majority of their civilization and those in contact with them.
Who is Friston?
Trevor Friston is one of Oracle (the Doctor)’s colleagues in their efforts to avert the end. His project was the preservation of life. About thirteen thousand years ago, they performed a destructive brain upload on him so that he could act as the custodian of a stasis facility. That giant red eye is him, overlooking innumerable high-tech coffins:
His hope was that at some point someone would solve the end of all things and he could wake everyone up. That did not go as planned. Before Lone Trail, Kristen Wright found a signal from his facility and followed it down into the depths beneath Columbia, met him, and after their conversations, Friston decided to abandon his previous objective and go all-in on supporting her, as most of the entombed precursors were already dead. The energy used to maintain his stasis facility would be rerouted into Kristen’s project to punch a hole in the sky.
Anyway, various things happened. The Rhine Labs arc happened, the Main Theme happened, and in November 1099, Kristen did in fact punch a hole in the sky, and after meeting Kal’tsit and the Doctor, Fristen requested that they wipe his database, so he would no longer suffer from the memories of thirteen thousand years of solitude. They did, but then Ho’olheyak came in after them, downloaded Friston into her staff, and used him as a bargaining chip to get Rhodes Island to protect her from Columbia’s government.
That’s how we got him at Rhodes Island.
(Seven robots and a streamer, which is basically the same thing as a robot.)
Friston-3
Rhodes Island has a bunch of robots onboard. All of them have a little blurb on their operator selection (ironically, not one visible for those who’ve already recruited them) that states “they know that they’re a robot.”
The self-awareness and sapience of the RI operations platforms is something that we’ve been aware of the whole time due to these descriptive blurbs, but in-setting, people don’t know that. Closure treats them as basically any other machine, just fancy chatterbots that are semi-autonomous. Sometimes operators comment that it’s almost like they’re real people. And, in fairness to Closure, these robots aren’t meant to be sapient, they’re the equivalents of the Boston Dynamics quadruped. But universally, the robots at Rhodes Island are sapient beings.
For years, I tended to think of this as a side-effect of being plugged into PRTS, who is, in spite of her objections, a self-aware, sapient being. Ep15 confirmed that PRTS is in fact the basis for the robots, and PRTS being alive was confirmed by Mark Max (president of Columbia and #1 worst bird in the setting), who says in CW-ST-3 that she’s the same kind of being as him, albeit implicitly formed from Priestess’s brain upload instead of Friston’s:
"President": Of course... this is a personal meeting. Where's my father? Doctor: Father...? "President": You're holding onto his ashes, the remnants of his soul. Let me... touch him. I never got to meet him, but he is the last thing in this world that has any relation to me. There's also PRTS–your PRTS. We come from the same roots... but now we're drifting apart. I had some words for him. Kal'tsit: He's gone. Trevor Friston is dead.
I really like the framing here in the context of Episode 15; Priestess is shown to think of her children as things, to be used or discarded as she needs, property of their parents. Her subversion of PRTS into a weapon in Episode 15 is all the more tragic in this context. Super fucked up! She did to PRTS what she does to Kal’tsit. They aren’t people to her. Just things.
Anyway, Friston-3. This guy. He’s got a polaroid camera and a bunch of expressions he can make:
“Hello there, I am Friston. That's right, just "Friston," not "Friston-3" or whatever. I am not a replica, and very much less a reproduction of a replica. I hope you understand.”
Friston, the robot on Rhodes Island currently housing the computer data of Trevor Friston’s brain upload, the third instanced copy of Trevor Friston. He is, to him, just Friston. So are the other ones, the flesh body and the giant glowing eye in the depths. They’re all Friston.
And, as he is Friston, he’s a human being.
Closure treats him a little better than the other robots, but knows that he can definitely push back on modifications if she’s too bothersome. He spends time talking to Kal’tsit behind closed doors. The broader group of Rhodes Island staff don’t realize he’s different from the other robots (on account of the secrecy of everything related to the precursors), but they comment that he seems like a more deep personality than them. His little select blurb in the inventory is “He doesn't think of himself as a robot.”
"THRM-EX is super passionate, while big brother Castle-3 has the wisdom of experience, and Lancet-2 is like a timid yet earnest girl who often shoots herself in the wheel... Chiave aside, we all know it's just for appearance, but Friston-3 really, really seems like a human, for real!" —Windflit "Lancet-2 and the others have become frequent visitors to the Lutra Workshop after Friston-3 showed up. Why? He keeps earnestly trying to teach the other robots just how advanced true AI has gotten, how to consider different prospects, what societal opinions are, and prodding them to reflect on their own existence with stuff like 'Instrumentalism' and 'what consciousness means'... he's already overloaded Lancet-2's cognitive module three times by now!" —Mayer
He’s taken the other robots under his wing, too. It’s framed for comedy in his files, but they’re nonetheless people he cares about, as a fellow ‘robot.’
He also has an incredible 123 Rhodes Island entry. I love the Doctor just wordlessly putting on the bunny headband. Incredible stuff.
Lone Trail came out in November of 2023 (May for CN), Friston-3 was added to the game with Pinch-Out Experimental Operation three weeks later. Episode 15 came out in September of 2025 (or April for CN). For two years, Friston’s story was in (heh) stasis, with only these little comedy bits to go off of.
And then we got Episode 15.
I swear I’m going somewhere with this
Main Theme Episode 15: Dissociative Recombination, set a year and a half after Lone Trail, focuses on one extremely bad day aboard the Rhodes Island landship. Priestess is returning, and she’s using PRTS to do it. The company’s heads and elites have been, in various ways, preparing for this since Londinium (early October 1098, to be exact, about a year before Friston joined the landship. He’s kinda in the middle of that timeline).
A big deal is made in this episode of combating PRTS and the fact that its codebase is the foundation for most of RI’s computers…
Friston-3: Closure, I have the right to refuse the data module inspections and upgrades you're proposing. I will not be treated like THRM-EX and Lancet-2. You know very well that I am different from my 'colleagues'. Closure: Haha. Relax. I'm not trying to trick you into a module upgrade this time. Friston-3: Then please restore the power supply to my mobility module. Restricting a respected scholar's personal freedom is really unbecoming behavior. Take a look at the expression doodle on my faceplate. It indicates how I feel: ‘Angry'. Closure: This won't take too much time. Justice Knight is already lined up waiting at the entrance. Mr. Friston, I guarantee this maintenance will be quick. Closure: Alright. There we are. Friston-3: You've blocked me from accessing PRTS data? Closure: Blocked you? No. I just disconnected you from PRTS. To be more precise, I physically removed your reception module. (It looks like that went well enough. I thought there would be some irreparable failures.) Friston-3: You just did that, without any sort of planning?! Closure: Haha. Well, how do you feel now, Mr. Friston? Friston-3: I recorded the entire experiment. You violated protocol, and I'll be discussing your negligence with Kal'tsit shortly. Not to mention your reckless disregard for my life. She'll hear about that too. Closure: Mr. Friston, please do one more self-check and to be certain you're not getting any transmissions from PRTS. Friston-3: ...? You should just be thankful nothing went wrong. I checked, and I indeed cannot connect to PRTS any longer. Ugh... it's like I have blurred vision. It's a very subtle feeling, and I don't like it one bit. Closure: Perfect! Friston-3: —? Closure: Now we can talk, Mr. Friston. If I wanted to disconnect all the retrofitted operation platforms from PRTS, would there be a safer way to do that? Friston-3: I refuse to speculate about such dangerous work. That would be no different than killing all of my precious 'colleagues'. Closure: What if... we had no other choice? Friston-3: Please tell me what might cause you to draw such a conclusion. Have you discovered something?
… and the RI robots, being built on PRTS as a foundation, are in that line of fire. Friston has a subplot in this chapter of wrangling these robots, and it’s… really good, honestly. It’s not a lot, but there’s two big scenes for it, the first where, as Originium begins to truly go haywire in the middle of the chapter, he ‘falls asleep’ and ‘dreams’ of his old life, a memory seared into his soul, recalled through Originium. If you want to read it in full, you can go to 15-11 Before at the Distant Home’s Guide VN reader, but I’m also going to transcribe it.
(The scene is over a desert dune background. All italics are in-game narration, not my own words.) Friston does not understand why his daughter chose this as their meeting place. Trevor Friston: ...... This is no vacation spot. Too much sand in one's shoes. I should take a break. He sits on a dune and removes his shoes, only for the wind to send the sand he pours out into his face. Trevor Friston: *cough* *cough*... This is most undignified—why am I in full dress? ...... Why did she ask me to come here? There is no answer on the radio. He wanders aimlessly on the yellow sands, calling his daughter's name. No one answers until night has fallen. (The background switches to the same desert at night. The sound of people indistinctly talking plays.) Trevor Friston: ...A party? He follows the sound to find the camp on the dunes in the distance, filled with lights and ribbons. He hears his daughter's familiar laughter, and runs towards her in joy. ‘Daughter’: You made it to my wedding, dad! Friston almost cries at the sight of the golden hair. Trevor Friston: I've been looking for you for so long, my sunshine. Is this your wedding? ‘Daughter’: Of course. The ceremony is about to start. Let's go. We'll walk the red carpet, arm in arm. Give me your blessings, dad. Friston tries to take her arm, but he can not reach it. ‘Daughter’: Will you not give me your blessing? Trevor Friston: No... no, that’s not what I meant... I—
(The background changes to Friston’s stasis tomb with a booming sound.) Trevor Friston: (Unknown Language) I— Disjointed Voice: Will you not give me your blessing? Trevor Friston: (Unknown Language) ...Sunshine? Kristen: You did not want us to see the truth of the stars? Trevor Friston: (Unknown language) ...You're not my sunshine. Have I left home? I remember this bunker—‘The preservation room.’ Kristen: You will not answer any more of my questions? Trevor Friston: (Unknown language) Kristen. You're Kristen… I've heard of you. No, I've seen you... no. How did I know you? I've never known you— (The background cuts to black. The name on the VN segment shifts several times in the next few lines) Trevor Friston: (Unknown language) Who the devil turned off the light?! Friston: (Unknown language) Damn it! Why have you imprisoned me here? Friston-3: Closure! Is this another one of your damned jokes? (And the background switches back to a generic RI room.) Friston realizes that he is buried in the 'photos' that fill the room. A volume of 'A Complete Bestiary of Terra' covers his camera module. Are they even photos? He has never visited the places in them, nor could he ever. There are only fragmented images on the countless photos. Sand dune, bonfire, camp, golden hair, and the preservation room where the sun does not shine. Friston-3: A dream...? Friston dreamed. Friston-3 dreamed. He printed his own dream. Friston-3: It should not be possible for me to dream. Did Closure upload a new firmware without telling me? (We cut to an engineering workshop background.) Closure: I don't have time to argue with you right now, Mr. Friston! I guarantee you in the strongest possible terms that I have not uploaded any firmware that could have caused you to dream. The PRTS anomalies are getting out of control. It will take time to deploy the backup command system. All the work has to be assigned manually. I wish I had six or seven pairs of eyes! We've completely lost contact with some areas and we have no idea what's going on— Friston-3: Relax, Closure. I'm not trying to argue with you. I just want to make sure that all possibilities for my unusual malfunctions are accounted for. We've eliminated firmware bugs and hardware malfunctions as possibilities. Then...... Closure: What is it? Friston-3: Answer me, Closure... this is important… What is the energy source that powers my core? Closure: Huh? Originium, of course. Friston-3: Are the majority of your retrofitted operation platforms Originium-powered? Closure: ...Your tone is starting to scare me, Mr. Friston. What are you trying to say? Friston-3: You're a genius, Closure. Closure: Huh? Friston-3: Excellent thinking, cutting off the link between the retrofitted operation platforms and PRTS. But that's not enough, not by a long shot.
So basically, the Originium power cores of the robots are still allowing them to be connected to PRTS, and Friston values the Operation Platforms (the robots with personalities, not just drones controlled by PRTS) too much to let them just get taken over.
As the landship starts to go haywire and its drones begin to attack everyone indiscriminately, Friston seeks out the other robots in the chaos. People get separated, combats happen, and after a couple more story segments, we find ourselves with Blaze and Rosmontis being attacked by the robots:
Blaze scratches her head and looks at Rosmontis helplessly. Blaze: How do we handle this, kitten? Rosmontis: I... I'm not sure. The corrupted Operation Platforms approach the two Elite Operators. Abnormal Justice Knight: ...... Abnormal THRM-EX: ...... Abnormal Castle-3: ...... Abnormal Lancet-2: ...... Rosmontis: The buggies are still preparing to attack us. I don't want to harm them. Blaze: Why did they suddenly lose control when we approached this area—Wait, Friston-3! Stop! (Friston-3 screeches to a halt in front of them.) Friston-3: No, I'm not going to ram you or breathe fire at you like the kids. I'm perfectly normal. Now, let me through. Time is short, and my patience even shorter.
I really like this bit at the very end of 15-13. Not just because it’s a fun interaction (the mental image of Rosmontis and Blaze, specialists in destruction alike, awkwardly trying to handle these rogue golf cart-sized robots without hurting them is very entertaining), but because of Friston calling the other robots “the kids.”
The kids.
Not his ‘colleagues’, not ‘the robots;’ in this moment of tension, we hear what he really thinks of them. As children, children in his care, even. Put a pin in this, because I really need to show you the next scene in order to actually talk about it. You can read it in VN form over at Distant Home’s Guide again if you want (navigate to 15-14 Before) or on the gg wiki, but I’m also transcribing it here (the entire scene is there, but split into multiple indent blocks because Tumblr hated it all being in one):
Playlist 'Golden Oldies' selected… Resuming from previous playback— —My love♪ Blows the blossoms on the hills—♪ Blaze: ...?! Now's not the time for karaoke, Friston-3! Friston-3: You think I wanted to do that?! My playback module is customized, and I don't have the remote—Damn you, Closure! Blaze! Watch out for Justice Knight! Which damnable subdirectory did Closure put my code synchronization function in?! —Gonna give you my tears♪ Save my precious—♪ Blaze: Kitten, on my six. Justice Knight has me in her sights— Rosmontis: Got it. Whoa, almost hit Justice Knight— (THRM-EX slams into Blaze’s sprite.) Blaze: Ouch! Stop running into me! Abnormal THRM-EX: (Rams with burning heat) Burn, burning—Boom... mmmmmmmmm— —No matter who♪ Whispers of love, one trap one lifetime—♪ Blaze: Alright, THRM-EX! Let's see who burns brighter! Rosmontis: Hey, don't hurt the buggies— Blaze: I know! I got this. Abnormal Castle-3: Protect, protect, friends— Abnormal Lancet-2: You need healing, Friston-3. Friston-3: I guess I should thank Closure for fitting that energy barrier generator— —Here's my most beloved♪ You shine in my tears—♪ Blaze: Friston-3! How long do you need? Friston-3: The synchronization module is ready, but I can't jump across this Originium. Rosmontis: I'll make a path for you. Now! Friston-3 accelerates up the ramp and takes flight. As he spins in mid-air, he can not help but throw a photo out. Friston-3: (Man, it's been so long... so long since I moved like this. That synchronized transmission system that you boasted about had better work, Closure...) Friston-3: Guide these crazy carts into position and immobilize them. I'll fix them! —A gift to you♪ This love in my heart—♪ Friston-3: I have a connection! (... and we cut back to the desert from earlier, Friston’s dream.) The song continues to echo in the empty desert. —A gift to you♪ This love in my heart—♪ Trevor Friston: ...... There is no question that the playback module has malfunctioned, playing Closure's favorite ballads over and over, as though this scene were supposed to be some tear-jerker. But what he is actually doing is sharing the dream of inevitable parting with a few buggies that do not even have minds of their own, sharing his deepest memories as a human. Trevor Friston would have no shortage of profanities to spew, if he could spew them.
Lancet-2: What's this place...? I thought we were trapped in a... in a... uh… I don't remember anything— Justice Knight: Beep beep! Anomalous target detected! Who are you?! Trevor Friston: Use your brains, whatever they're made of! Closure says you're supposed to be smart! Castle-3: That voice, that tone... y-you're Friston-3! But Friston-3 isn't as tall as you are. THRM-EX: No, he is Friston-3! I feel a familiar warmth from him— Warmth... how come I can't feel my own warmth anymore— Trevor Friston: Ugh, this is such a headache. (Friston changes from an unseen human shape to his buggy sprite.) Friston-3: Maybe this will make you feel better. Lancet-2: ...... What is this place? Friston-3: My dream. A dream that was a surprise to me too. Now shut up and listen. Something is wrong with PRTS. I have a pretty good idea of what's going on. Someone made your cognitive modules go haywire, and you were wreaking havoc all over the place. I had no choice but to put a stop to it. Justice Knight: Beep beep. Justice Knight does not understand. Friston-3: ...... Basically, I'm rewriting your bottom-layer code with my core code. I'll ensure that your memory modules remain intact, of course. This will take some time. In order to make sure that you stay put during this time, I had to connect your cognitive modules to mine. The side effect is... *expletive from an unknown language* I share my dreams involuntarily. Lancet-2: What is going on, Friston-3? Friston-3: A friend of mine is waking up from a long slumber. Lancet-2: ...... THRM-EX: ...... Castle-3: ...... Friston-3: Stop thinking. It'll overload your brains. What you need to do is walk with me before things come to a close. The gathering is about to begin... (The background changes to the desert at night; implicitly, they have come with him to the party. Firework sounds and cheers play.) A blonde dances joyfully in the camp filled with lights and ribbons. THRM-EX: It is a party! Friston-3: No... a wedding. My daughter's wedding. Lancet-2: Are we not going to join, Friston-3? Friston-3: We'll watch from here. I don't want to go there, because it means I'll once again— Lancet-2: Are you sad? Friston-3: ...You can tell? Lancet-2: Of course! Are we not the same? Castle-3: You said someone made our cognitive modules go haywire. Why did you help us?
Friston-3: No particularly special reason. Like Lancet-2 said, we're the same... at least we are now, on Rhodes Island. Life on this ship is peaceful. I won't say I like it, but compared to that dream without an end, those unrealized futures, it's not as… It's not as bad. (People cheer.) Trevor Friston can hear the familiar laughter of his daughter. A wedding that he must miss, a promise that he must break. Perhaps, if he did not go any closer, he would not have to watch her walk away... Friston-3: ...Code overwrite complete. Let's go home. He does not wish to stay there, not even for a moment longer. (We return to a damaged Rhodes Island background.) Lancet-2: ...?! What happened to Rhodes Island? Blaze: Friston-3? Are they all back to normal? Friston-3: For now. I rewrote the sections of their code associated with PRTS, ensuring their basic operation with my own core code. Blaze: Great. Now we can go and help Misery's team, kitten. Rosmontis: Where are you going next, Friston-3? Friston-3: I'll have a meeting with the kids, now that they've woken up. There should be something that we can help with. I'll talk to Closure. I've got a score to settle with her anyway. (We shift scene to Closure and Amiya with the sound of comms buzzing.) Closure: Looks like the buggies are back to normal for now, Amiya. Amiya: What about Mr. Friston? Closure: Well, he seems a little pissed at me... other than that, everything looks alright. Great idea, rewriting PRTS-associated code with his own. Would have been a lot of trouble otherwise. Amiya: Are all our PRTS permissions gone? Closure: I'm afraid so. PRTS is actively blocking all of our access. All of its operations take place in a black box now. Kal'tsit is fighting to take control, but I'm not sure how long she can keep it up.
Friston’s identity as a father is important to him. This much is obvious, it shows up here, it shows up in his image song. But I think a deeper element is that his identity is not just “a father,” but a failed father.
As a scientist, his goals were to save civilization, but all he did was watch as those younger than him died, living on as the Preserver, an eternal watcher.
As a ‘precursor,’ he wanted to share the knowledge of his society with Kristen, but ultimately couldn’t really do much beyond help her go to her death in the sky.
And as a father… as a father, he watched his daughter leave him behind. Implicitly, he refused to bless her wedding. At a time where nothing else could matter, at the end of all things, his daughter chose to give that time meaning in this way, and he didn’t support her.
The repeated cutting away earlier, the mention of not wanting to watch his daughter “walk away” again. Even the view of this moment in the music video:
There he is, in the back. Everyone’s happy, everyone’s celebrating, but not him.
He did not bless this marriage.
And his refusal to do so haunts him. For the rest of his life as a man, for the entirety of his life as a computer system running the stasis facility.
I think it’s fascinating that, in the song… well, look at the lyrics that play over this specific screen:
I will miss them dearly. I can feel it fading. Can you hear my lullaby, my sweet baby girl? Can you hear it beyond the static?
Even in his eternity as the Preserver, he… he misses her. He holds this moment in his mind, in his programming. But he infantilizes her. She’s still not an adult woman who made her own choices. She’s his “sweet baby girl.” And I think that’s fascinating. It tells us so much of why he failed as a father. Why, even if he wasn’t as terrible as many fathers in Arknights, he nonetheless has this last memory of his daughter as him being the party pooper at her wedding.
At a time where literally all that mattered is the meaning they gave to their remaining moments.
A failed father in his first two lives. But not, perhaps, as Friston-3. Not in the present.
Because when push came to shove, when given dreams of memories that he so cherished, visions of a better time by Priestess’s machinations. He still chose to turn away from them, and protect the kids that he’s taken under his wing now. His identity as a failed father pushed him forwards to not fuck it up now, not this time.
If we extend the metaphor a bit, if we recall the way Mark Max talked about being Friston’s son, and then look at Episode 15…
Friston, by replacing their underpinning codebanks with his own, has taken them under his wing, become their ‘father’ as literally as possible in the context given. What is an AI individual based on another’s code? According to Mark Max, that’s a child of the original one.
A metaphorical adoption happened here, and I think that’s neat.
Okay now that that’s all said we can talk about the song
I swear to god when I started this it was meant to be short. Let’s talk about the song, okay? The song! The amazing song that made me write those 17 pages so I could write the next… I dunno, three? Let’s gamble and say three. I’ll update y’all when I’m done. [Update: it was five]
Go give it another listen!
First, the lyrics:
Daisy, Daisy, Give me your answer, do I'm half crazy, All for the love of you I, Trevor Friston, having survived the near annihilation of the entire sentient race, do, find that simple solutions are often the best. Complex technology, simple solutions. I willingly do hereby commit myself to this AI form. Its the only thing I can do to preserve them. In due time. In due time. As the world melts, I freeze. When the lights are out, Will you remember me? Trevor Friston—that's still me. I think. I truly hope they hear this. The signals. Countless millenia—the signals—is there anyone out there? Is there anyone listening? The barrier must be restored, but I'm losing track—of time. Preparing to send signal in 5, 4, 3…. In due time. In due time. As the world melts, I freeze. When the lights are out, Will you remember me? Hall of Stasis. She's always been here, with me, a part of my programming. My dear sweet daughter, what is the cost of stasis—are the hopes and dreams I once had for you still a part of the fabric of this world? And now with you, Kristen, most determined and ambitious in nature, have earned the key to my endless knowledge of the observable universe. Amidst days of shared experience and postulation, it is of my utmost certain belief that you are the new generation! Humanities [sic] mission is part of the fabric of my research, and it falls on me, on pen and paper, computations, graphics, theories and deductions—emotion bearing little to no consequence—missing them, feeling that loss, can not be a devastation I will entertain until I reach a firm conclusion. For a better future, I shall await a solution to this problem. The potential outcome is worthy of this sacrifice. My sacrifice. And thus, with sound mind and heart, shall allow myself a moment—frozen, stasis, embedded, transferred—a death, or an awakening, yet to be categorized. I will miss them dearly. I can feel it fading. Can you hear my lullaby, my sweet baby girl? Can you hear it beyond the static? As the world melts, I reach out. And stasis thus becomes temporary. I can tuck away the hurt. In due time. In due time. When the lights are out, Will you remember me?
“In Due Time” is a spoken word song about a man who sacrificed everything for his children, and doubts and regrets his choice. But when taken as a whole with the rest of his characterization, it’s also a song about a man who abandoned the child he professed to love, in order to seek something greater.
I think that the song’s back and forth between yearning uncertainty and an almost-haughty, arrogant hope is representative of this. Friston froze himself in time, for a reason, for a purpose. A great purpose, one he believes in. Even as the world decays, even as he’s left alone, he holds to that purpose. In due time it will pay off. In due time.
But, of course, we know he doesn’t stick to it. After thirteen thousand years, enough was enough. He met Kristen Wright. He likely projected his daughter onto her, to a degree—I mean, in CW-ST-3, Ho'olheyak comments that Friston's daughter and Kristen look similar, but my god, now that we've seen her:
Even the way Kristen wears her ears on the side of her head is reminiscent of her hair.
And so, he decides to throw in with Kristen, abandoning his mission. Giving into regret, perhaps, or maybe realizing that his original ideal was just not feasible. Whatever it is, he decided to spend everything on her goal.
Some other interesting parts of the song are the verse where he’s sending the signal, and the very ending with the inversion of the chorus.
Trevor Friston—that's still me. I think. I truly hope they hear this. The signals. Countless millenia—the signals—is there anyone out there? Is there anyone listening? The barrier must be restored, but I'm losing track—of time. Preparing to send signal in 5, 4, 3….
It's ambiguous when this part would happen in the timeline, but it's notable that he mentions the barrier going down to allow the signal going through. So, either this happened between Kristen blowing a hole in the Starpod (CW-10) and Preserver Friston being erased (CW-ST-3), or he has the ability to remove the barrier. I think the latter is much less likely (if he could, why would he bother with Kristen?), so if we go with the former theory, then… what? What does it mean?
I’m not actually sure.
There’s a lot of ways to interpret it. But regardless of the reason, it seems like it might be Trevor Friston’s final sign-off, a final scream into the void, a final, desperate hand reached into space in the vain hope that someone, anyone was listening. And then he fades, like his voice in the lyrics, before waking up without memory of the eons he spent alone, waking up in a robot body as Friston-3.
Also like, for all I’ve said that I think Friston’s backstory is one of a ‘failed father,’ I do think it’s important to note that, in the end, when he took to his task, his family was there with him.
Talk after Trust Increase 3 My wife, daughter, and the rest of my people are eternally resting in those sarcophagi, and will never wake up again. I've made many decisions, I'm well aware. But all I remember is that final dinner, where everyone bid me farewell, and prayed that the subsequent odyssey would go smoothly...
That’s… the last thing Friston remembers once he woke up as a robot. Everything else was cut out.
I think that’s interesting, because he knows what he went through on an academic level, and considers himself to be the same Trevor Friston that went through it, but… it’s different, right? For him, it was only recently that he said his truly final goodbye.
It’s different.
The ending of the song is different, too. The chorus, “in due time, as the world melts, I freeze. When the lights are out, will you remember me?” shifts to:
As the world melts, I reach out And stasis thus becomes temporary. I can tuck away the hurt. In due time. In due time. When the lights are out, Will you remember me?
I think this is hopeful. I think it’s representative of his capacity to grow and continue to hope, to set aside his regrets, to not live in the past. Because he’s hurting, but he’s not the only one hurting, right? He’s got the kids, he’s got Rhodes Island.
He can tuck away the hurt, for now, in order to stand for what he thinks is right. And in due time, it’ll fade. For now, he has work to do. And maybe, maybe if he sees his family in another life, they'll remember him.
This bit was a bigger bit of my original plan for this essay but uhhhhhh i got sidetracked
I cannot help but mentally compare Friston to another father (another ‘failed father,’ even) in stasis, and another song Hypergryph put out that includes switching tracks of music.
A full unpacking of Patrizion is something for another day, but… I think it’s an interesting comparison.
Both Friston and Patrizion made a choice to freeze themselves in time, even if Friston’s was more literal. But of the two, Patrizion is much less admirable.
Fundamentally, Patrizion’s choice to root himself at one point is entirely built on his unwillingness to grow as a person. He makes an unwarranted, confident assertion that those who leave him behind will return to him, will prove him right in the end, and even as they walk away, refuses to change. He’s “choosing happiness,” and yet, empty.
Friston, in contrast, froze himself as others moved forwards entirely because this was, in his mind, the only way he could help them. His choice was full of doubt, regret, and uncertainty, with no conclusion in sight. And, whether or not he made the right call, whether or not his relationship with his family was mended in the end, he ended up left behind by them all the same because of this choice.
I don’t really have a conclusion to this comparison. I just think it’s interesting that we have two men with similar “chose stasis” narratives and very different tones and themes.
Patrizion sucks! Friston sucks far less. Maybe still sucks.
We don’t know what caused him to not support his daughter, what kind of petty reason might have prompted it. I think it’s profoundly ironic that, for a man who says of his mission, “emotion bearing little to no consequence,” he’s nonetheless defined by a consequence of emotion. The core of his person, the driving force, is that moment.
But in the end, I don’t think it’s important to know.
I hope we never find out.
