The Fourth Sally, or How Trurl Built a Femfatalatron
a machine turned all the way up, and a war fought with babies
NINE LINES
- The Grand SeneschalMy king sends for you. His son is sick with love, and you alone can cure him.
- TrurlMatters of the heart are not my field.
- TrurlEvery dial, all the way up.
- Prince PantagoonAmarandina.
- TrurlEvery dial measured the prince. The trouble was never inside the prince.
- TrurlHe will not stop loving her as long as he lives. So he has to marry her.
- TrurlNot one of their people will be killed. Quite the reverse.
- The EmperorEnough. Tell him the prince may marry my daughter.
- TrurlNobody turns this on again.
HOW IT IS MADE
The device is measurement, and measuring the wrong thing. The femfatalatron is drawn as a temple full of cables, screens, rose petals and perfume, and in front of it stands a glass case of dials: power in megamors, efficiency in percent, and the rapturometer, a tube of mercury. Three knobs sit underneath, an ardor damper, a sigh condenser and a swoon regulator. In the first half of the film the dials are the main picture. Trurl turns every knob up, every needle climbs and presses against its stop, and the prince comes out exactly as he went in. He says one word, the camera goes to its tightest shot on his face, and then the rapturometer is pressed to his forehead and bursts. The second machine is iron and heavier, and it fails the same way.
The input was turned all the way up and the output did not move, because the thing that needed to change was not inside the prince. So Trurl changes the situation instead. In the second half the same kind of dial hangs on the Emperor’s wall as an economy gauge. As babies land and crawl in, it sinks from boom to bust, and when it reaches the bottom the Emperor signs. The babies arrive as soft bundles on small parachutes. They land gently, crawl, and multiply, and nobody is hurt. There are no captions; the only writing on screen is printed on the dials, the way it would be on a real machine.
The sound follows the same plan. The machine has a hum that rises with the needles and a chatter that turns into a rattle when they reach their stops, and the first run ends in breaking glass. The second machine is lower and rougher and ends the same way. The second half is soft: cauldrons, coos from behind a door, cushioned cannon thumps, and a chorus of babble that grows with the count on the gauge. At the end Trurl takes the machine apart, and the hum winds down to nothing. Where a scene has the one line that matters, the camera goes in close and the delivery slows; the other lines stay wide and quick.
The timing file ff.json drives picture and sound together. It holds the start time of every spoken line and every cue. The picture code reads those times, and build_sound.py makes all the non-voice sound with numpy and scipy. The voices are Kokoro, a different one for each character.
AFTER THE OTHER FILMS
Trurl’s Prescription is about a thing that cannot be pushed and can only be processed. This film turns that around: the machine pushes as hard as it can, and the gauges prove how hard, but the reading is about the push, not about the prince. The Mischief of King Balerion moves a mind from body to body. Here nothing in the prince moves at all, and what moves is the world around him.
FOR THE BENCH
Write an object with three numbers, power, efficiency and rapture, and draw each one as a needle on a dial. Add a love field that none of the dials read. Write turnUp() so that it raises every dial to its maximum, and check whether love changed. Then write a second object, a kingdom with an economy number and a list of babies; each frame, add babies and lower the economy by the length of the list. Which variable does the plot actually depend on, and which function is the only one that can reach it? What would a dial for love have to be connected to?
Narration and dialogue paraphrase Stanisław Lem, “The Fourth Sally, or How Trurl Built a Femfatalatron to Save Prince Pantagoon from the Pangs of Love, and How Later He Resorted to a Cannonade of Babies,” The Cyberiad. The titles, the part names and the countdown are reworded or invented. Download the film.
THE SCRIPT
THE KNOCK
Narrator. One night, long after Trurl had gone to bed, somebody hammered on his door hard enough to shake it loose.
Narrator. He drew the bolts, half asleep. A ship shaped like an enormous pyramid had landed on his front lawn.
Narrator. Porters hurried down its ramp with sacks of gifts, and stacked them so fast that the sacks were soon taller than the house.
Narrator. Through a gap in the sacks came a knight of polished armor, with jeweled eyes, swept-back antennas, and a stole of diamonds.
The Grand Seneschal. Do I have the pleasure of addressing Trurl, the celebrated constructor?
Trurl. Yes. Sorry. I was asleep. Come in, come in.
The Grand Seneschal. My king sends for you. His son is sick with love, and you alone can cure him.
THE TITLES
Narrator. Trurl put on a bathrobe. The knight sat down across from him, and his helmet purred like a cat.
The Grand Seneschal. First, a small advance on your reward.
Narrator. He drew his sword, and tapped Trurl on the shoulder once for every title.
The Grand Seneschal. Duke of the Lesser Drizzle. Warden of the Eleven Spoons. Baron Upside, and Baron Downside. Keeper of the Royal Hiccup.
Narrator. Outside, the sacks had climbed past the window, and the room went dim.
Trurl. Matters of the heart are not my field.
The Grand Seneschal. The prince loves Amarandina, the only daughter of the Emperor next door. Our two kingdoms have hated each other for centuries, so her father will refuse. A year has gone by, and the prince is wasting away.
Narrator. Trurl looked out through the gap in the sacks. Rows of soldiers stood on his lawn, perfectly still.
Trurl. Well. If the king wishes it, then naturally.
Narrator. The knight clapped his hands with a clang. Armored retainers carried Trurl aboard, and the ship rose into the sky.
THE TEMPLE
Narrator. In the royal gardens stood the Temple of Contemplation. In three weeks Trurl filled it with cables, glowing screens, rose petals and perfume, and named it the femfatalatron.
Narrator. Whoever stepped inside would feel every charm in the universe at once. On the front, behind glass, were the dials.
Trurl. Power, forty megamors. Efficiency, ninety-six percent. And this is the rapturometer.
Narrator. There was also an ardor damper, a sigh condenser, and a swoon regulator, each with its own knob.
Narrator. Forty elderly peers took four hours to push the prince along the garden path. He kicked and butted them all the way, so they pushed with feather pillows.
Trurl. Every dial, all the way up.
THE FIRST RUN
The machine. Five. Four. Three. Two. One. Begin.
Narrator. The hum rose. Every needle climbed until it pressed against its stop, and stayed there for an hour.
Narrator. Trurl watched and waited. He only made sure nothing went too far, so the prince would not fall for the machine instead.
Narrator. At last the trapdoor opened. Out of a cloud of perfume, across crushed rose petals, the prince stumbled, and fainted.
Prince Pantagoon. Amarandina.
Narrator. Trurl pressed the rapturometer to his forehead. It read one hundred and seven, and then the glass burst, and the mercury ran out, still trembling.
HEAVIER
Narrator. That night some stonemasons crept inside to see how it worked, and switched it on by accident. They came out smoking, and somebody sent for the fire brigade.
Narrator. Next Trurl built a heavier machine, all iron, with bigger parts and bigger dials.
The machine. Five. Four. Three. Two. One. Begin.
Narrator. The needles climbed faster this time, and hit their stops harder.
Prince Pantagoon. Amarandina!
Narrator. Trurl paced his room for miles, read every manual he owned, and threw each one at the wall.
Trurl. Every dial measured the prince. The trouble was never inside the prince.
THE AUDIENCE
Narrator. In the morning he asked to see the king.
Trurl. Your Majesty, I used the strongest methods there are. I could build him an imitation Amarandina, but sooner or later he would hear about the real one.
Trurl. He will not stop loving her as long as he lives. So he has to marry her.
King Protuberon. Impossible. The Emperor will never agree.
Trurl. Not even if he had to? If he were beaten, and begged for peace?
King Protuberon. A war, for my son’s wedding? Two great kingdoms in blood? Out of the question.
Trurl. That is the answer I hoped for. But not every war is the same.
Narrator. Trurl leaned in and whispered his plan, and slowly the king’s face brightened.
King Protuberon. Go and do it, stranger. And good luck to you.
THE FOUNDRY AND THE LABORATORY
Trurl. Not one of their people will be killed. Quite the reverse.
Narrator. The royal foundries began casting huge cannons, and nobody knew what for. They were set all around the planet, disguised as defenses.
Narrator. Trurl lived in the royal laboratory, day and night, over cauldrons that bubbled and gurgled.
Narrator. A spy at the door would have heard only small cooing sounds, and seen assistants running past with armfuls of diapers.
THE BOMBARDMENT
Narrator. Seven days later, at midnight, the cannons lifted their muzzles toward the pale white star where the Emperor ruled, and fired.
Narrator. They fired no shells. They fired babies, wrapped up soft, each one on its own small parachute.
Narrator. The babies landed gently, by the thousand, and crawled everywhere, and grew, and there were always more of them.
Narrator. The nurseries filled, then the streets, then the treasury. The Emperor’s economy began to sink.
Narrator. And still the bundles came down, plump and cheerful, diapers flapping.
The Emperor. Enough. Tell him the prince may marry my daughter.
TAKEN APART, AND THE WEDDING
Narrator. The cannons were plugged and stored. Just in case, Trurl took the femfatalatron apart with his own hands.
Trurl. Nobody turns this on again.
Narrator. At the wedding feast Trurl was best man, dressed in emeralds from collar to cuff, and led the toasts with a ceremonial baton.
The guests. To the prince and Amarandina!
Prince Pantagoon. Amarandina.
Narrator. Then Trurl loaded his rocket with all the titles both monarchs had given him, and flew home.