Chapter 95: The Screenplay Theory
Marcus was going back and forth with the Transcendence System, and he was losing patience fast.
His position was simple: he didn't have a philosophy degree, he didn't particularly care about the metaphysics of causality, and if the System was going to withhold Destiny points on a technicality while the world outside was being eaten alive by the T-virus, then as far as Marcus was concerned, he was getting played.
The Transcendence System, to its credit, didn't back down. Instead it laid out its reasoning in full.
"The situation in the Terminator world was different because the Host did not directly engineer the outcome. Judgment Day exists as a consequence of Skynet's existence — Skynet is the cause, Judgment Day is the effect. The Host obtained capabilities within the Terminator world by reversing causality through Destiny — but those capabilities were tools. What you did with them was your own choice, your own action. That chain of events is not a direct causality reversal of the Judgment Day outcome itself."
The System continued. "To illustrate: if the Host had used Destiny to directly reverse causality and force Skynet to stand down its nuclear launch order — that would be a direct causal intervention, and you would receive no Destiny points from the outcome. But you didn't do that. You obtained resources and power through Destiny, then used those resources through your own agency to fight Skynet. The outcome was achieved through genuine effort against genuine resistance. That creates real fluctuations in the river of fate. That's what generates Destiny."
Marcus turned it over in his head.
So the distinction was indirect versus direct. Using Destiny to get stronger, then winning a fight with that strength — that was legitimate, because the win wasn't guaranteed and the effort was real. Using Destiny to simply write the win into existence — that removed the uncertainty entirely, which meant no fluctuation, which meant no Destiny payout.
"So how do I actually earn Destiny points from this situation?" Marcus pressed.
"There are two paths," the System said. "Either Dr. Ashford develops the airborne Anti-T virus through his own genuine scientific effort — without the Host using Destiny to manufacture the result — or the Host obtains the airborne Anti-T virus through Dr. Ashford's work via some means that doesn't involve direct causality reversal. Either way, the outcome must arise from genuine resistance against the original script. Only then does it create fluctuations in the river of fate."
"If the Host uses Destiny to simply produce the outcome, then the outcome is no longer a deviation from the predetermined script — it IS the new script. And a script cannot deviate from itself."
Marcus went quiet for a moment.
And then, despite himself, it clicked.
He didn't need the System to keep explaining. He'd actually figured out a cleaner way to frame the whole concept, and once he had it, the logic became airtight.
Think of it this way.
The Resident Evil world is a movie. The river of fate is the screenplay. The people living in it — Alice, Alicia, the survivors scattered across the ruined cities — they're the cast, moving through their roles according to what's written. Marcus is an outsider who's read the screenplay but isn't bound by it. He can walk onto the set at any time and throw the scene off-script. The Transcendence System is the screenwriter sitting in the back of the theater.
The screenplay, as written, ends one way: The T-virus destroys the world.
That's the fixed ending. The cast is moving toward it whether they want to or not.
Now — if Marcus walks into the scene and does something that makes the ending go differently, he's broken from the script. The plot deviates. The river of fate creates a ripple. Marcus earns Destiny points because something that was supposed to happen didn't.
But if Marcus walks up to the screenwriter and says "rewrite the ending" — and the screenwriter does it — then the new ending is just... the screenplay. It's not a deviation anymore. It's the script. The cast walks toward the new ending exactly the way they walked toward the old one. Nothing fluctuates. Nothing was earned.
Original screenplay: The Resident Evil world is destroyed by the T-virus.
Revised screenplay: The Resident Evil world is not destroyed by the T-virus.
Both versions are just the script. The outcome in the second version isn't a miracle — it's a stage direction.
So of course there are no Destiny points. You can't earn credit for defying fate when fate was rewritten to match what you wanted.
The System, apparently satisfied that Marcus had arrived at the correct understanding on his own, moved back to the original question. "To answer your first question — if the Host uses Destiny reversal to enable Dr. Ashford to successfully develop the airborne Anti-T virus, the cost is two thousand two hundred Destiny points."
Marcus's response was instantaneous. "Hard pass. We're done here. Goodbye."
He paused, then added with mild irritation, "You know what, that's exactly the problem with you. You spent all that time walking me through the metaphysics of fate and causality and the river of destiny, and the actual answer was just 'two thousand two hundred points.' If you'd led with that, I would've said no immediately and we'd both have saved fifteen minutes."
"The Host would have asked the underlying question eventually," the System replied without hesitation. "This conversation was going to happen. The System addressed it preemptively to prevent the same exchange from occurring multiple times in the future."
Marcus opened his mouth.
Closed it.
The System was, technically, completely correct. He couldn't actually argue with that.
Although — and he wasn't going to say this out loud — the System had a point about the repeat questions. Marcus had a habit of forgetting established rules and cycling back to the same arguments. He'd probably asked some version of "why can't I just use Destiny to fix this" more times than he could accurately recall.
"Fine," the System added, "the next time the Host asks about this topic, the System will reference the screenplay analogy as the standard explanation."
"Good," Marcus said. "That's what I'm calling it from now on — the Screenplay Theory. Use that."
"Noted. The Screenplay Theory has been logged. The Host's framework is genuinely useful — it's been added to the database."
"Shouldn't I get some kind of royalty for that?" Marcus said, completely deadpan.
"The System exists solely to serve the Host. Royalties are not within the System's operational parameters."
"Worth asking," Marcus muttered.
He refocused. "Alright — set the philosophy aside. I need to actually solve the T-virus problem and I need to generate Destiny points doing it. Help me think through the options."
A pause from the System that was slightly longer than usual.
"...This falls outside the System's problem-solving scope. The Host will need to work through this independently."
Marcus frowned. "You're serious."
"Confirmed."
"What if I put Destiny points on the table? As payment for a solution?"
"Destiny points accepted, solution still unavailable. The System cannot generate strategic solutions on demand. That remains the Host's domain."
Marcus exhaled slowly. The System was infuriating in the most consistent possible way.
He turned away from the internal conversation and started thinking through the actual problem.
The constraints were clear. He needed to stop the T-virus from destroying what was left of the world — but he needed to do it in a way that created genuine resistance against the original outcome, not a scripted rewrite. The result had to feel like a deviation. It had to earn its place as a fluctuation in the river of fate.
The cloned Dr. Isaacs was theoretically capable of developing an airborne Anti-T virus dispersal system — the technical knowledge was there. But neither Marcus nor Alicia had any real leverage over the clone's research priorities in that specific direction. The clone answered to Umbrella's chain of command, and that chain had its own agenda.
Marcus turned the problem over from multiple angles.
And then, almost out of nowhere, a specific face surfaced in his memory.
A person from the original Resident Evil storyline. Someone perpetually in the wrong place at the wrong time, who somehow kept surviving anyway. Someone who, if Marcus remembered the timeline correctly, was about to become very relevant to how the next phase of this story played out.
A guy who had absolutely no business being as useful as he consistently turned out to be.
Marcus almost smiled.
That poor guy, he thought.
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