Tircis and Aminte is simultaneously one of the most out of place side stories in the world of planetarian, but also one of the most fitting when you start looking at all of the things presented. I was at first quite surprised by the tone of the story – it’s very different to the rest of the side stories. In my opinion, if you removed the ending, it would be difficult to identify this story as something that takes place in the world of planetarian, but I do believe that this story should exist despite that.
One thing that I want to discuss is how the characters of Tircis and Aminte are presented. Firstly, we see everything from the perspective of Tircis, so naturally this means that we have a better understanding of Tircis as a character. Tircis is presented as being curious – trying to understand what’s around him and why he exists. Throughout the drama, he asks the majority of the questions, some are simple, some are quite complex and philosophical. Meanwhile, Aminte is presented as someone who has all the answers. At the start, Aminte points out all of Tircis mistakes and Tircis states that he believes that Aminte has all the answers. However, as mentioned later on within the drama, when Tircis asks a question to Aminte, she asks what he thinks instead of giving her perspective. So despite the fact that Aminte is presented as a character that has all the answers, she never gives the answer, she lets Tircis try to figure out the answer for himself. To me, this presents one of the key concepts of Tircis and Aminte – self-realisation. As mentioned before, Tircis asks a lot of questions, many of which do not have definite answers, such as ‘Who created us?’, so Aminte asking what Tircis thinks presents the idea that one should believe in what they believe in, without being affected by others. Aminte doesn’t try to present her point of view because Tircis would most likely take her answer as the definite answer. Aminte wants Tircis to realise his own beliefs by his own will, even if those beliefs are wrong. An example of this is that when seeing the frozen Earth for the first time, Tircis believes that it’s the moon. He asks Aminte if it is in fact the moon and she throws the question back at him, only for him to reply that it is the room, in which Aminte then says that it is the moon. Now if Aminte is this all knowing character, she obviously knows that it is not in fact the moon but the frozen earth instead, but she doesn’t correct Tircis on his conclusion. Now one could argue that Aminte doesn’t actually know whether what they saw was the Earth or the Moon, and he knowing more than Tircis is just part of a persona she’s presenting. Given how at the beginning of the drama she is presented as having a wider variety of words than Tircis despite them being around the same age and how Aminte was able to build a ship for Tircis, I personally interpret Aminte as knowing more than she lets on. This is also emphasised by her having to think a lot before answering any questions – she’s trying to present things in her most ideal way to get Tircis to grow.
Next thing to consider is how the ‘words’ come into play within the drama. Due to the setting of the drama, Tircis can only learn things through words (whether it be books, or Aminte’s words) and his own thoughts/experiences. I mentioned in my Hoshi No Hito analysis how I believe that the story is representative of passing knowledge and belief from one generation to another, and how it is a continuous process in order to help humanity grow. Well in Tircis and Aminte, that concept still holds to some extent. To me, the words act as more than a way to hold information and communicate it – the words act as a test. A test to see if Tircis can grow and gain independent thoughts and beliefs based on only the information that has been written by humanity and his own mentalities. One thing that stuck out to me is how Aminte reveals that the ship is ready soon after Tircis makes a very profound comment about God, and how the words don’t matter because they are the words. To me, this is representative of Tircis growing to gain enough independent thought on his own to both be able to pass on the words he has learned to other people, but to also create and add to the words. Words are just a way of communication, and each one holds some meaning, so when Tircis says that words don’t matter because they are the words, what he means is that it is the person that defines the meaning of the words, and not the words themselves. The best way I can explain this point is through the use of language. Let’s consider two different languages, and say they have a word with the exact same meaning in every possible regard, but the words of each language are spelt and pronounced completely different. Well to someone who doesn’t understand one of the languages, the words would have no meaning, but if they understood the other language, then the word has meaning. Tircis is aware of this, and that what matters is the ability to communicate ideas to others, and not the words themselves. When you consider that it was the wish of humanity to give their words to someone else in the future, then it follows that since Tircis was sent into space, he is the person who is meant to fulfil that wish, and give the words he has collected and realised to whoever he meets in space.
Finally, I want to talk about how this links in with the world of planetarian, both in terms of plot and themes. Firstly, some basic points. The Earth has frozen over and this story takes place on the moon. The frozen Earth is most likely due to the events shown in Hoshi No Hito where the never ending rain becomes snow, which most likely lead to the earth freezing. Also the concept of the moon being populated was presented in Hoshi Not Hito. Tircis talks about how there is no longer any wind or tree because of war. This is clear references to how war was the cause of the post-apocalyptic world of planetarian. Finally, there’s Yumemi, and how the spaceship is playing her message. If you were to remove Yumemi from these points, there’s not actually that much to suggest that this story is a part of the world of planetarian, but that soon changes when looking more in depth at the story.
Let’s consider Tircis and Aminte. I’m really surprised no-one has mentioned this yet, but it is heavily hinted at throughout the story that Tircis and Aminte are both robots. First of all they’re twins, most likely meaning they’re both the same model. Tircis cannot remember his parents, in which Animte then says that if he cannot remember them how does he know he had them, in which a possible conclusion is that he has none. Aminte is presented as knowing more than what she says, which is most likely because she is aware that she is a robot, but Tircis is not aware that he is a robot (or at least not at the start of the story, which is suggested by things such as Tircis saying he believes he has grown recently, which isn’t possible if he’s a robot - later on he realises it was his purpose to protect the words among other things, suggesting he’s realised that he’s a robot too). Tircis states that humanity was made in Gods image, and that he and Aminte was made in humanities image, once again suggesting that they’re robots. Aminte summons the spaceship at the end without having to physically go to it, which is most likely due to her communicating with it using her program. Tircis states that in the spaceship, he can feel all the words coming together, which might represent his full processing power being used or a data transfer to the spaceship. It’s even stated at the end that there was a robot production centre on the moon, meaning that they were most likely created from there. There’s also the minor point of how Tircis and Aminte are never eating or drinking anything throughout the story, which is possibly due to them not need any food or drink to live. Basically, these characters being robots helps this story fit in with the world of planetarian since robots are prominent throughout all the side stories. The concept of robots fulfilling humanities hope and dreams is something present in the original VN, and this holds for this story since at the end Tircis is sent into space with all the words he has gained, thus allowing him to hopefully fulfil humanities wish of passing on the words to someone else, which is one of the key things that robots are meant to do - help humanity.
With that being said, let’s consider themes. The concept of faith and belief is one of the most prominent themes in the world of planetarian, and Tircis and Aminte is no different in that regard. These themes are presented in several ways. One of the ways is humanities faith that their knowledge will one day be passed on to someone else in the future. There is no way to know whether the spaceship that Tircis is in will ever reach someone, but if humanity didn’t have hope that it would be sent, that ship would have most likely have never been sent into space. Another way is the faith Tircis and Aminte have in each other. Tircis has faith in Aminte’s knowledge, which is emphasised by him asking Aminte asking a lot of questions for validation, and Aminte has faith that Tircis is able to realise everything himself, which is why she usually asks if he believes whether something is the case or not. This also ties into another way faith/belief is presented – Tircis’s belief in what he has realised. Tircis says things like ‘The one who made us was probably God’, which is due to the conclusions he has made because the words he’s been exposed to and this own thought. To me, this comes down to one of the fundamental things that allows for belief – thoughts and experiences. The original novel presents faith and belief as something that is passed down from person to person (more specifically the Junker to Yumemi), but this story shows how faith and belief can be created from very basic principles. This concept of taking basic principles and developing upon them is present throughout the story, such as how Tircis’s arguments become more sophisticated and detailed throughout the story, and how he starts to look at and consider more complicated words as time progresses.
In many ways, Tircis and Aminte shows that one can grow from the most basic elements without needing others to impose ideas upon them. It takes the themes from planetarian and reduces them to the most basic of forms, only to develop upon them until those themes have reached the same standard as the original story. With every end, there is a new beginning, and that’s something Tircis and Aminte communicates very well, and thus it holds as a very fitting end to the world of planetarian.
