Minor Premise story
Attempting to surpass his father's legacy, a reclusive neuroscientist becomes entangled in his own experiment, pitting ten fragments of his consciousness against each other.
13 total · 7 major · 6 minor
| Theme | Level | Motivation |
|---|---|---|
| facing death | major | The more agreeable of Ethan's ten personas were working against the clock to reintegrate Ethan's ten various selves into one Ethan before his brain was irreparably damaged. |
| facing one's darker side | major | Ethan's good alter egos were battling with his bad ones. |
| father and son | major | Central to the story was Ethan feeling like he was not getting the recognition he deserved for the memory manipulating device that he had invented together with his late father. |
| memory recorder | major | Ethan helped to develop a machine that downloaded memories from people brains in such a manner that they could be shown as videos. For example, he showed off someone's memory of bird in flight in his lecture. The machine was central to the plot in so far as Ethan was working with the machine in a university research setting and was concerned about making it a success. |
| mind altering technology | major | Ethan seemingly perfected a memory recorder/eraser machine that he and his late father had been developing. But when Ethan used the machine to erase some painful memories pertaining to his father, it split him up into ten different personas. These personas cycled through his body one by one every hour, so that each persona was in control for a six minute duration each hour. |
| old flames | major | Central to the story was Ethan's ex-girlfriend Alli helping him in his time of need. |
| what if I had multiple personalities | major | The premise of the story is that the brilliant neuroscientist Ethan inadvertently splits himself up into ten personas: nine different alter egos along with his original self. |
| are humans more than machines | minor | Alli asserted that people are "not merely computers" with the implication that human emotions transcend the level of machines. |
| coping with the death of a parent | minor | Ethan's sentimental alter ego confided in Alli about how he had a tough time with his father's death. |
| memory erasure | minor | Ethan used his machine to erase some painful memories about his father. Ethan and Alli used his machine to wipe Malcolm's memories of seeing Ethan in a deranged state of mind. |