Round 7.5 [Rachel, My Dear v. Methane Madness] posted by kza

Rachel, My Dear

Good job with that synopsis — that’s much more interesting than what I could come up with. One thing, though: I think that, if the house is representative of Gabe’s madness both literally and figuratively, then Gabe himself needs to come across as rational and sane as possible — even when (or especially when) dealing with the house. I don’t think Gabe is aware of his madness, in the same way that that guy from the Sacks book isn’t aware that he’s blind. My point being, I don’t want Gabe to be one of those Mu-wah-ha-ha! villains. He’s sick, he’s sad, he’s messed up, but he’s not Fu Manchu or some-frickin’-body. In fact, he probably tries to save her, but is tripped up and consumed by the house (i.e., his madness).

Oh, and great call by Spitball! reader Tippy Canoe: she suggested that Rachel also be an architect, and allow her to architect her way out of her situation. I’m not entirely sure how to implement the idea at this point, but that’s probably because I don’t really know what the house is like. But still, that’s a wonderful idea.

Methane Madness

So lemme toss some spitballs atcha:

In the year 2136, the Earth has begun to colonize space. A primitive form of terraforming has been developed, allowing humans to colonize the various moons, and even some asteroids, of the solar system. The effort is headed up by various competing corporations, looking to mine resources and establish commercial and political dominance on Earth — the governments of which have, over the years, ceded authority to the corporations.

One particular corporation, after a battle waged politically, economically, and militarily, managed to secure a prime area to establish an outpost. The corporation assigned one of their brightest and most ambitious scientists to head up the terraforming project. This scientist had developed some advances in terraforming technology, which, if successful, would cut the time necessary to a few months instead of nearly a year. Although there were some — corporate executives, rival scientists — who doubted the new process would work, the scientist got the go-ahead, and it seemed to work — within months, a livable atmosphere was created.

Then one day, as the third-shift contract miners headed off to work, there was an awful noise that could be heard in every part of the colony, a metallic shriek that seemed to emanate from the terraforming laboratory, quickly followed by a bright flash and then deafening silence. The only survivors were the miners that were deep in the ground and needed special suits to breathe — everyone else in the colony was horribly killed, dying quickly from the vacuum of the now-missing atmosphere.

The scientist (who was off-planet at the time) was taken by the corporation and questioned. An investigation was conducted, and it was discovered that the scientist knew that the catastrophe was a possibility, and was negligent in not revealing this to the corporation. The scientist claimed that he was framed and the lab was sabotaged by a rival corporation, but it didn’t matter — the corporation’s stock plummeted. He was sent to the corporation’s prison planet — a small moon that was the subject of one of the first, failed, terraforming experiments, and surrounded by a poisonous atmosphere. There, he would spend the rest of his days, as an unpaid slave, building little trinkets to export back to the homeworld.

Not exactly original, but I’m trying to lay a groundwork for future development. More importantly, this is, ideally, just background info, more for our sake, and wouldn’t directly appear in the script proper — else what we have is, essentially, the beginning of Dante’s Peak. And nobody wants that :-)

Comments (0) — Category: the screenplay