Round Five [The Infected v. If It Pleases the Court] posted by kza

The Infected (Shockah rank: #10, Burley rank: #4)

v.

If It Pleases The Court (Shockah rank: #5, Burley rank: #2)

UP AND AT THEM!

The Infected
In a world where telepathy is a disease and the infected are prisoners, one woman will discover a shocking truth that could change everything… but on a world where a mind can be read as easily as opening a book, how can any secret be safe?

Pro:

Ah — in some ways, the very first Prison Planet scenario, and one clearly inspired by Bester. This could be a lot of fun, designing both how the telepathy works and how its transmitted, along with an history of how the telepathy came into being, how it affected the world, and what was done about it. Some ideas were already thrown into the ring regarding this; I suggest late-comers try here and here.

And, as Burley’s mentioned, trying to show telepathy in a visual medium like film is really hard. At worst, it comes across as really silly (see also: Dune, Phantasm II.) But rather than see this as a con, I, foolishly, welcome the challenge. I think it would be fun to find a different way to represent telepathy, and while some of my ideas toward that may end up looking just as foolish as breathy voiceovers over a picture of Kyle Maclachlan, hey, at least I’ll have tried.

Con:

Like a lot of these ideas, I had no idea what the “shocking truth” was when I wrote it, and I still don’t. No real character, either — who is this woman? What does she do, and what does she want? Is she a telepath? Is she tempted at some point to infect herself for some goal? And who are the antagonists, exactly? Right now, they could be nearly anyone or anything. This is one of the first “In A Worlds” created, and so naturally it’s much lighter than the later ones, but it’s still awfully, awfully thin.

I also don’t have a sense as to what kind of story this is. Unlike, say, the idea below, which suggests at least two ways the story could be presented, this one, right now, suggests every kind of story, or in other words, none. And while, yeah, I am talking about that bugaboo “genre” to some degree, to another degree I’m not. If I were to walk into a theater, what kind of movie would I expect to see? Or, what kind of movie would I expect to see after watching the first fifteen minutes? Is it a brainy drama? A brainy action movie? Is it wide-ranging, like Altman or Sayles? Is it intensely focused, like Peckinpah or McTiernan? Is it somehow both, like Kubrick? Is it quirky as hell, like P.T. Anderson or David O. Russell? I don’t feel like I know enough to move into any sort of direction. (And if I had some idea, I’d throw ‘em up here, but I don’t.)

If It Pleases The Court
In a World where crimes are judged and juried by encrypted, anonymous computer terminals, one jury foreman doesn’t realize that the man she’s arguing so strongly should be committed to the Prison Planet for life is actually her husband—and the crime he’s accused of—but hasn’t committed yet—is murdering her.

Pro:

This is also very, very Bester, so of course, it makes me very, very interested. What kind of movie is it, though? It could be a courtroom drama, kept to a couple rooms, with the SF aspect being less visual and more verbal. In other words, I can see it where this synopsis represents 70-90% of the story. But I’d prefer to open it way the hell up, like Bester does, eventually, with The Demolished Man — I foresee that the outcome of the trial being the end of the second act, with the woman deciding that she wants to rescue her husband from the prison planet — even if that means that he may murder her. I’d also want some kind of B plot running through this, some kind of counterpoint to the main story — I don’t know what yet, but I’m sure that wouldn’t be hard. (Well, the obvious thing to do with B plots is to run the A plot but with a different outcome — so here, a character that doesn’t fight the power structure and allows a loved one to die, and is either happy with it or it destroys his soul.)

I can also see how this could dovetail with modern issues like The War on Terror/Abu Ghraib/Sanctioned Torture. A world like this would probably be pretty peaceful… but at what cost?!!?!? And in this situation, how does one fight against the system? Our proposed plot suggests that love is the motivating factor, which would be interesting, if potentially schmaltzy — in a world where all opposing political power has been crushed, it’s funny that something subtle and ineffable as love would be the random factor that could destroy the status quo. Maybe not the best idea, but it’s something.

Con:
But then, the set-up raises up a whole slew of questions, don’t it? How did we get a justice system run by computers? Why do the computers have human juries? (The original idea says the computers are judge and jury, but we have a human foreman — I’m assuming the first part of the idea is a typo.) How is that the computers can foresee the future? (Or can they?) If they can see the future and presumably it’s true, why do they have trials? (There were no trials in Minority Report.) How is it this woman is not informed of the future crime against her?

I think there’s a theory of time and a history of this world that can answer all of these questions, but at the same time, that’s a tall order — most stories only have to deal with one or the other. Is this something we want to tackle, or is it a bit too big for this project?

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