Time to Die: The Treatment: Bare Bones Edition posted by kza

So consider this the first shot across the bow of the U.S.S. Time To Die.

Note the First: Consider the following to be the equivalent of a four-track demo. Just a laying down of ideas that will get changed, fleshed-out, and more-or-less prettified by the time of their official debut. Despite the seeming completeness of the treatment (and the fact that I like it quite a bit), nothing here is sacred. If something isn’t clicking with one of us, it will be replaced with something that clicks for both of us.

Note the Second: These aren’t scenes. Something straightforward like “September finds a mass grave of charred bones” could take up fifteen seconds of screen time or ten minutes (assuming you are, in fact, Bela Tarr). It’s just a “story unit”, a piece of information that’s required for the story to make some sort of sense. And, despite the number of story points provided here, I don’t consider this complete.

Note the Third: The general approach here is looking at the story from the protagonist’s POV, which particular emphasis on what makes achieving her goals difficult. The final story will present all the characters as independent movers, with goals, subplots, quirks, etc. However, this entry just isn’t the place for those things. I expect that we will write different versions of this treatment from the POV of different characters later in the process.

Note the Fourth: More specifically, this story happens with a prison riot in the background. It’s assumed that there is a back-and-forth power struggle between the guards and the prisoners that isn’t resolved until the end. The treatment doesn’t go into the specific actions by each party — I figure that’s for later. Related to this: Burley and I never decided the exact nature of the prison (an entire planet? Just a part? Enclosed? Or free-roaming prisoners?), and while the treatment is arranged around the vague idea of “this part is enclosed prison, this part is not”, I’d like to think what’s here is malleable enough to encompass whatever we decide the prison actually is.

Note the Final: Readers — this is your chance to really have some say on the story. Don’t like something I’ve suggested here? Think it’s too obvious, too stupid, too something? Let us know.

Time to Die: A Bare Bones Treatment

The Cast So Far

September Rose St. Germain, protagonist, director of marketing at Tangenilent and martial arts enthusiast
James Crowley Okkervil, imprisoned murderer and charismatic leader
Rand Bejar, prison warden and poet
“Preach”, good friend of Okkervil and wasting away in solitary
Guy St. Germain, prison guard and dead body
Dr. Westfall, prison doctor and pioneer in the use of the revivication serum

The Story Points

Guy St. Germain is killed during a prison riot at the Wellington Correctional Facility, a.k.a. “The Well”.
September Rose St. Germain is alerted. Their insurance covers a new process: revivication from the dead, provided the head is intact, there isn’t too much tissue damage, and it’s used within a short time window. She packs up and leaves to go be with him when he’s revived.
She arrives, but the Warden tells her that the prisoners are holding the body and they won’t be able to retrieve it in the allotted time; her husband will die.
She gets her insurance money and is ushered off the planet.
On the ship home, she steals an emergency shuttlecraft and heads back to the planet.
The prison security system shoots down the ship and she crashes on the planet.
While trying to avoid the guards, she is captured by Okkervil and his men. She learns that Okkervil instigated the riot because of the Warden’s treatment of his friend Preach.
Okkervil contacts the Warden, using September as a bargaining chip; they set up a reendezvous point.
On their way to the reendezvous point, September escapes.
September finds a mass grave of charred bones.
September is captured by the guards.
September is taken back to the Warden, who detains her.
September meets friendly Dr. Westfall, who is responsible for administering the revivication serum. He demonstrates the serum on a dead guard, going over the exacting process.
September discovers that the prisoners are going to burn the husband’s body, rendering revivication impossible.
September asks for the Warden’s help in getting her husband’s body back; he refuses.
September arms herself, steals some of the serum, and goes into the prison by herself.
When the Warden discovers September missing, he sends guards after her. He tells one guard to make sure September dies in the crossfire.
September comes face-to-face with the prisoners who have her husband’s body.
September discovers the prison’s secret and reason for the riot: they torture the prisoners to death and then revive them.
The guards find them and start shooting.
The prisoners think September has suckered them, so they set the body on fire.
September is unable to get to the body, and just barely escapes from both the guards and the prisoners.
Okkervil has the real body, however, hidden somewhere — they burned the body of someone else.
She returns to the prison to give herself up.
She is brought to the Warden, and he kills her.
September wakes up; she’s been revived by Dr. Westfall.
Dr. Westfall explains that she knows too much, so she is going to be reported killed after she crashed the emergency shuttle. Since there are no female prisoners, she will make a fine test subject for his experiments.
September manages to free herself and kill Dr. Westfall. She takes a few vials and destroys the rest of the supply.
Okkervil is captured and brought to the Warden.
Before the Warden can do anything to Okkervil, September takes the Warden hostage. Having destroyed the supply of serum, her threat to kill the Warden is taken seriously.
September, with the Warden in tow, makes her way to the shuttle dock, but Okkervil reveals that her husband’s body hasn’t been destroyed. He’ll take her to the body if they release Preach.
They use the Warden to release Preach from solitary and shut off the anti-aircraft security system.
September wants to go to the shuttle dock, but Okkervil tells her they’ll be waiting for them there. Instead, he reveals that he’s sent a signal for an escape ship to land outside the prison.
All four of them get out of the prison and recover Guy’s body.
Okkervil discovers that the Warden is wearing a some kind of device underneath his clothes.
The Warden tells September that Okkervil is the one who shot her husband.
September puts a gun to Okkervil’s head, and asks him to deny it. He doesn’t. But she can’t bring herself to kill him.
They find Okkervil’s escape ship but it’s being used by other prisoners (Okkervil’s men?)
They fight off the other prisoners to get to the escape ship, but during the fight, September drops the serum bottles, and only one survives.
The Warden escapes during the chaos.
Okkervil is grievously wounded during the fight and dies.
The other prisoners gain control of the escape ship and leave September, Okkervil, and Preach behind.
September is about to revive her husband, but Preach begs her to revive Okkervil instead.
September revives Okkervil.
Okkervil figures out that the Warden keeps a new-fangled serum-administering device attached to himself at all times; they return to the prison to take it from him.
The Warden makes it back and orders his men to unleash poison gas to finish off all the prisoners once and for all. He keeps this order even when informed that all the serum has been destroyed.
September, Okkervil, Preach, and the body arrive back at the prison. Preach offers to guard the body while Okkervil and September go to get the Warden.
The prisoners in Okkervil’s escape ship fight over the controls, and they crash into the prison.
The prison is now on fire, and threatens to crumble/blow up at any point.
Dr. Westfall, alive and well due to the serum device strapped to his chest, finds Preach and the body; Preach is killed by trying to keep the body away from Westfall.
The explosions separate Okkervil and September from each other; only Okkervil can get the serum from the Warden.
September goes back to make sure the body is okay.
The Warden and Okkervil face off, during which, the Warden reveals that he’s killed all of the prisoners.
Okkervil stabs the Warden, and the Warden kills Okkervil by throwing him off a building, but not before Okkervil rips the revivication device off him. The Warden bleeds to death.
September finds Dr. Westfall with the body.
September and Westfall face off — Westfall has used the dose of his serum, and September has none, so they know that one of them will die for real this time.
September kills Westfall, beheading him.
The poison gas starts spreading through the prison, and September has to avoid it.
September drags her husband’s body through the amok prison to get outside.
She makes it outside where she discovers Okkervil’s body with the revivication device. She takes it. The window for revivication is down to minutes.
She straps the device on Guy, but it’s damaged.
She works fast to remove the serum from the device and attempts to administer it the best she can, following as much of Westfall’s instructions as she can.
It looks like she failed, but then Guy opens his eyes.