create-a-show challenge
Yes. So. My entry for the scifiland challenge. Thanks to thebiggest_lie & green_queen for prompt words, & to afrocurl, who helped me slide some ideas into place on the drive to LA yesterday. ♥
It's the year 2352, and as the world's nations begin to fracture and splinter, a super-charged version of a dirty bomb has become the weapon of choice. Worse, the dirty bombs set off a series of chain reactions which make every exposed surface toxic to humans. Humans have survived by building cities that are a series of pods, any one of which can be sealed off from all the others in mere seconds.
A large collection of pods is known as a block. Because everything that exists outside the pods is contaminated, the blocks must receive supplies from the Magellan -- a giant spaceship that orbits the Earth, which performs multiple duties as cargo ship, passenger ship, and home to the worldwide government.
Nina "Sticks" Ma, played by Julia Ling
If money is power, well, then, Sticks doesn't have a whole lot of anything. She's a petty criminal who earned her nickname by being obsessed with monetary gain. In a world where food supplies are scarce, and most people subsist on horrible-tasting meal bars, the more flavorful breadsticks have become a form of non-legal tender in a sort of barter economy.
Sticks lives in a block roughly equivalent to today's New York area, and what she doesn't spread around to everyone is that her family is one of several trapped in Block 32 -- a Seattle-area block which was quarantined when evidence of a dirty bomb contaminant was found inside. Her exponentially-increasing obsession with earning money stems from the need to somehow rescue them. She is not afraid to use or manipulate someone to get what she wants, but she also goes out of her way not to cross anyone, because she never knows which contacts are going to be useful.
Leon Ma, played by Ken Leung
Leon Ma is Sticks' brother, and is trapped inside the locked-down Block 32. Leon has shifty-seeming contacts in the underworld, and having heard a rumor of a terrorist plot to contaminate Block 32, he (with the help of his father) convinced a large group of their neighbors to seal off their pods from the rest of Block 32 every night. The result is a pocket of uncontaminated pods within a contaminated city.
Because Block 32 has been classified as contaminated, the Magellan will not risk stopping to offload supplies there, lest the ship be contaminated as well. So Leon is desperately working on two different problems: the rest of Block 32 wants into their safety bubble and Leon has to fend them off to prevent the contaminant from spreading into the contained area; meanwhile, their supplies are running low, and Leon is trying to find a way to convince the Magellan to pick up the families from within the contaminant-free area.
Alexander Whitfield, played by Leonard Roberts
Alexander Whitfield is the governor of the block in which Sticks lives, but he doesn't much resemble the politicians of today. Much of his time is spent delegating tasks to lower government employees, and determining how a constant lack of supplies should be allocated within his block.
The rest of his time is spent dealing with terrorists, and the threat of a contaminant being introduced into his block. His task is to sort out paranoia from genuine peril, which becomes increasingly difficult as the world learns of the quarantine of Block 32. When rumors begin to circulate that a pocket of contamninant-free pods exists in Block 32, he initially dismisses it as a false hope. Alex feels an extreme sense of duty to the people living in his block; the pressure of keeping the block contaminant-free wears on him mentally and physically.
Marcus Whitfield, played by J August Richards
Marcus Whitfield is Alex Whitfield's brother, a government official who lives on the Magellan and would much resemble the politicians of today. Just as the countries of the world have pooled their supplies and loaded them onto the Magellan, likewise, they have formed one single government to rule over all the blocks. Perhaps correctly, the people do not trust such a huge, powerful government, so Marcus' job is essentially running the government's PR machine.
He works very closely with the head of the government, Director Molina, and though not officially one of the director's advisors, Marcus is one of his personal confidants. While Marcus' job is to look out for entire government, he also feels very invested in the director's well-being.
Director Serge Molina, played by Carlos Jacott
For the first two episodes of the series, we only see Director Molina via screens: televisions, computers, etc. We see him very much in an official capacity, and anything we learn about him is another character's opinion. The third episode focuses on the man himself, and we see that he is actually rather JFK-like: he performs well under extreme political pressure, while being a bit more dissolute in his personal life.
He must make excrutiating decisions that will affect the world at large (for example, he has to debate the possibility of Block 32 having a group of uncontaminated pods within it and has families running low on supplies, the possiblity that the group in Block 32 is lying about being contaminant-free and may contaminate the Magellan if the survivors were picked up, the possiblity that Blocks 28, 29, 30, & 31 would break into riots should the Magellan skip over them on the scheduled supply run in order to rescue the survivors of Block 32....), all while in debilitating physical pain. In the final days before all the pods were sealed against Earth's atmosphere, Molina came into contact with a contaminant. It was eventually flushed out of his system, but it did permanent damage, and his organs are slowly weakening and beginning to fail. Marcus Whitfield is one of the few people who know about this. As a sort of escape from the political pressure and the health issues, Molina is something of a manwhore.
Wheeeeeee, go Anti-Heroes!
It's the year 2352, and as the world's nations begin to fracture and splinter, a super-charged version of a dirty bomb has become the weapon of choice. Worse, the dirty bombs set off a series of chain reactions which make every exposed surface toxic to humans. Humans have survived by building cities that are a series of pods, any one of which can be sealed off from all the others in mere seconds.
A large collection of pods is known as a block. Because everything that exists outside the pods is contaminated, the blocks must receive supplies from the Magellan -- a giant spaceship that orbits the Earth, which performs multiple duties as cargo ship, passenger ship, and home to the worldwide government.
Nina "Sticks" Ma, played by Julia Ling
If money is power, well, then, Sticks doesn't have a whole lot of anything. She's a petty criminal who earned her nickname by being obsessed with monetary gain. In a world where food supplies are scarce, and most people subsist on horrible-tasting meal bars, the more flavorful breadsticks have become a form of non-legal tender in a sort of barter economy.
Sticks lives in a block roughly equivalent to today's New York area, and what she doesn't spread around to everyone is that her family is one of several trapped in Block 32 -- a Seattle-area block which was quarantined when evidence of a dirty bomb contaminant was found inside. Her exponentially-increasing obsession with earning money stems from the need to somehow rescue them. She is not afraid to use or manipulate someone to get what she wants, but she also goes out of her way not to cross anyone, because she never knows which contacts are going to be useful.
Leon Ma, played by Ken Leung
Leon Ma is Sticks' brother, and is trapped inside the locked-down Block 32. Leon has shifty-seeming contacts in the underworld, and having heard a rumor of a terrorist plot to contaminate Block 32, he (with the help of his father) convinced a large group of their neighbors to seal off their pods from the rest of Block 32 every night. The result is a pocket of uncontaminated pods within a contaminated city.
Because Block 32 has been classified as contaminated, the Magellan will not risk stopping to offload supplies there, lest the ship be contaminated as well. So Leon is desperately working on two different problems: the rest of Block 32 wants into their safety bubble and Leon has to fend them off to prevent the contaminant from spreading into the contained area; meanwhile, their supplies are running low, and Leon is trying to find a way to convince the Magellan to pick up the families from within the contaminant-free area.
Alexander Whitfield, played by Leonard Roberts
Alexander Whitfield is the governor of the block in which Sticks lives, but he doesn't much resemble the politicians of today. Much of his time is spent delegating tasks to lower government employees, and determining how a constant lack of supplies should be allocated within his block.
The rest of his time is spent dealing with terrorists, and the threat of a contaminant being introduced into his block. His task is to sort out paranoia from genuine peril, which becomes increasingly difficult as the world learns of the quarantine of Block 32. When rumors begin to circulate that a pocket of contamninant-free pods exists in Block 32, he initially dismisses it as a false hope. Alex feels an extreme sense of duty to the people living in his block; the pressure of keeping the block contaminant-free wears on him mentally and physically.
Marcus Whitfield, played by J August Richards
Marcus Whitfield is Alex Whitfield's brother, a government official who lives on the Magellan and would much resemble the politicians of today. Just as the countries of the world have pooled their supplies and loaded them onto the Magellan, likewise, they have formed one single government to rule over all the blocks. Perhaps correctly, the people do not trust such a huge, powerful government, so Marcus' job is essentially running the government's PR machine.
He works very closely with the head of the government, Director Molina, and though not officially one of the director's advisors, Marcus is one of his personal confidants. While Marcus' job is to look out for entire government, he also feels very invested in the director's well-being.
Director Serge Molina, played by Carlos Jacott
For the first two episodes of the series, we only see Director Molina via screens: televisions, computers, etc. We see him very much in an official capacity, and anything we learn about him is another character's opinion. The third episode focuses on the man himself, and we see that he is actually rather JFK-like: he performs well under extreme political pressure, while being a bit more dissolute in his personal life.
He must make excrutiating decisions that will affect the world at large (for example, he has to debate the possibility of Block 32 having a group of uncontaminated pods within it and has families running low on supplies, the possiblity that the group in Block 32 is lying about being contaminant-free and may contaminate the Magellan if the survivors were picked up, the possiblity that Blocks 28, 29, 30, & 31 would break into riots should the Magellan skip over them on the scheduled supply run in order to rescue the survivors of Block 32....), all while in debilitating physical pain. In the final days before all the pods were sealed against Earth's atmosphere, Molina came into contact with a contaminant. It was eventually flushed out of his system, but it did permanent damage, and his organs are slowly weakening and beginning to fail. Marcus Whitfield is one of the few people who know about this. As a sort of escape from the political pressure and the health issues, Molina is something of a manwhore.
Wheeeeeee, go Anti-Heroes!