Matthew Schwab

Opening Scene - Introduces the protagonist and setting, establishes core wounds

Sooner or Later

You can run on for a long time, Run on, duckin’ and dodgin’,

Run on for a long time,

Sooner or later God Almighty’s gonna cut you down.

                                  —  Traditional American Gospel 

 

Mrs. Evelyn Doherty had a standing appointment with Madame Theresa every Wednesday at one-thirty PM. She was a faithful client and never missed a scheduled reading, unless she was on vacation or unwell, which rarely happened. 

“Are you ready, Evelyn?” Madame Theresa asked in a tentative, encouraging voice, one finger resting patiently on the back of the final card. The Tarot were laid out in the familiar ten card Celtic Cross spread. A silk cloth lay draped across the table, a tangle of purple and yellow wildflowers dancing across an azure background. The Tarot cards, tawny with age, seemed to drift and stir as if floating in a pool of silken flowers. 

Mrs. Doherty leaned forward and pressed her eyes closed in concentration, her lips turned downward with anxious trepidation. In her right hand she palmed a smooth calcite stone that she favored for her weekly readings, pale blue like a robin’s egg. She was a devoted spiritualist and in the hierarchy of her small, comfortable life, Madame Theresa held a position just below President Nixon. The answer to her troubles, she knew, depended on this last card. 

She need not have been concerned. Although the hidden card remained a mystery to her, Madame Theresa was quite confident in the outcome. Her parents christened her Thérèse, after Saint Thérèse of Lisieux, The Little Flower. Madame Theresa was her professional name. After her mother died, her father favored his nickname for her. At night, holding her close, watching the rhythm of her small body rise and fall with each breath, he might lean over and whisper in her ear “ti flè an mwen” in his native Creole  — little flower of mine — but Tess was the name she grew up with. Thérèse was as foreign to her as the Saint of Lisieux herself. 

She studied her client from across the table. Tess recognized the familiar cropped navy blue jacket with white trim, the same prim, light-blue ruffled blouse underneath. The jacket’s elbows were shiny from wear. Mrs. Doherty wore her hair in a tall beehive hairdo. A thick braid wrapped around the middle held it in place. She was an ardent devotee of L’Oreal’s Smoky Pearl hair color and under the soft pendant lamp her hair shimmered with a blue-gray glow.

The column of hair was leaning to one side and several stray wisps were trying to escape. Tess suspected Mrs. Doherty wrapped her head in a scarf while she slept. Staring into the top of the glowing bouffant, she resisted the urge to reach across and part the nest of hair and peer within. She imagined revealing a tiny, hidden universe; milky-white clusters of secret thoughts and emotions tangled in a quick, chaotic rotating dance. She was as familiar with Evelyn Doherty as a therapist is with a patient, tending to her needs, acting as her emotional advisor. She knew how to interpret her expressions and quiet mannerisms, and, if she was honest, to manipulate her naive, uncomplicated fears and desires. 

Growing up an only child, her father taught her how to wield her empathy with precision. Working alongside him in the sideshows and small-town carnies, dressed in her adorable sailor suit, spotting and luring the marks. An innocent compliment, a sympathetic look, calculated to arouse a desired response. Pay attention. Listen carefully. Two bits for a reading. Two bits for a glimpse into the supernatural. A good night’s work rewarded with Italian ice, her favorite flavor cherry red. He trained her to go after women mostly, preying on their superstitions and maternal instincts. Draw them in. People are fragile, they yearn to tell their secrets. Find their weakness. Reaching out with her slender fingers, taking hold of their hand, she led them to her father’s tent. She would wait outside, listening for the signal, a metallic tap followed by a low harmonic pitch, the ringing sound that meant the mark had handed over their money. Don’t be hasty. Never argue. Even the dullest mark can turn on you.

Watching her client’s expression, her patience turning to irritation, Tess suspected that even inside the demure, well-mannered Mrs. Evelyn Doherty there was a secret buried inside her that even Tess herself was unaware. 

Mrs. Doherty opened her eyes at last and nodded. Tess revealed the final card. 

“Ah, the Seven of Cups.”

“Is that good?” Evelyn asked, eyes opening wide, an uncertain smile on her lips. 

“Oh very good. Cups, as you know, represent emotion, and the Seven of Cups here symbolizes confidence. Confidence in your emotional life.” Tess pointed to the individual symbols on the Tarot card. “Look inside the cups. You see the snake, that’s passion and desire. The tower here, that’s strength. And the treasure, that’s abundance.” She traced her finger over the card in the sixth position. “Now, the Four of Wands, that’s the spiritual stability we discussed, combined here with the Queen of Swords.” Tess closed her eyes and lifted her chin in quiet meditation. “Yes. Yes, I’m quite sure. Patience and confidence.” She tilted her head to one side, as if listening to a distant voice. “Lester’s not having an affair. It’s clear from the cards chosen for you. Be patient, give things time to resolve themselves. You say he’s been tired lately, uninterested?” Evelyn nodded, the tiny lines at the corners of her eyes squinting in concern. “You know, it’s not unusual for older men to lose interest from time to time. Perhaps he’s working too hard? Too much on his mind?” Tess had seen pictures of Mr. Doherty. If he was stepping out, he was paying for it. And he was too tightfisted for that. 

 

Matt S., Speculative Fiction, Seven Assignments

I. Story Statement

A brilliant scientist, condemned as a traitor and heretic, wants to bury his past and reclaim his rightful legacy, but the price of redemption demands he confront the supremacism he embraced to justify the miraculous but devastating consequences of his discovery.

II. Antagonists

Primary

Von Trotha: A political opportunist who masks his ruthless supremacism and thirst for power under a facade of charm and quiet efficiency. As the planetary colonies are threatened by an ominous presence, Von Trotha unleashes a plan to ensure humanity's interstellar supremacy — an army of telesthetic warriors — but first he must secure the unwilling cooperation of Eid Mastis, the same man he condemned as a heretic and traitor, and who may be humanity’s last hope.

Secondary Antagonistic Forces

The Ech Khuvit is a fanatical religious sect that rises to prominence under the austere living conditions on the isolated planetary colonies. They proudly refer to themselves as “originals” — those who have chosen to forego neuro-augmentaion enhancements. They are dedicated to the total eradication of technological dependence which they see as the one true path toward spiritual enlightenment and salvation. The sect’s prophecies seed a revolt among the poor and disenfranchised of the outer planetary outposts. They believe Eid Mastis’ neuro-augmentation technology represents the pinnacle of humankind’s sinful turn from God and are intent on eliminating Mastis and purging his followers from their domain.

The D.A.R.: The Department of Academic Restoration is the Ech Khuvit’s all-powerful secret police responsible for enforcing academic purity codes and administering the knowledge tax system under the Ech Khuvit’s new spiritual and territorial governing authority. Headed by Von Trotha, the DAR hunts down neuro-augmentees and places them in internment camps awaiting genetic de-augmentation. Mastis is arrested and sentenced to death, but Von Trotha intervenes, offering life in exile in return for cooperation in hunting  down fellow augmentees. The DAR administers a synthetic virus-code that prevents Mastis from accessing his long-term memories and portions of his cerebral cortex.

The Uuhnser-Gesch: A race of mysterious, free-form inter-dimensional beings that exist across space-time. In the Kuhr language, the term translates into “divine over-spirits” and the Kuhr people worship them as gods. According to Kuhr folklore, the Uuhnser-Gesch have the ability to generate reality distortion fields, vibrant illusions that prey on our fears and desires. They later appear as angels in the spiritual writings reinterpreted and adopted by the Ech Khuvit’s guiding scriptures. Unbeknownst to him, the Uuhnser-Gesch are using Mastis as a pawn, manipulating his sense of time and reality to alter the future of humankind.

III. Breakout Titles

• A Selfish Prayer for Light
• And the Universe Be Still as Bright
• Darkness Has No Need of Aid

IV. Comparables

— Similar to the universe building detail and inter-planetary conflicts of Liu Cixun’s award winning science fiction novel “The Three-Body Problem”

— Influenced but the style and mind-bending imagination in Ted Chiang’s speculative fiction works such as “Arrival”

Other Influences:

— Olivia Butler’s “Lilith’s Brood" 

V. Logline w/Primary Dramatic Conflict and Core Wounds

Condemned to die as a heretic and traitor on a remote planet, Professor Eid Mastis, the brilliant, tormented creator of the telesthesia genome, may be humanity’s last hope for survival, but to gain his freedom he must join with the same malevolent forces that imprisoned him.

VI. Other Matters of Conflict

Inner Conflict:

A Reversal of Fortune: As a young neuro-psychiatrist, Eid Mastis was once hailed as the father of neuro-augmentation, the science behind a genetically induced, bio-processor in the cerebral plexus capable of processing and transmitting exabytes of data using synthetic DNA. He aspires to create the first ever colony of extended cognition, an advanced bio-network of telesthetic humans. But like so many scientific revolutions prior, humankind is unprepared for this new technology and its unintended consequences. Gifted with the ability to temporally visualize and decipher unlimited amounts of data, augmentees turn inward, withdrawing from society and inadvertently creating a new caste system that pits augmentees against ordinary humans, derisively referred to as “originals.” His discovery devastates human society and gives rise to a powerful new fanatical religion, the Ech Khuvit, who are bent on eradicating humankind’s technological dependence. Mastis, shocked and filled with remorse at his scientific arrogance, sinks into a deep depression.

Unbearable Shame and Guilt: Mastis is eventually arrested and labeled a heretic by the Ech Khuvit. Moreover, in a bargain to save his life and the life of Kerykes, his long-time companion, Von Trotha coerces him to betray his academic colleagues and fellow augmentees. Later, after years of isolation in exile, with only the deaf-mute Kerykes for a companion, Mastis recoils from the shame of his betrayals. Far worse, he lives under a repressed shadow of guilt and horror from witnessing and performing experimental atrocities on imprisoned indigenous Kuhrans, all carried out in the name of scientific research. Filled with self-loathing, he feels unworthy of love or freedom. Despite having altered the course of humanity through his discovery of neuro-augmentation, he is filled with regret and doubts, and struggles to find meaning as he contemplates ending his life.

Scenario Sketch

A representative of the Ech Khuvit’s D.A.R., the all-powerful Department of Academic Restoration, visits Mastis in his exiled isolation with an offer: recount the details of the horrific research he performed in the Kuhr Resettlement Camps in exchange for freedom and full academic rehabilitation. Tempted by the offer, Mastis agrees, unaware that Von Trotha is recording his restored memories to revive the neuro-augmentation program. The interviews are both confession and revelation, triggering an emotional retelling of his account on Kuhr. He retraces his experience from his initial observation of colonial atrocities to gradual participation and acceptance. The horrific memories force him now, decades later, to acknowledge his role and question both the scientific achievement they generated and his own deeply held beliefs about human supremacy. Eventually he must return to Kuhr, where, with the help of a long lost patient, he must face his past and answer to the Uuhnser-Gesch, the divine over-spirits, who will at last reveal their plans for him.

Secondary Social Conflicts:

Kerykes: Kerykes is a biological telesthetic from the planet Kuhr and Mastis long-time personal herald. The two share a complicated history and an unbreakable emotional bond. Born a female, her external sexual glands were surgically removed to enhance her telesthetic abilities. Mastis later adopts Kerykes and raises them genderless. The loss of sexual glands results in the deprivation of a Kuhran’s external senses and gradually renders them deaf and blind as their facial features — eyes, ears, and nose — recede upon adulthood. As a telesthetic, Kerykes is able to interpret the thoughts and emotions of others, but they lack a language of their own, communicating instead using the neurochemistry of emotions and images transmitted telepathically. The DAR holds Kerykes hostage in order to coerce Mastis into cooperating with their plans. Acting as his emotional reservoir, Kerykes triggers a troubled recounting of his experience on Kuhr. As the story unfolds, Kerykes reveals that she is a conduit to the Uunhser-Gesch, part of their plan to assist Mastis’ reconciliation with his tormented, horrific past.

Arund Ivoire: Ivoire is the only known offspring of Human-Kuhran parents. Sexual reproduction between humans and Kuhrans is believed to be impossible. He is orphaned on Kuhr, rejected by both Kuhr and humans alike until he is adopted by an Ech Khuvit missionary. His Kuhran name, Kharan-Khul, literally translates as “One Without Darkness.” After the missionary disappears, Ivoire is arrested for murder by colonial authorities and is forced to stand trial pending a competency hearing. Assigned to assess his mental condition, a young Mastis is fascinated as Ivoire reveals his encounter with the mysterious Uuhnser-Gesch. Succumbing to the supremacist lure of the colonial outposts, Mastis falsely declares Ivoire mentally incompetent, and decides to use him to further his research into the telesthetic genome. His plans are abruptly ended when Ivoire mysteriously vanishes from his isolation cell on board the orbiting asylum. Von Trotha is certain that Ivoire’s DNA is instrumental in developing human telesthesia, which he believes is the key to defending humanity against the Uuhnser-Gesch. As he becomes increasingly obsessed with Ivoire, he enlists a reluctant Mastis to help track him down on Kuhr.

VII. Setting

The story is set in the speculative future as humankind begins to explore and colonize distant worlds. A hefty percentage of science fiction plots are about humans defending themselves against a superior alien race bent on our destruction. What happens when we reverse the scenario? That is, in the eyes of extraterrestrials, humans are the superior alien race bent on their destruction? Setting and background combine to establish a rich political and social environment to launch the main character's narrative arc:

Humankind begins exploring the stars in 2188. The advent of the Aeolus Direct Fusion Drive, the Hero’s Engine, enables humans to travel great distances at sub-light speeds. The first humans reach Earth’s closest neighbor, Proxima Centauri, in 2211. Despite the advancements in fusion propulsion, interplanetary exploration is incredibly costly, requires decades to accomplish and relies heavily on stasis hibernation technology. However, by 2466, humankind has explored and colonized several Near-Earth Systems, introducing humans to the incredible diversity of life across our corner of the galaxy.

Due to the huge expense, space travel is largely profit driven and interplanetary exploration becomes the domain of large corporations. Although humans can now travel into the far reaches of space at roughly 22% the speed of light, the great distances and durations still prohibit timely communication between home-worlds, interplanetary vessels, and distant exoplanets. The earliest space explorers are very much like the earliest sea-faring captains on Earth: operating in near isolation, far removed from their home worlds and free from the social constraints of human civilization. Corporate executives and administrators become accustomed to exercising local autonomous jurisdiction, untethered to the norms and values that no longer restrain their decisions and beliefs.

Despite humankind’s lengthy experience with predatory racial hierarchies and supremacism, colonists and their elected corporate representatives extol a philosophy of human exceptionalism and benevolent superiority. They perceive indigenous terrestrials as lower evolutionary creatures, and treat them as if they exist outside the realm of humankind’s moral obligation. These conditions lead to a system of unregulated colonization, resource stripping, and the unconstrained exploitation of indigenous inhabitants. Reports of atrocities committed in defense of humankind’s progress are not uncommon.

The inter-planetary situation changes dramatically when an exploration company, funded by venture capitalists from the independent Ehrmis (Air-mees) colony, discovers untapped kobold deposits on a moon planet known to the indigenous inhabitants as Kuhr. Kobold is a precious interstellar element essential to generating the electro-magnetic plasma fields used in advanced fusion drives. The company quickly begins to colonize the planet for the purpose of mining and trade.

Kuhr is inhabited by agrarian and nomadic kinship-based societies, often categorized by human anthropologists as skeython, or “near-humans,” a discriminatory (often pejorative) biological category describing sentient beings that have human characteristics but cannot reproduce with humans. Because of the Kuhrans’  humanoid appearance and the presence of kobold — an ancient word with fantastical connotations — human colonists often refer to Kuhr derisively as the “Goblin” planet. Kuhrans do not possess the capacity to wage technological war or defend themselves against the space-faring explorers. The population is soon enlisted in the mining and exploitation of their planet. Although largely unexplored, Kuhr becomes essentially a forced labor economy organized around the extraction of resources to feed the growing demand for fusion energy.

Shortly after the Independent Kuhr Free Territory is established as a colonial protectorate, their lead scientists confirm reports that a small percentage of the population, primarily female, have telepathic powers to communicate with one another over great distances. Indigenous patriarchs use the female telepaths to communicate with other clans and distant groups, although the planet as a whole remains technologically undeveloped.

These discoveries lead to the founding of neuro-telesthesia - the study of telepathy. A wave of inter-planetary anthropologists and neuroscientists descend on Kuhr to advance their understanding of Kuhran biology. A leading neuroscientist, Fischer Lothar, discovers that young indigenous Kuhr females possess a unique ability to generate a quantum “vibration” at the plexus of their amygdala and hippocampus. They are able to open an inter-dimensional portal that allows them to transmit charged, entangled particles — quantum “messages” — that can then be sent across time and space, creating near simultaneous communication between compatible telesthetics. These untapped telepathic powers peak before the females reach puberty.

Following their discovery, a small army of scientists conscript Kuhr women to act as long-distance transmitter/receivers, first between deep-space probes, and later between planets. However, indigenous Kuhr have difficulty adapting to humankind’s advancements and space-flight, and their efficiency is reduced as they enter child-rearing age. Fischer establishes the Valkenburg Asylum, a medical institute on Kuhr purportedly created to treat Kuhrans for psychological maladaptation, but in reality the institute is performing research into biological telethesia.

Lothar’s attempts to genetically induce or recreate telesthetic abilities in humans prove elusive. He and his staff begin applying existing indigenous methods for extending the female gender’s telepathic powers through removal of their sex glands and reproductive organs, a known ritualized custom on Kuhr. They then devise a method for a drug-induced amygdalabotomy that strips the Kuhrans of independent will and reduces obstacles to Kuhran adaptation to humankind’s advanced society while retaining their telepathic powers. The women are essentially rendered into revenants, living bio-transmitter vessels devoid of personality and independent thought. Thus a long-range inter-planetary communication system is organized around the female revenants which becomes known as the heraldry system.

As the news gradually travels back to colonies and other populated planets, the discovery of a planet of telepathic beings inspires a religious revolution among the disenfranchised. One such religious sect's message, the Ech Khuvit, begins to dominate. Ech Khuvit, or “originals” as they refer to themselves, are dedicated to the eradication of technological dependence as the one true path to God. The sect’s founder is a charismatic former soldier who cites his encounters with telesthetic Kuhrans as proof of God’s plan using a technologically free existence to find inner peace and salvation. A small percentage of fanatical believers begin to blind themselves with a hot poker in a misguided attempt to gain telesthetic powers and commune closer with God.

Planet Ehrmis is managed by the Lehpoldus Parliament, an independent commercial entity that is not an established member of the Interplanetary Federacy. Its administration of Kuhr is therefore free from the interference and observation of the Federacy’s legal oversight, although it provides updates of its “benevolent and compassionate” approach to colonization.

As the closest populated planet to Kuhr, Ehrmis has become a waypoint for Ech Khuvit pilgrims. The Lehpoldus Parliament authorizes a small colony of Ech Khuvit missionaries to settle on Kuhr to help “advance” Kuhr’s rural society. The missionaries are shocked and dismayed at the living conditions and the Free Territory's treatment of rural Kuhrans. As the Ech Khuvit missionaries’ presence grows, their upstart leader, Armas Pretorius protests the horrific conditions and threatens to seize control of the vast kobold mining operations. Emboldened by Pretorius’ support, and after suffering through decades of slavery, abuse, and the indignity of colonial rule, the indigenous Kuhr are encouraged to unite and rebel.

The Federation takes an intense interest in Kuhr as a resource rich exoplanet that is also the key to expanding interplanetary travel and maintaining the heraldry communication system. They decide to reinforce the Independent Kuhr Free Territory’s small colonial administration with a growing military contingent to assist Ehrmis in maintaining control over mining resources and ensure uninterrupted access to Kuhran female foundlings (being groomed as heralds). The Federation appoints Von Trotha as the Deputy Governor-General on Kuhr to quell the uprising. As the situation on Kuhr deteriorates, the Lehpoldus Parliament authorizes Von Trotha to establish resettlement and internment camps for the rebelling Kuhrans. Women, children, and entire clans are forcibly resettled from their homelands and sentenced to forced labor. Later, the internment orders are expanded to include Ech Khuvit combatants and non-combatants as well. When word of the heinous treatment inside the internment camps leaks out, support for the Ech Khuvit and their spiritual revolution spreads slowly to other colonies and company operations.

It is at this critical turning point that a young Mastis, finishing a 17 year deep-space journey, arrives on Kuhr where Von Trotha assigns him to head the Valkenberg Asylum. The asylum is now a hospital for both traumatized Federation soldiers as well as a research institution for mentally ill Kuhrans. It is here that Mastis first meets Arund Ivoire and learns about the Uuhnser-Gesch, as he completes his ghastly research to discover the secret to human telesthesia.

The civil war on Kuhr will eventually result in the expulsion of the Federacy. Over the course of the ensuing decades, as Mastis’ revolutionary neuro-augmentation process spreads across the known galaxy, the Ech Khuvit rebellion leapfrogs across the outer colonial settlements displacing the Federacy. These break-away colonies under Ech Khuvit control form a growing confederacy of planetary systems that call themselves the New Dominion. The Dominion’s rise to power is accompanied by a ban on science and individual technology. They enforce a “knowledge tax” on all forms of learning and education. Later, the New Dominion forcefully rounds up neuro-augmentees in new concentration camps and conducts show-trials. They offer enhanced augmentees a choice between death and virally induced de-augmentation. As the story opens, Mastis is at the end of his life, exiled and under house arrest for over a decade, and the mysterious Uuhnser-Gesch are threatening to end humanity’s interstellar supremacy.