Story Treatment
Title: Creation – Origins and Beyond (the De Vinci Code)
Logline:
It is the last days of the advanced civilization that, through its greed and egocentric evolution, brought itself past the brink of annihilation. In an attempt to manipulate the atmosphere to compensate for global warming through excessive levels of carbon dioxide, the scientist triggered an irreversible chain of events that has led to the slow but certain loss of the life-sustaining atmosphere. It was projected, the entire atmosphere would escape, to dissipate into space, within a two eclipses of the blue star planet and the light star known as Energy. This would not be sufficient time to construct vessels of sufficient capacity to be meaningful so, it was decided, the effort would be devoted to saving the essence of the their civilization by developing the science to produce thousands of crucible pods, each to contain the DNA of all things living on their planet that they would survive the tortures of being flung into space with the hopes and dreams by all that were to perish, would befall another place fertile and conducive, to the seeds contained within. To take root, evolve once again, to become a new civilization that would reflect those who were chosen, but wiser in their way.
The fateful moment had arrived; the second eclipse of the blue star planet was about to happen. All the crucibles, each inscribed with the story of this proud but failed civilization indelibly etched in the hard metal sheath, lay beneath a heat resistant coating of minerals to protect it through its unknown journey to unknown places. It was hoped the outer sheath, being super heated upon entering an atmosphere, would collapse and fall apart upon hard impact with the planetary surface. However, this was all scientific conjecture for little was known of space and other planets. In the last century they successfully sent probes to the blue star planet on which they felt confident new life could be sustained. To that end they knew to fire the starship laden with the crucibles, at the precise moment of full eclipse of the Energy star and the blue star planet. Once into appropriate orbit of the blue planet, the starship would release the elliptical shaped pods, each being just forty centimetres in diameter, allowing the momentum of inertia to direct and project them toward the surface of the planet, in the same manner as had been done with the previously sent probes.
In the last days, telepathic energies of the suffocating and dying inhabitants was directed to the journeying probes, psychically encouraging their success of endeavour and dismembered success of their continued existence. Particular psychic focus was lauded a small group of select crucible pods, for within these were the elemental seeds that, should just one successfully meet its fate, would one day, flourish into special beings by whose guidance and influence, the future of the new civilization would rest.
Viewed from the darkness of space, like a cluster of several hundred small orange red stars, the pods drawn by the gravity of the brilliantly blue star planet, the outer shell of the crucible glowed with the heat of entry into the upper atmosphere, falling toward an unknown, climatic end, to a long journey.
Of the several thousands of pods originating from the now fully collapsed and dead planet, only several hundred survived the journey through space and, only a smaller number of these survived the passage through the thick atmosphere of their new home. Of these, scattered throughout the planet, some came into contact with hard surfaces and others fell into the liquid that gave the planet its dominant color – water. It was only these latter few that survived to release their sustenance into the salty, warm liquid. Once emptied, the metal pods, with the story of their origin, floated to the surface to be dispersed by the waves to one day be found by the future civilization to which it gave seed.
Chapter One:
James Carson an amateur geologist and aspiring archaeologist was dangling precariously as he swung his pick axe to the ice encrusted layer of sediment the strata of which represented a mysterious period in the history of Earth’s evolution. He was a student of Immanuel Velikovsky who purported that Earth’s evaluation was an explosive and catastrophic one as evidenced by mysterious and yet unanswered questions about what preceded and, as important, what caused the formidable glacial movement of the Ice Age. And how was it that in the furthest reaches of northern Siberia, where little else can flourish or thrive, the pristine remains of wholly mammoths and other unrelated and now extinct species of mammal and vertebrae are found huddled together in the deep recesses of otherwise inaccessible caves and ridges. Seemingly, flash frozen with stomach contents of grasses and other vegetation known to be foreign to the regions of their obvious demise.
What attracted Carson’s attentions so much as to risk his life off the end of a nylon climbers rope secured only by a four inch spiked clip, was what looked through the rough, black ice, a shiny metallic object.
With each blow of his axe to the hard wall propelled him equally as far away from the wall swinging him dangerously back and forth. Too much of this same action could cause the rope safety clip to work itself loose with the fatal result of plunging him to the bottomless crevice. But Jason was both stubborn and obstinate and, ignoring the pleas of his guide to give up his quest before it was too late.
Yelling out in defiance, Jason took one last hard swing with his axe aimed directly at the unknown object. The power and force caused a huge junk of ice to break free while simultaneously propelling Jason away from the wall. On the return leg of his pendulum swing, he was able to stop and hold himself to the wall by jamming the pointed end of the pick into the newly created cavity. What his eyes saw in that moment would forever change the course of Jason Carson’s life and that of humanity on Earth.
Chapter Two:
Two months later, while attending a lecture of friend and renowned archaeologist and paleontologist Edmund Swartzkoff, Jason could barely contain his excitement any longer. To that moment, he had not shared with anyone any detail of his mysterious find. This was for two reasons namely, he was not sure of what it is that he found and secondly, given the strata of sediment from whence it was discovered, it had to be several million years old. It had to be important!
Swartzkoff’s eyes nearly blew from his skull when Jason finally exposed the metal, elliptical shaped object that lay caressingly within a foam lined metal box. Anxious to make a closer examination of the object, Swartzkoff reached into the box only to be thwarted by Jason who pulled the box from the table, claiming the object was not to be touched or handled. Resenting the limitation imposed, Swartzkoff moved in closer toward the box still in Jason’s possession.
Chapter Three:
It was hard enough for Jason to maintain secrecy about his mysterious object. Swartxkoff unlike him, was not as capable to contain his excitement about what the find meant and mumbled about his observation of the object to fellow colleagues promising them that a profound find was to soon be unveiled by a young, up and coming archaeologist. And when pressed for a name, caved in divulging that it was Jason Carson.
The media were relentless about wanting to know more and the ISAP, International Society of Archeological Prospection imposed sanctions on Jason with threats of banishment unless he made public his find.
In a negotiated compromise, Jason agreed to display his find to a select assemblage of esteemed archaeologists, paleontologists, and even theologians given the potential nature of the object.
The presentation was to be attended to by the select few professionals at Indiana University renowned for its research interests in the archaeology of human origins and, the evolutionary ecology of early hominids, not to mention, it is Jason’s graduate school.
Huddled around an old oak table, the murmurings of the dozen men and women, filled the small, dank poorly lit room in the basement of the anthropology department building. Hardly a prestigious environment for such an important announcement however, Jason wanted to be sure that the meeting was held in a space that could not be penetrated or spied upon by the unwanted public media. The room had no windows and only one entrance way – down a long narrow corridor to the one room where all present sat anxiously awaiting a look at what was deemed the find of the millennium. The room came to abrupt silence as the door jarred open.
Jason guardedly entered through the doorway, the wooden box conspicuously tucked under his arm, closed the door with his foot, not taking his eyes off the twelve sets of eyes glued to every movement of he and the box in his possession.
Coyly, Jason moved to the head of the table, reverently placing the box before him. Looking up at his audience, he was momentarily at awe by the transfixing nature the box had. Seemingly hypnotizing all present. Then, with little to no fan fare or introduction, Jason turned the box 180 degrees so that it would open toward the group of men and women. And in one motion, pulled open the lid to expose his find.
At first there was utter silence. The scientist needed the few seconds to digest what it was that they were seeing. Then, the excitement seemed to sweep through them like a wave. The first to move toward the object was Dr. Leonard King, a leader in ancient artifact. As he moved closer and was about to handle the object, Jason slammed the lid shut, almost catching the over zealous doctor’s fingers, causing him to recoil and fall back into his chair.
Jason, hands still holding the box shut, repeated one of the prior conditions of the presentation: that no one was to touch or handle the object. It was his desire to not have any human hands touch the object to maintain its pristine condition, void of human contact. He himself had not directly touched the object since he found it. When discovered, he used the pointed end of his pickaxe to pry the object free, to have it literally tumble directly, into a sterile bag used for such situations. It was only after swab samples of the surface moisture and elements were carefully taken and stored for investigation, did he place the object into the specially designed, sterile-foam lined box that hermitically seals out air when the box is closed.
With unanimous agreement to respect the condition, each scientist using a large magnifying glass, took turns examining the object from within the box. They could not contain their excitement as they moved the glass back and forth over the hieroglyph-like shaped inscriptions etched into the metal-looking surface, claiming all the while, that the object had to be the work of an intelligent species but, definitely, not of any known terrestrial species. Then, turning to Jason, the obvious question was asked: what about confirmation of its age. How old was the object?
Jason pulled from his attaché case a file folder. Confident that he had gained the attention and seeming respect of the assemblage, he proceeded to report on the analysis of the swab samples taken from the surface of the object. These findings, and the accepted consensus of the age of the strata from which it was discovered, though not the age of the object itself, placed it at approximately four million years. The object itself is of inexplicable origin and indeterminate age. It could be into the billions of years.
`Astonishing!’ was the only word that fell from the lips of all presnt. `Simply: astonishing!`
Chapter Four:
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