Round 1.5 [Liber XII v. Rasputin the Translator]

POINT OF ODOR!

Lisa stinks.

POINT OF ORDER!

I should let Burley and eveyone else know that, right now at least, I don't plan on Spitball!ing on the weekends. As Burley knows, there are other projects that need my attention as well, and I haven't been able to give them the attention they need. Hopefully, I'll be able to give them the same kind of momentum that this has, and then I'll be able to weave working on them with working on this. But right now, they need their own days. Feed me! Feed me! they say.

AND NOW...

Here's my kinda-sorta x>y>z for Rasputin: Aliens land > there's some kind of misunderstanding because of the way the aliens communicate and something bad happens > tensions rise between aliens and humans > Smart Agent realizes there's a connection between alien language/method of communication and this crazy, brilliant guy she's read about who lives in the wood > she goes to track him down > there are complications, but she finds him > he's unwilling to help > she finds just the thing to persuade him to help > he goes to help and talk the aliens into not disintegrating us > but wait, he can communicate with them, but the humans can't -- what's he really saying? How do we know he's on the level? > Smart Agent looks into Rasputin's past > Finds some clue or some revelation that gives her some insight as to what's really going down > she has to hurry back to the scene of negotiations -- it isn't what the humans think it is! > she gets there just in time to stop it -- but is she really correct in her suspicions? Or did she just fuck everything up?

Something like that. That's awfully vague, but hopefully gives you some idea of how I see this thing.

And to answer my own "con" from my last post (and as something of a warning): If this idea is selected, both in terms of this round and the contest as a whole, my approach will be Everything I Need To Know About The Story Is Contained In The "Rasputin" Character. That is, the aliens, what their deal is, the Agent, the world of the story, everything I really need to know I plan to get by designing this character. I'm not saying this is the best way, but it's the only way I can imagine finding an "in" for this story for myself.

Oh, and for the record, I don't see him as evil. Crazy, messed-up, untrustworthy, bad hygeine, violent... yes. But not evil.

And now let's see if I can give Liber XII a little sugar.

Yes, to me the "evilness" of the computer is something of a MacGuffin. Or to go back to Die Hard, while it's interesting and cool that Hans Gruber has taken over the Nakatomi building for money and not politics like everyone assumes -- is it important? No. What it's important is that Hans Gruber has taken over the Nakatomi building. Thus, the evilness in the computer is just there to set it all into motion.

Maybe that's the hang-up -- if we look at this from a Sequence Structure perspective (and boy oh boy, that's gonna need its own blog entry down the line), then the computer planet going bad is the Point of Attack (the storm clouds) and presumably the planet killing someone and taking over the operation (or something like that) is the Predicament. But what's the Main Tension? What does the protagonist want? What is the majority of the second act about? Sure, he probably wants to escape and/or destroy the computer. But if so, then what's the Third Act about? And if not -- if that is the Third Act-- again, what's the Second Act about?

(Slightly OT and about Die Hard again: It should be noted that the screenwriter of Die Hard considered the first two acts over in the first 20 pages or so, and considered the remainder of the movie to be the Third Act. Which I found interesting.)

So it looks like the question for Liber XII is not unlike the one for Rasputin: who is this character? This is as about as hacky as it gets, but I think he's low on the totem pole, both in age and rank. His job is something pretty lame compared to the other monks' -- while others get to interface with the computer and manipulate data, etc., he's out emptying latrines and fixing leaks in the undergound chambers and there are ugly space rats and space roaches running around down there. Or maybe like Steven Seagal, he's just a cook. So obviously the first point of order for the evil computer is to kill all the elder monks, and that's when the Little Monk reluctantly comes forward to lead the others in defeating the evil computer.

Jesus. Can I have my million dollars now, Mr. Bruckheimer?