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TRIUMVIRATE SE Abandoned Ideas Part 2
By The Host
ROCKS ALONG THE WAY
Predecessors to Triumvirate Part II
This section describes Gemini's Redemption, which I deevloped over the final six months of 1997.
July 1997 (as written at the time):
GEMINI’S REDEMPTION: A NOVEL
PROLOGUE
‘To the Inside of a Star and Beyond’
THE VAST INFINITY OF SPACE had always been mind-boggling to Exler Joggins. He could stare at the stars for hours on end and never become tired of them. There was always another star to see, another nebula; the mysteries of space, that thing which surrounded and engulfed all, were uncountable and, quite often, unsolvable. He could always wonder, and daydream, about what it was like in the center of a star, where ample heat and light was produced to sustain an entire solar system; enough crushing gravity to keep it all in sway. A thousand nuclear blasts a second -- it was really quite unimaginable. Awe-inspiring.
Man continued to seek further and further outwards into space: first the fabled Solar System, home to man’s humble beginnings on the lost planet of Earth; then the nearby stars, and now half of the galaxy. Where would man stop? Not until the entire universe was mapped out? Not until all of the mysteries of space were intimately known and made a part of man’s ever-increasing knowledge?
And yet man was always too busy to look at himself. The functions of the brain were never really understood; just mapped out with endless complex equations and scientific mumbo-jumbo about nerve stimulation. Psychology had become passé centuries ago; the study of the shape of thought was boring and outdated. Who really needed to know how the infinitely complex interaction of thoughts and experiences could make a person act in a certain way when their brain’s functions could be described with numbers? Man was too busy for thought and sketchy theories anyway. Real science was better.
The more Exler thought about this, the more foolish it seemed to him. Sure, you may know how all of the fiberoptic fibers and nano-transistors are connected together in a computer, but that doesn’t necessarily mean you know how it actually works. You could build one, but you may not be able to program one, or even use one.
But Exler just dismissed the thought. He couldn’t change it, and thinking about it just made him more frustrated. He was too tired to be frustrated.
Besides, Exler thought, if man knew everything, if there was no mystery to life, things would be pretty boring. Perhaps the pursuit of science, whose feverish pace was always increasing, would eventually prove the downfall of civilized man. If there ever came a time when everything was known, there would be no reason to live that Exler could see.
Once again, Exler just forgot about it. In any case, that point in time, if it ever came, would be far beyond the lifespan of Exler Joggins.
For now, he was content to just watch the stars.
***
The explosion came suddenly.
Exler was thrown off of his feet. Suddenly the world was spinning, tumbling, a mass of confusion. Exler didn’t seem to see things in slow motion, just with sharper detail, leaving a deeper imprint on his mind.
He suddenly felt a sharp pain in the back of his head, and a sudden warmth. His body fell down, slumped on the floor against the wall which he had just hit. There were alarms, whining, screaming, all around
him. Lights flashing red and orange along the ceiling and floor. People running by, shouting frantic commands; nobody seemed to notice Exler lying there motionless, like a wounded doe.
He reached his hand up, felt the top of his head. His hair was wet and matted down. Sweat? He brought his hand in front of his face and regarded a warm, red substance on his fingers. Blood. He must have hit his head pretty hard.
He looked at the blood for a moment, the rest of the world a blur. Then he could feel it, burning, running down the back of his neck, pouring out of his head wound sickeningly. He tried to cancel the image out of his mind, the sight of him, his head covered with blood, perhaps the grey matter of his brain protruding. But he couldn’t stop thinking about it.
He began to unconsciously moan. Still, nobody paid attention to him.
He realized that he was going to vomit, felt the wrenching of his stomach. He tried to move, to crawl away, but his legs wouldn’t work. He tried to yell for help, but couldn’t; his vocal chords wouldn’t work, save for the long, continuing, unending moan.
And suddenly it happened again. That jarring, and then the tumbling. As he flew through the air, his moan turned into a scream. Everything was a massive, constantly moving blur. He was beginning to pass out.
Then he landed again with a thud. Everything was still and quiet. The alarms were still there, but were now just background noises, subliminal sounds.
After a moment, Exler saw somebody come around the corner of the corridor. The person just stood there.
‘Jesus.’
Exler sat there and watched the man, a strange peace and contentedness encompassing his body. He watched the man looking around for a superior, yelling for help. He was apparently young, probably a space cadet just out of the academy. Exler spent a moment trying to guess the man’s age, and then forgot about it. He was too tired. He just wanted to go to sleep and never wake up.
The man hesitated, then took a cautious step forward. He carefully climbed over a steel beam which was barring passage down the corridor.
‘Is anybody alive?’
Exler didn’t answer, but continued to watch the man with half-interest. Sleep was coming over him.
The man slipped on a pool of blood and nearly fell.
‘Jesus,’ he said again.
Now he was inspecting a mixture of blood and vomit splattered on one of the walls. Suddenly the man jerked up, his head darting left, past Exler. The man hesitated again, and then made a decision, heading quickly down the corridor past Exler.
Exler slowly turned his head to follow the man, the slight pain and burning at the back of his neck not bothering him at all. He barely noticed it.
The man ran into the next section of corridor, about twenty feet away from Exler. He bent over to a hulk of an officer lying on the floor, barely responsive. He said something to the hulk, and it moaned something in reply. Exler didn’t strain to listen to the conversation. He didn’t care. All that interested him now was sleep.
Meanwhile, the young man was standing, looking out the windows that Exler had been at moments before. Or had it been seconds? Or hours?
The man’s eyes widened in fear.
‘Oh, shit.’
Exler didn’t care what happened to the man now. He was closing his eyes now, going to sleep, going to sleep forever, or as long as he could.
And suddenly he was awake again, wide awake, as the ship once again tumbled. Darkness was beginning to close about Exler as he once again seemed to float through the air. He watched the man further down the corridor, heard the horrifying scream as the windows along the corridor smashed, the vacuum of space pulling the young man out. The hulk, along with pipes, circuit boards, wires, beams, and dozens of other pieces of the ship’s infrastructure were pulled out after the man. A low moan came from the once-alive hulk, a sound which for some reason deeply disturbed Exler, and brought him partly back to his senses.
The moan was cut short. After a moment of deafening silence, Exler suddenly realized with horror that he, too would be pulled out into space. But that wasn’t happening. Why not?
It took him a moment to realize that the low buzzing sound in the background was not inside his head, but indeed represented the airlock forcefield which had immediately initiated about five feet from where he now was. It was funny he hadn’t thought of that before.
Then Exler realized what was happening to him: he had a massive head injury and was starting to go unconscious. All of his medical training told him not to let himself, to fight the tired sleepiness to the end, because he knew that if he closed his eyes now he would probably never open them again.
But it was no use. His mind was working slowly, it was hard for him to think, and the pain -- ever present and unchanging, but becoming harder to bear every second that went by -- was excruciating, constantly on his mind. Already he felt like he was floating...
But he was floating. Now he realized that the gravity drives must have been knocked off-line. He was in a zero-gee environment floating three feet above the floor.
Things slowly began to come into focus again. The destruction surrounding him: broken glass, live wires, bodies, beams, and other pieces of the ship’s innards were floating about the corridor. And perfectly-formed, spherical globs of blood were suspended in the still air.
The sound of the alarms was now gone, only softly blinking lights labeled ‘EMERGENCY’ remained. Now all he could hear was the burst of sparks and occasional moan from the seemingly-lifeless bodies, along with the ringing in his ears.
But then a new sound came, a soft rumble. Exler tried to position himself so that he could see outside, to no avail. The rumbling grew louder and louder, until it was almost unbearably loud, drowning out even the beating of Exler’s racing heart. The ship began to tremble, ever so slightly at first, but becoming more and more evident, more and more violent.
Then, abruptly, it stopped. The rumble, the shaking, everything. There was a breathless silence for what seemed an entirety. Then the silence was interrupted by the sound of heavy footsteps. Somebody was coming down the corridor towards Exler! He wondered how they could be walking in the no-gravity ship, but didn’t really care. They were coming to get him, to save him! They were getting closer and closer, just about to turn the corner. Exler’s excitement built; he decided to call out to them if his lungs could work. He awkwardly turned to face his rescuers, and as they came into view he opened he mouth to yell some indication to them that he was there, and that he needed help.
His call for help was cut short.
[Reminisced six years later: I toyed with the idea of writing this as a novel. Wrote the prologue, which you see above, and two chapters. These eventually became the opening scenes of the next version of the story, and were included in some capacity in all revisions of the story for the next three years, before the ideas from this novel were totally scrapped. You will see them again, however – including what you just read above – in Second Triumvirate!]
November 1997 (movie plot description as written at the time):
In the future... (PROLOGUE)
After the opening titles, pan left to reveal a huge starship, the USSS GEMINI. Crash-cut to the interior of the vessel’s sick bay; there is an air of pandemonium. People inflicted with some strange disease are flocking to the room; bodies litter the floor. Suddenly there is an infusion of panic as the captain of the ship comes in. He is placed on a cleared desk in the chief medical officer’s office, the only free area of sick bay.
Cut to the bridge of the ship. The first officer enters where he learns that the Gemini’s mothership, the USSS GLORY, has arrived. The first officer then informs his mates that members of a ‘new order’ within the United Star Systems will be boarding the ship to perform tests that will ‘ensure the advancement and betterment of our society.’
The Glory, many times larger than the Gemini, sends dozens of shuttles ferrying troops to the smaller vessel. A unit of troops in one of these shuttles cuts through the Gemini’s hull, landing in an outer hallway just as a young couple round a corner in the hall. They’re stunned to see the soldiers, clad in bio-suits and body armor. After a tense moment, the couple begin to move away. A trigger is pulled and all hell breaks loose.
Troops round up and kill innocent crew members of the Gemini in a number of shockingly violent scenes (heh, heh). Five soldiers carrying flame throwers burn everything in their path, a path which takes them to sick bay.
They disable the forcefield encasing the captain of the Gemini. This gives them access to the captain, but also lets him escape.
Suddenly the troops are recalled, before the flame-thrower carrying ‘clean-up crew’ is able to give chase to the fleeing captain.
The Glory offers its condolences and apologies, then turns to leave. Before doing so, however, they launch a warhead at the Gemini, destroying it. One person survives, however: the captain escapes in a shuttle. He is almost dead at the wheel, however; the disease has overwhelmed him. One of the ensigns on the Glory, a young man named Pelley, is ordered to remotley hack into the shuttle’s system, setting a new course: the nearby planet of Al T’Har.
Fifty-four years later... (ACT ONE)
A final shot of Al T’Har is interrupted by a huge explosion. A subtitle displays the time change as we are introduced to two young starfighters, Commander Solomon Johnson and his wingman Jack Davies. They’ve just ‘kicked space pirate butt’ and are returning to their home base.
They find to their surprise that home base is no longer there; in its place is a few thousand pieces of charred debris. They report the apparent destruction and are relocated to a new base built near the planet of Al T’Har.
It is determined that the base was destroyed by the Al T’Har for some reason, and Davies and Johnson are commanded (by their new boss, one Admiral Copley) to lead an attack on a T’Hardan weapons facility.
The attack does not go all that well. They are given the order to retreat, but Johnson is determined, and his wingman too loyal to leave him alone.
They are shot down and captured by the Al T’Har. They are then shown the startling truth: the Al T’Har have been set up. The USS destroyed their own base and framed the Al T’Har. Nobody is exactly sure why.
The companions are given a tour of the ‘weapons facility’ they attacked. It is a hospital and research lab where scientists are searching for a cure to the disease that has afflicted the Al T’Har people for the last half-century. A disease that reduced their power -- and population -- to a mere shadow of what it had once been. They had just discovered a cure and were now testing it. Results looked hopeful -- even definite.
An explosion rocks the building. Another attack. The two wingmen are ‘rescued’ and, to their horror, the hospital is destroyed, along with the cure.
Johnson and Davies take the words of the Al T’Har to heart: truth is the only advantage they have against an overwhelming power. Truth and hope. The two begin to spread both.
They formulate a plan with their new flight group to defect in the next engagement. Johnson will give the word twelve minutes into battle, at which time they will all change sides. When they leave the USS, they’re goign to try to take as many out with them as they can.
Their plans go awry thanks to a traitor in the group. A traitor who has rallied all of the others against Davies and Johnson. Four minutes into their next battle, Johnson’s sabotaged ship blows up; Davies is surrounded and captured.
However, Eric Jarvins, one of the traitors, has a change of heart. He helps Davies escape, though he ends up dying in the process. Thus Jack Davies escapes alone, destined to single-handedly begin a revolution.
Meanwhile... (ACT TWO)
In a dark room, a dark meeting is held. It seems that ‘everything is going according to plan’...
Davies arrives on the planet of Al T’Har. He is put in command of a rag-tag group of like-minded rebels: many of them are former enemies united by a common hate of the United Star Systems. There’s Delaria Abdul, a tough-as-nails ‘half-breed’ who was ridiculed and eventually exiled from the USS because of the blood flowing through her veins. Hawk Macy, the second-in-command, is a young and agressive hoodlum with no respect for authority. He’s also the damned best pilot in the navy. William Harker is of high-class ascendary, a defector form a high-class British family in the USS. Exler Joggins is a quiet black man, the brains of the group. And forty-five others who aren’t really important to the plot...
Davies is charged with the task of keeping the others united long enough to complete their vital mission: cross the galaxy in search of allies. Start a rebellion.
And so they leave AL T’Har behind, launching into an epic quest across the galaxy and back again. They will become tangled up in a conspiracy of lies greater than any of them thought possible, and it will be impossible to tell who’s on their side and who isn’t. In a hall of mirrors it’s hard to tell truth from lies.
Immediately they are engulfed in battle. General Harris, commander of the Ninth Fleet, is waiting for the rebels. He is a road block on their journey, and their is no way to sneak past him.
Harris is surprised by the rebel’s dexterity. Though outnumbered five to one, the rebels are very successful. They have lost only nine people when Harris turns to retreat.
Suddenly Harris’ long-awaited back-up arrives. General Dawson and the Seventh Fleet. But these ships are different: they aren’t the orange of the USS; they’re painted black and marked with the logo of The Corporation.
However, they are there to aid Harris. And they have almost a thousand ships. The rebels are doomed.
One minute and ten rebel deaths later, something strange happens. The black ships begin blowing up the orange ones.
After chasing off the United Star Systems, Dawson makes an offer. He offers the truth. In return he asks permission to join the rebels. He asks for Davies’ trust.
His thousand ships, all with their guns pointed directly at the rebels, leave Davies with little choice.
***
A man in a pin-stripe suit meets with The President of the United Star Systems. He informs The President of Dawson’s unexpected departure. He explains how this has hurt The Corporation, and more importantly, how it has further complicated The Plan. He asks for reinforcements and The President grudgingly gives in. The man in the pin-stripe suit is escorted out of The President’s office.
***
Dawson escorts the rebels to a small, unassuming storage base. This one, too, is painted black with Corporation logos adorning its side.
Dawson explains to Davies as much of the truth as he knows.
He begins by asking if Davies’ ever heard of something called ‘Gemini’. Davies says yes, it’s sort of a local legend around Al T’Har. A revolutionary starship that disappeared in the vicinity of Al T’Har some fifty years ago on its maiden voyage. Ever since, Al T’Har has been a sort of Bermuda Triangle for spaceships, with disappearances on an almost yearly basis.
Dawson says that’s because Project Gemini, the supposedly-failed and supposedly-terminated projected that researched and funded the USSS Gemini, was much greater than just a starship design. And that it was much more sinister than diplomacy and exploration.
He says that the Gemini was just a vehicle to set the project, the real project, in motion. Dawson explains that the USS destroyed the Gemini fifty-four years ago; they were cleaning up the evidence. Project Gemini was supposedly shut down, but it secretly continued at an undisclosed location for years.
Dawson is unsure of what Project Gemini is all about, but he’s heard rumors. Disturbing rumors.
Now it seems that somebody has discovered the truth. The Al T’Har. Possibly somebody at Davies’ destroyed base. And once again the United Star Systems is cleaning house. They’re destroying the evidence. They’re hiding the truth. And they will stop at nothing to make sure that it is never revealed, because the truth is their greatest vulnerability.
That’s why Dawson has joined the rebellion: not because he relates or even pities the rebels. Not even because he hates the United Star Systems. But because he wants to find and expose the truth.
Then Dawson shows Davies something unexpected: the USSS Gemini.
Gemini II, to be exact.
The USS wanted to keep the Gemini, it would be useful when their plan was executed. And so they created two models -- the second, undestroyed one, the one which would be the prototype for a future generation, had been left in Dawson’s care. This ship will be able to give the rebels a great advantage over the USS. If only they had the facilities to produce it.
***
While on the station (amidst a number of character-developing scenes), Davies runs into a rather familiar face. Steve Davies, his brother, is now a bonafide rebel.
Before they can get caught up on their five years away from each other, an announcement is made. The rebels (whose numbers have now swelled to close to sixteen hundred ships thanks to many new defectors, including Steve -- he couldn’t let his brother be a famous rebel alone) are to suit up for a major strike against a starship production facility.
Davies and the others had planned this strike. It was on an underwater base on a planet covered mostly with water. A small number of ships (only about twenty), specially modified to be submersible, are to make a quick surprise attack on the station.
The rebels find themselves rather unprepared for the ambush. It seems that The Corporation, who runs the factory, had found out about the attack. One-hundred submersible attack vessels are ready and waiting.
After a breathtakingly cool action scene (I’m especially proud of it), the rebels are victorius. But only three survive (Davies, Macy and Steve), and the victory is in other ways a bitter loss -- the rebels apparently now have a traitor among their ranks. And it has to be one of the original rebels or Dawson, for they were the only ones who knew about the attack until it was actually carried out.
There is one major encouragement. Dawson’s aide, Wilhelm, hacks the computer system at the factory. They find some incriminating -- though vague at best -- files citing the USS’s allies, the Delrians, as their first targets.
***
The man in the pin-stripe suit meets with The President again. He explains that their production facility was captured -- another unplanned snag. He gets more support from The President. After the meeting, the man in the pin-stripe suit mentions to an aid that ‘Dawson isn’t doing his job’.
***
Immediately, a great muster begins -- three-thousand rebel ships are rounded up. Two-thirds of them cross the galaxy under Dawson’s command.
More character-development scenes occur. It seems that the characters are deeper than they appeared at first; their emotions charged by mistrust.
On the journey, Hawk Macy makes a startling discovery -- an encrypted code to Corporation Command, being sent by Dawson. He approaches the general, and after a fist-fight between the two, Dawson is thrown in the brig. The traitorous general tries to convince Davies that he has retained a position with the Corporation so that he could learn more of the truth. He assures Davies that his intentions were to help the rebels. That he did not tell The Corporation about the attack on the production facility. He was about to find the real traitor.
His pleas fall upon deaf ears. Davies, though he feels guilty about it, keeps the general under lock and key. Davies leads the mission himself.
***
The man in the pin-stripe suit is speaking via communicator with some unknown individual. He explains that the rebels have found out about Dawson and put him in the brig.
He ends the conversation with, ‘Everything is perfectly following the plan.’
***
Finally... (ACT THREE)
The rebels reach Delrian. They’re not the first to get there, however. The orange ships of the USS -- the First Fleet, commanded by the aging Admiral Pelley (remember the ensign on the Glory?). They inform the Delrian leader (Prime Minister MacDonald) that a force of rebels has arrived, and that this is their battle, not Delrian’s. They warn them not to become involved.
The rebels are greatly outnumbered. And two more fleets are on their way: the Sixth and the Thirteenth. The rebels have twenty-five Gemini’s, which are immune to many of the modern ship-to-ship weapons, but are still outmatched. Their only hope lies in gaining the Delrians’ support.
***
A small flight of rebel ships are on patrol in a sector near the production facility. They are ambushed by invisible ships -- phantoms -- and only one survives...
***
At the rebel’s main base, where the Gemini had been kept under Dawson’s care, a great fleet is approaching...
***
Back at Delrian, the rebels are fighting defensively, attempting to hold out long enough for negotiations between the rebels and Delrians. On the planet, Davies and Wilhelm force their way to the Prime Minister of Delrian, and attempt to convince him to aid them.
***
A small force of these phantom ships has arrived at the production facility. The fleet has arrived at the rebel’s headquarters. Now three battles are raging at once across the galaxy. Makes for some interesting action scenes.
***
The Delrians are convinced. Their fleets join the rebels. But the Thirteenth Fleet (under control of The Corporation and led by the CEO himself -- the man in the pin-stripe suit) has arrived, and now so has the Sixth.
The rebel / Delrian force are losing the battle. Then a huge fleet of Al T’Har ships arrives. Macy is given orders to ‘follow through’ by the Al T’Haran leader. He turns and begins to attack his own comrades -- guess who the real traitor is -- but then turns around and makes a kamakazie run for the Al T’Har mothership. His ship explodes into flames, but the mothership is destroyed also.
All Al T’Har ships immediately begin to attack the rebels. Then, under The President’s order (there has been a parle between him and the CEO interspersed with the sction), the Sixth Fleet begins to pull out. The Corporation’s ships begin attacking them, and the Al T’Har run to the USS’s aid.
And as if the rebels weren’t confused enough, another force joins the party. Monstorously large starships appear and begin to defend the outnumbered Corporation ships. Dawson, who has just been released from the brig, claims that they’re aliens. But there’s no such thing as aliens.
Forgotten about, the rebels quietly slip back to the planet where they watch the forces destroy themselves far above Delrian. At both the production facility and main rebel base, the corporation and USS ships begin attacking each other. The rebels have stumbled upon a makeshift victory, but are left wondering who is on who’s side, and who they can trust.
END PART ONE
Part One makes up about half of the epic film Gemini’s Redemption (roughly an hour and forty-five minutes). In part two, the rebels discover the secret location of the USS and Corporation’s seat of government. An epic battle ensues ending with the destruction of the moon, and the earth itself.
But the film still isn’t over. Part Three (the last hour of the film) tells of the aftermath of the USS’s destruction and ressurection of the New United Star Systems. It seems that there are still remnants of the old order, and the rebels are faced with an overwhelming, incurable disease. The only way to find a cure -- and discover the whole truth -- is to infiltrate an alien empire. But not all are too be trusted. Not even the closest of friends.
PART TWO
Three months later... (ACT FOUR)
The CEO meets with the President again with a stern warning: do *not* betray him again or there will be hell to pay. The President questions him on the identity of the huge starships that aided the Corporation at Delrian; his questiojns are ignored.
***
It is only a matter of time before another attack force arrives.
The Delrian people begin a slow evacuation of the planet. Three months pass. In that time Davies meets the not-quite-so-dead Cmmdr. Johnson. It was not Johnson in the starship that blew up so long ago, but instead a decoy. Johnson was held captive and somehow made his way to a Delrian prison. He’s not sure how.
Dawson sufficiently convinces the others that he is not a traitor, it was Macy all along. But nobody aside from Davies seems to trust him anymore.
Steve and Jack Davies fight with each other. So do William Harker and Exler Joggins. Delaria and Johnson.
Finally, after those three months, the group of original rebels along with the Delrian Prime Minister and a young man named Rexillian O’Riley (Rex for short) are the last to leave the planet behind. They head for a remote training facility, where Dawson’s fleets have been researching and designing a new fighter ship design (the Gunship) for two years, lest this day come. They’re ready to try it out.
After arriving and settling in, a group of USS spies are captured. Interrogation reveals that a ship containing information on the whereabouts of the fabled planet Earth, supposed home to the USS government and headquarters of the Corporation, will be passing through very soon. The ship is named The Lion’s Den.
The ship approaches. A quick team is assembled to distract the ship while one person infiltrates it. That person is Rex.
And so into The Lion’s Den he goes. After a dangerous encounter in an air-lift shaft, Rex gets a hold of the information. A surprise attack on Earth can now proceed.
***
The CEO and the President meet. They are well aware, it seems, of the impending attack. Or at least the CEO is. He informs the President that he allowed the rebels to find the location of Earth: this is the only place where a large enough force can be quickly assembled to combat the rebels. It is the place where the rebellion can be destroyed once and for all; once again, ‘the USS will clean up the evidence.’ Then they will be able to unleash Project Gemini.
The President remains wary.
***
The rebels arrive at Earth two weeks later. They find Earth a beautiful sight... their ancient home. They find the moon, which looks like a giant metallic ball (it is covered with buildings) virtually un-protected.
They edge forward, about to pounce with a blitzkrieg attack on the moon. Then a massive fleet of black and orange ships appears from behind the moon. The battle has begun.
Dawson and the others engage the USS and Corporation in battle as two vital missions proceed: Johnson and Davies travel to the earth’s surface to find the President, find the truth, and assinate their former leader. Rex and Exler travel to the moon where they are to find out what Project Gemini is. On their way, Harker gives up his own life to allow Exler and Rex to reach the moon safely. This greatly moves Exler, Harker’s former enemy.
On the planet, Johnson and Davies are awestruck by the beauty of the planet. It has been re-taken by nature -- the Statue of Liberty covered with mold; the huge, futuristic towers of Tokyo half destroyed; the Eiffel Tower sticking out above a flooded Seine. The Colousseum, still standing, is sinking into a marsh that once was Rome.
Finally they find the center of USS government -- a newly-restored and greatly changed Neuschweinstien Castle in Bavaria. They land below the castle and prepare to infiltrate it.
Rex and Exler aren’t having as much luck. The surface of the moon is a criss-cross of wide tubes which act as streets for passenger and cargo transports. They enter one with their own ship a little too fast, and damage their gunship badly. Landing in a utility hangar, they find a lone mechanic who is a rebel sympathiser. He offers to help.
A new ship has entered the space battle. The Corporation’s mothership, twenty-five miles long, it actually detached from the moon. The ship, commanded by the CEO, once was the interior portion of the crater Julius Caesar, home to the Corporation’s command center.
On earth, the companions sneak through the castle’s halls. On the moon, troops break through barriers built by the mechanic and almost capture Rex and Exler; a daring move by the mechanic saves them.
The CEO contacts Dawson, who now informs him he is a true rebel. At the same time, the CEO extends thanks and congratulations to Davies for a job well done.
Speaking of Davies: he and Johnson finally reach the President. In chains. The President orders them released and brings them into his office. He then tells them what Project Gemini is.
The President is in the mouth of madness as he explains the Project Gemini was meant to create a weapon. A biological weapon. One which would give the Corporation (who controlled the USS like a puppet even fifty-four years ago) the ability to conquer Delrian for valuable resources on the planet. What these resources are remains to be seen.
Al T’Har was the test bed for the diesease. And it was going well. The Corporation’s facilities on the moon were producing ample portions of the Gemini strain, and an antidote. But things went awry when the Al T’Har began to realize that the diesease which inflicted them was manufactured. And, even worse, they had a cure.
So the USS, urged by the Corporation, waged war against the Al T’Har. They were cleaning up the evidence, keeping their weapon safe.
***
Dawson is getting a complete confession out of the CEO, unasked for. Seems the rebnellion was all a ploy: the Corporation needed a reason to attack Delrian, or else all of the other nations would unite against them. Delrian had to be the oppressors. They they couldn’t frame the Delrians for anything, lest the Delrians found proof it was a set-up. Al T’Har, which was on its knees because of the disease, approached the Corporation begging for help. They set up a deal: the T’Haran leaders were provided with a cure (for their use only); in return they would help the Corporation with its plan. Al T’Har was weak, and the Corporation was keeping it alive. So they could be trusted, but nobody else could be.
The Al T’Har and Delrians were enemies, however. So if they were going to convince Delrian to declare war on the Corporation, they’d have to find somebody else to do it. Somebody that didn’t realize what it was they were doing. They hand-picked Davies out of all of their troops, and decided that he would start a rebellion due to all of the horrible things the USS was doing to the Al T’Har. The rebellion would be able to convince Delrian to declare war on the USS. Thus the Corporation would be able to move in itself, as an ‘extension’ of the USS, and claim Delrian for itself.
Both the rebels and the USS were left in the dark the entire time. But the President was not totally incompetent; he was beginning to suspect. It was only a matter of time before the rebels found out. And so the Corporation is once again cleaning up the evidence.
***
The President is completely blinking mad. He keeps raving about the destruction of everybody by the Corporation, and saying ‘it must be stopped.’ He orders a warhead be launched at the moon ‘before it is too late.’ The rebels, realizing that the cure for the virus can only be found there, try to stop the President. But it’s too late. The missile is launched, the President assures him that it is all ‘for the best.’
Then the president takes a Deatomizer: a weapon which will literally scramble your atoms. He turns it to the two rebels, but at the last moment points it at himself and fires. The former President of the United Star Systems turns into water, crystal clear water, and splashes to the floor.
***
Dawson feels that something is wrong. They realize that if they break off the battle now, the Corporation’s ships will overcome them in their retreat and they will be virtually defenseless. But Dawson urges the rebels to leave the battle as soon as the away teams arrive. He orders his fleets to ‘set in a course and form a defensive position. Be prepared to leave with a moment’s notice.’
***
The troops break into the hangar just as Exler and Rex hear a loud, distant boom. The rebels have finally fixed their ship, and they urge the mechanic to join them. He blantantly refuses, saying he’ll try to distract the entering troops while Exler and Rex escape. Reluctantly, the two board the ship. Finding the way outside blocked, they turn to the tube-street. They exit the hangar just as the mechanic is shot and killed.
Strangely, nobody gives chase. They cruise along the tube, interspersed with shots of explosions rocking the moon’s surface, a domino effect from the original warhead impact. The rebels make a turn to see to droids coming at them, guns blazing. Unfortunately, the gunship’s weapons don’t seem to have been properly fixed, but the drones soon pass by.
The companions relief is temporary; the drones turn and follow begind them.
Suddenly the firing stops. Rex looks behind them and sses why: an as-yet unnoticed fireball roaring down the chute engulfed the tiny drones. In seconds it will reach the speeding gunship.
***
Johnson and Davies rush to their ships to find them under guard. A gun battle ensues.
***
In space, Dawson orders that the rebels leave, even without the others. The Corporation’s forces, unprepared for the iminent destruction of the moon, scramble to turn and get away from there.
***
The rebels on the moon turn into a connecting chute. The fireball doesn’t follow. However, they soon find another one coming straight at them. Behind them comes another one. Above them the surface buildings are about to blow up.
But there’s no way to go but up. Breaking through the super-thick glass above their heads, they escape just as the area below them explodes. Most of the surface of the moon is covered with flame, quickly covering the rest via the chute system the two just escaped from. Momentatily the flame will simultaneously reach all five huge weapons stockpiles on the moon.
***
The rebels begin to enter hyperspace as the moon finally explodes. A huge shockwave and shower of asteroids is sent out. Most orange and black ships are destroyed, including the CEO’s own. The rebels barley escape.
On earth, the two wingmen are now in their ships, maneouvering through the rain of meteors. Johnson finally escapes the carnage, but Davies has disappeared. After a tense moment, Davies emerges from the bombarding asteroid field victoriously. The two meet with Rex and Exler in their gunship, and then the group of rebels spped toward the other end of the rapidly expanding asteroid field / shockwave. They finally make it past and enter hyperspace.
The audience is treated to a cool end-of-the-world sequence as the earth is bombarded with asteroids. It doesn’t blow up (too bad), but the special effects should be just as amazing.
***
The rebel victory is a solemn one. Many lives have been lost. When the four missing rebels arrive, the victory seems somewhat sweeter. But the rebels now find themselves in control of a falling empire.
***
One final scene in this portion of the film -- an escape-pod appears. It is revealed that the person inhabiting it is the CEO. He is very much alive. And smiling as a monstorous Alien vessel arrives. It picks up his pod.
Fade to black.
PART THREE
Three years pass... (FINALE)
Commander Solomon Johnson, Ret’d, has been elected first president of the New United Star System. The Corporation -- and the old USS -- have been wiped out. But the CEO dealt one final blow. During the epic Battle of Earth, in which the rebels won the war, a fleet of merchant ships was delivering the Gemini virus to every planet in the USS. This was the mission that the President had been talking about before he committed suicide. And in his attempts to stop it through the destruction of the moon, he had instead destroyed the rebels only chance to defend against the disease.
And now there are rumors that the Corporation was not so easily destroyed -- there may be some hidden remnants of it left. Perhaps the Old Order has even reached into the government.
There are other rumors, too -- rumors of a cure. A cure contained within the heart of the empire of the dreaded Aliens, who’ve bben repeatedly attacking and raiding New USS colonies for two years.
Dawson convinces the reluctant Johnson to allow him to lead a secret mission into the Alien Empire. While a large navy (led by General Wilhelm Haskell, Dawson’s former aide) occupies the Aliens, Dawson himself along with Rex and Davies will infiltrate the Empire and find the cure.
They do so. They find that the cure is being contained in a USS station -- that can’t be true, though. Not with the rebels in control. As the three ponder this, they’re captured and brought before the Alien Emperor and his right-hand man -- the CEO.
The CEO proudly explains his idea to take over the USS with the Gemini disease three years ago. With every USS planet infected with the disease -- and the Corporation holding the only cure -- they would officially have complete control of the USS. Then they could rule the entire galaxy.
He begins to tell the rebels that the Corporation was really just an extension of the Alien Empire within the USS, and that everything he did was for Them. He’s cut off by the Emperor.
As the three rebels are about to be executed, Wilhelm appears with a force that somehow broke through the Alien’s defenses. He victoriously rescues the rebels and returns them to the USS.
Once there they find that things have changed dramatically. A huge USS force waits to greet them, but it’s no welcoming committee -- it has orders from the President himself to destroy the returning fleet. It appears that Johnson is no longer in office.
Davies dies in that battle. But the others escape only to find that Johnson still is in office. Only he’s changed; he’s been corrupted in their brief absence. And as the others arrive at the USS station near Al T’Har -- the one which is producing both disease and cure; the one the Davies and Johnson started the rebellion four years ago -- they find a force waiting to stop them led by Johnson himself.
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4/12/2003 3:43:37 PM
(Updated: 4/12/2003 3:44:31 PM)
(Updated: 4/12/2003 6:13:47 PM)
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