Scene 10.02 - Prologue
ANIMATION STYLE 6 [LIVE ACTION WITH CGI
EST: EXT. Large Space Station Orbiting Earth
MS: INT. Security Room
(A bored security officer [CAMEO 25] is channel-surfing at a large paneled desk with several holographic monitors showing other camera views of various rooms and hallways about the space station. We can't see his face, but we see what he finally settles on watching.)
MS: HOLOGRAPHIC MONITOR VIEWSCREEN WITH TELEVISION PROGRAM
ANNOUNCER V.O.
...Although Genestenaitrix held the patent on the original scripting device and kept it from the public eye, the number of subscription services made available to the public had quadrupled that year, despite his efforts to block them all in court. After losing his infringemnt suit against Peartree Trauma-Scripting, professor Genestenaitrix closed the doors to his factory and moved his infamous machine from public view, never to be seen again. Some historians believed he may have modified his earlier prototype abandoning further pursuits toward expanding the collective human consciousness in lieu of the collective revenue he received from the development of the more-popular aspect of his invention, the inherent entertainment value of trauma scripts which allowed others to share in "dream adventures."
(The video shows an old film reel of a large computer monitor with an algorithm and old-school number font with the CG display. We see the following during the ANNOUNCER V.O. from select stock footage of Pohl University.)
CG DISPLAY ON MONITOR WITHIN MONITOR
(On screen among many other display entries on a flat-screen holographic monitor in front of a man [JYNX] at a terminal table:) I/O PORT PASS: 3.141592653
MS: INT MONITOR DEEP WITHIN UNTIL PIXELATED AND DARK DEEP WITHIN
CG: (As if typed in real time on a monitor:) 3.141592653
STILL FRAME
MORPH
CG: (Blinking:) PASSWORD ACCEPTED
ANNOUNCER V.O. (Cont'd)
Many other historians believe that Genestainatrix had instead destroyed his infamous prototype, perhaps as a frustrated gesture after seeing others profit greatly from his invention while he continued to live in near-squalor. It is widely believed the Professor had hidden away many of the crucial schematics, data files and programs concerning his invention, for many of the fantastic technological wonders that he demonstrated with his machine seventeen hundred years ago are still unable to be performed by any machine built today...
MS: SECURITY ROOM
ANNOUNCER V.O. (Cont'd)
...Many contend that his disappearance perhaps was planned to escape civil action, for he was facing several lawsuits at the time. To this day, no one knows what ever really happened to the Hugo Genestenaitrix. Let's fast-forward eight hundred years to the next development of dream technology, and a discovery that gave scientists new insight into the inner workings of the human mind. The Midnite Movie Corporation's founder and CEO Emmanuel Morlock filed for new patent on a much smaller dream-scripting device, nearly eight hundred years after Genestenaitrix first filed for his patent. "Morlock's Box" was the first major innovation or improvent, and allowed subjects to expand the practivcal capabilities and added great dimension to the educational value of dream scripts. "Morlock's Box" is much smaller now -- nearly smaller than the size of a pinhead -- and is the transmission and reception method of most dream scripts used in households today. Morlock also introduced the innovative broadcast tower, which enabled trauma-scripting to be used in nearly any location across the globe and in habited space, on demand -- and in his lifetime, Morlock supplied dream scripting services to nearly one billion people, which, nine-hundred years ago, was considered to be a significant percentage of the human population...
CU: Security camera
(A light on the security camera lights and the camera moves to watch the program.)
POV: SECURITY CAMERA
ZOOM IN ON PROGRAM
ANNOUNCER V.O.
...In what has been the source of historical controversy and has fueled fictional accounts for over a thousand years, Morlock also disappeared under strange circumstances like Genestenaitrix. No investigation at the time could provide an explanation as to exactly what happened to Morlock, but to this day, many stalwart theories persist about "Morlock's Hex." This age-old superstition is better suited for campfire ghost stories, as no similarities or connections have been found between the two men, other than the fact that both men disappeared, and both were innovators of dream scripting.
SOUND: ALARM
(Alarms flash and sound all across the board. A computer's voice interrupts and speaks over the bells and sirens.)
ROMEO V.O.
Warning! Unauthorized access to main computer banks and security systems detected. This is not a drill. Code Ten! All active security staff please report to duty stations. Warning! Unauthorized access to main-
(Suddenly, as soon as it started, it stops. On one of the security monitors a seven-second slide show showcases several dozen head shots -- quickly flipped-through like pages in a magazine. The screen glitches and goes blank. A second later, the normal, regular camera view of a hallway returns to the viewscreen. On another viewscreen, SYLVAN SHORE [RONNIE] appears.)
SYLVAN V.O.
Specialist, report!
(We hear the man speak but we do not see his face.)
SPECIALIST V.O.
Mam! I've detected an old resident program nested in the ship's registry. It conducted a benign search through the entire mainframe.
SYLVAN V.O.
What does that mean to me, Specialist? Is it a hacker? Sabatoge?
SPECIALIST V.O.
No Mam, this was all intentionally performed by the computer itself -- it's most likely some leftover maintenance subroutine that someone forgot to delete during the last upgrade, I'm checking now. No, I can't find anything here that's been compromised. Yet, one of the Dreamworx computer firewalls was breached and it appears some of their files were examined, but outside of that, I see nothing that appears out of the ordinary.
SYLVAN V.O.
Examined? Examined by who? Someone using our computer to spy on Dreamworx? Specialist, how is this even possible?
SPECIALIST V.O.
If they're spies they sure know how to cover their tracks -- it appears as an internal resident program -- like a defragmenting program or... something. The computer is checking itself for some odd reason. I don't know what triggered it. It's strange. Perhaps it is best to talk with the Dreamworx staff and see what they might know about it.
SYLVAN V.O.
What caused this? My entire ship went on alert! I thought I was the only one with the clearance to do that!
SPECIALIST V.O.
Yes, Mam, you are the only person authorized to call for a ship-wide alert. However, this particular system-wide protocol is so old that it read as a hostile security breach and something inside automatically triggered the system alert -- I'm not sure why yet, probably because the clock wasn't set correctly, I dunno. I can send the boys down to check it, but from the looks of it, this seems like an old glitch in the system that the computer decided to finally fix. Why it happened now, I can't say -- I'll check into it tonight and have a report for you in the morning.
SYLVAN V.O.
I can't rest easy knowing something threatens my system's security.
SPECIALIST V.O.
Mam, I fully understand, but, it seems to be nothing, Mam, just an old ghost in the machine. I'm checking it; all display. The subroutine has an encryption date from at least three hundred years ago -- that's just the most recent file -- hell, maybe the program is as old as this ship, I dunno -- It looks old enough -- I've put a diagnostic program in place of it on the que and it seems to have stopped it.
SYLVAN V.O.
I certainly hope so, keep me posted, Specialist. I look forward to your report.
SPECIALIST V.O.
Yes, Mam.
FTB