Stargate Universe: The Miniseries?

I’ve had a though.

I wonder if Stargate Universe might have been better received if “Air parts I, II, and III”, “Darkness”, “Light”, and “Earth” (maybe “Water” too) had been made into a week long mini-series rather than 5 or 6 weeks worth of episodes.

In the mini-series format it would have served as a single setup with the ending speech Col Young gives as the spring board into the series. Since there would have been no week-long gaps between the parts of the initial story the pacing would have felt better; for comparison imagine if the Battlestar Galactica mini-series had been the first 5 or 6 episodes of season 1 before “33″ was aired.

So I’ve had this idea for a story; not a writer so it will probably never get flushed out but here is the gist of it:

Pitch Line: The story of Earths first interplanetary war

So the Roswell incident in 1947 was really the result of an accident during mankind’s initial attempt at a transporter device. The failure resulted in the death of 3 scientists; ultimately proving that only basic elements, atoms and the simplest molecules, can be transported via an energy stream over long distances.

Fast forward to the late 90’s. Fearing global climate change, over-population, and world-wide political strife a group of politicians from the lower levels of several governments have banded together with a plan to start over.

The plan is to immigrate to Mars; this is to be done in two phases.

First, exploit the dot-com boom to gather money. This money will allow them under the guise of “space tourism” to get the first group of colonist to Mars. This group will include a number of laborers and scientist as well as their families.

Second, via loose government regulations and exotic financial instruments raise a second round of capital. This money will then be used to leverage the “failed” transporter technology of the late 40’s in order to move a portion of the Earths oceans to Mars. The addition of water will enable a jump start to the terra-formation of Mars. (Since the technology can really only move atoms it will end up just moving the Hydrogen and Oxygen the comprise the water to Mars; this will oxygenate the atmosphere and power fuel cells which will generate water).

At some point, after the Earths oceans begin to recede, the governments of Earth will figure out the plot. This will lead to a war on two fronts; the war on earth between the “red separatists” (those wanting to immigrate to Mars) and the “terra prima” (those who are in favor of preserving Earth), and the war between those on Earth and those on Mars (the “naitive” martians are skeptical of the new “red separatists” and at open war with “terra prima”).

So that’s it, that’s my story. I haven’t decided how I’d like it to play out, but I imagine if I was in the story I’d find myself on the side of the “red separatist” – if only because I’ve always wanted to visit Mars.

Let me know if you have any thoughts, or if you work in television and want to pay me lots of money to actually make this into a mini-series ;-)

WWZ

So I just finished reading “World War Z” last week.

While I liked the oral history format, I can’t really say I liked the book as a whole. I think my problem boiled down to two main issues.

First, why were there zombies? In all the interviews throughout the book not once is a scientist or expert questioned about why the zombies came to be. There are some allusions to research being down, and it is clear that the outbreak started in China. Thats it, never does some guy say it was the result of some experiment gone wrong, a virus, or some insect burrowing their brains. I would have accepted any of these, and given the state of the world at the time this “history” was written it is not out of the question to expect these kind of answers.

Second, not everybody freaks out and commits suicide when things get hard. Really, every chapter included some reference to the number of people that just killed themselves because they couldn’t handle the dead coming to life. Yes, it’s a believable premise, but other important stuff happened.

If you love all things zombie, then I guess this is a worthy read. For me though, I’m happy with my “28 Days Later”, “Resident Evil”, and “Night of the Living Dead”.