11 KiB
11 KiB
Big-picture story overview:
- Story begins on Tue, 2106-06-01
- Jack wakes up and contacts Annie, in the end he asks for a manual for the door
- Annie goes to the library but doesn’t get the manual - instead she gets a mysterious invite
- Annie talks to Jack again at work
- Annie figures out how to use a keyboard properly
- Potentially written from Jack’s perspective as not much of interest happens on Annie’s side
- he could do something else as well, maybe working on improvising tools before or after talking to Annie
- Annie gets introduced to secret organization, learns that Karl is also part of it
- The librarian gives Annie the keys for the library and instructions on where to find the relevant computers
- for some reason he can’t go get the manual himself (needs to be at an important event or something)
- Karl doesn’t join bc he can’t run if things go south, but he does give her a list of useful UNIX commands and a run-down of how to get one of these computers started
- They talk about Jack and why they would help him
- Annie gets the manual and drops it off at Karl’s place
- she puts a note and the floppy disk into his mailbox
- Next morning from Jack’s perspective
- incoming connection from Karl
- he says that Annie has procured a floppy disk with the manual
- it’s not readable / the file is just gibberish
- Jack gets a copy of the header and determines it’s encrypted
- he tells Karl that he can probably write a program to break the encryption but it’s gonna take a powerful computer to do it within a reasonable time
- need technical reason why one wouldn’t just wait
- home computers are several times slower due to hardware disadvantages but this can’t be the only reason
- high resource overhead? maybe he would use vast amounts of RAM?
- need technical reason why one wouldn’t just wait
- Karl says he’ll get back to Jack
- Next secret organization meetup
- Annie gives the keys back
- they come up with the idea of stealing a minicomputer from some company that someone has a link to
- also the idea comes up that they could ask Jack to get them out in return for them helping him to get out
- has to end with law enforcement arriving at the bar and Kate telling them to gtfo
- Something else has to happen here from the perspective of someone that isn’t Annie
- Possibly Emily’s intro?
- Annie talks to Jack again from the terminal at work
- she falls asleep
- next day she gets found there, someone makes a remark like "Why the sudden career change?"
- Annie thinks about it for a moment before replying "Actually, brilliant idea..." and quitting
- She leaves work and heads somewhere to meet up with secret organization members
- secret organization does secret organization things...
- new location or still the bar?
- who is there?
- preparations for the heist
- they also need to come up with the plan that Jack will get Annie and leave the others down there to continue their work
- they want Jack and Annie to find a way to mess with the power supply while they work on the inside to influence ppl so that a power outage will actually end up getting the city opened
- maybe Jack will have a reason to only accept one person like still figuring out a reliable food source
- Jack finishes writing the program and sends it to Karl
- the heist
- Annie, Isabelle, Lucas, and the inside contact go in and collect equipment and bring it to the front door
- Karl’s friend is waiting to load it into the back of his pickup truck
- Karl is behind the wheel ready to take off
- once everything is loaded up, Karl’s friend gets into the truck and everyone disperses in different directions
- they almost get caught
- Maybe Lucas and one other member of the secret organization stay behind to buy the others time and get arrested
- next morning, they set up the computer at Karl’s place
- something in the news about a stolen computer lol
- "Hmm I wonder who could that have been? We wouldn’t know where it is..."
- they break the encryption of the floppy disk (takes like three days)
- Jack gets the bunker door open and wakes up Michelle
- they establish a base
- Jack explores the Ivydale area
- He finds a working metro train somewhere that only needs some mild fixing up
- This may or may not be unknown to Annie
- meanwhile, the secret organization works on getting the computer equipment back to its rightful owners
- they get caught and run/gtfo, leaving the computer at the front entrance
- there will have to be another news segment, something like this:
- "In a bizarre turn of events, members of a suspected terrorist group have returned the stolen computer to xyz corp. It had been stolen from their headquarters four days prior..."
- They coordinate to get Annie out of the city asap
- The others stay behind to continue their work on getting the officials to allow opening the air locks
- Annie escapes the dome city / Jack drives the train into it and gets her out
- Annie sees the outside world for the first time
- James the nomad shows up with his dog
- only Michelle is there, Jack and Annie are still on their way
- He is mildly obsessed with space after seeing all sorts of images taken with telescopes
- on his way to Sentinel Shores because the observatory there is supposedly somewhat intact
- he wants to see if he can make a telescope work
- Something happens that will convince him to stay at the bunker
- possibly the topic of the moon base gets discussed
- Jack and Michelle will be working on getting in touch with the moon
- turns out their communications dish and equipment is far too gone to be repaired due to a river changing course or some other destructive event
- James suggests they should check out the observatory in Sentinel Shores
- They go on a "day trip" to Sentinel Shores to take a look at the observatory
- looks good but missing any kind of computer equipment (looted after or removed before the apocalypse)
- has an optical telescope and a dish
- when talking about the lack of computers, the nomad remembers that he saw a lot of computer stuff in Rogue Tides
- ... missing things (not in order):
- power plant shenanigans
- secret organization has to do things like putting up banners in high-profile locations and/or distribute a manifesto
- power has to go out for a while - or completely until someone fixes the power plant (could be that something breaks while they start up the plant again)
- has to result in the dome city opening up
- the protagonists move to Sentinel Shores
- Originally I was thinking they might move to a factory hall or hangar or maybe even one of the lower levels of a sky scraper but it might be more realistic that they just move into the observatory as it’s where they work on stuff
- Annie has never been on a boat so they fix one up and hop over to Rogue Tides
- encounter the electronics tinkerer
- problematic encounter with one of the groups/tribes/whatever
- the members have gone nuts and are religious fanatics
- They see Jack’s Neotek Dynamics company clothes and start treating him as a god
- try really hard to stop him from leaving
- cause for them to be more cautious? Idk
- neutral encounter with the other one
- trading or bartering
- getting the telescope and the dish going
- first contact with moon
- moon part of the story
- they have to, at some point, climb on a sky scraper - maybe even multiple times
- power plant shenanigans
- moon girl lands
- depending on how, they might need to find her
- something else? Idk, probably not
Individual missions:
- Underground organization (Annie, Librarian, Karl)
- from the underground city
- want the underground city to open up again
- they come up with the plan that Annie should escape the city since she has the contact with Jack anyway so that they can gather some intelligence on what’s going on outside
- Annie discovers the hydro power plant - they end up messing with the power supply of the dome to force officials to stop the isolation
- Neotek Dynamics (Jack, Michelle)
- mission to get into contact with moon base to check in on them
- turns out the moon base is having a real bad time and everyone is dying
- There used to be many ppl but at the start of the story just a few are left
- the rest died of some disease caused by a dangerous pathogen
- the remaining ppl are infected and sick
- all but Emily will die
- the girl will recover and make her way down to Earth in an escape capsule
- either, she lands in some kind of shuttle
- or she jumps out of the capsule with a parachute and the capsule leaves a crater in the ground
- either one should happen somewhere near Nova Metropolis
- Nomad
- has found space images and is mildly obsessed with them
- has heard of a somewhat intact observatory in Sentinel Shores
Scene ideas:
- Annie, in her search for an alternative to whatever the underground city has as "coffee", obtains some drug from the electronics tinkerer. She proceeds to get high as the sky and gets herself into a dangerous situation before the others catch on to what’s happening. Jack will end up more or less forcing her back to the base and sit there watching her so she doesn’t do anything stupid.
- Emily wakes up. A relative is waiting in her room, silently crying. Emily, catching on to what’s going on (and having experienced the bad news of the past how ever many weeks, months, or years), asks who died this time. Some other person, Idk. That leaves 5 alive ppl in the moon base.
- Followed by a moon funeral? Idk.
- Emily gets it into her head to try the left over chemicals from Tony’s lab on herself ("Might as well, I’m gonna die anyway..."). She runs into the lab carrying a hammer, followed by the other still alive person/people. As she runs through the door, she smashes its control panel causing the door to close and lock. Then she looks around and proceeds to drink whatever is left of Tony’s experiments - to the protest of the other person/people. This is followed by pain rushing through her body and her collapsing on the ground. She still registers that the door gets broken open before drifting out of consciousness.
- She will drift in and out of consciousness a couple times.
- getting carried through the base
- vomiting in her bed
- When she recovers (in a different chapter), the other alive person says something to the effect of "that should have killed you".
- She will drift in and out of consciousness a couple times.
- The last remaining adult on the moon dies. I’m not sure if I want her to follow the procedure of properly disposing of the body in a robot-like fashion or if she just decides to close the airlock of that room (in that case, there should be some precedent for that). After that, she lies down on the floor in a central room looking out though the ceiling for who knows how long (not eating or drinking for a 6h or so).
- Something should happen that gets her to get up and realize how incredibly hungry she is - possibly an incoming call / terminal beep from Earth