Accursed Are The Rue!

A five page Future Shock by Nick Fortune.

PAGE 1 (5 Panels)

1.1 A huge decrepit ship, SNEAKER, travelling through Metaspace. Do something cool and weird for Metaspace - if you're computerised, this may be a good time to have fun with some of those filters. No heavy armament on the ship please.

1.2 Sneaker's bridge. Sneaker is crewed by the Yucalil, an alien race evolved from small furry burrowers - three-foot hamsters with big brains, proper hands and uniforms. Since they're burrowers, maybe all the bridge stations are like burrows, with the officer's head and shoulders peeping out to get at the controls. It might also be quite cramped by human standards - these guys need less personal space than we do. Central to the picture is the CAPTAIN. He's an older, dignified sort of yucalil, but the stress has left him in a manic-depressive state, currently depressive. Behind him, we might see the NAVIGATOR and SIGNALS officer quietly conferring.

1.3 Close on the navigator and signals officers. They're worried about the Captain and whispering together.

1.4 Enter the PRELATE. He's an old, white furred yucalil done up in priestly regalia and a staff of office. He comes stalking onto the bridge like he owns the ship. The captain feels the need to assert his authority, but can't quite get it up.

1.5 Flashback panel. Full body shot of one of The Rue. These sentient reptilian carnivores look like human sized T-Rex, but the head is narrower and more angular and ends in a blunt predatory beak. There are two upward pointing horns set above and behind the eye, maybe three inches long. Make 'em EVIL! (Fair warning - make sure you know the punchline before you invest too much design time in these guys).

PAGE 2 (6 Panels)

When I think of this page, I imagine one of those dark nightmarish montage pages that McMahon used to do around the time of the Cursed Earth saga. I'll describe it by panels, just to keep the lettering clear. Maybe squeeze the Prelate's head in somewhere central so the letterer (hi there!) can use balloons instead of captions if that works better.

2.1 A fleet of Rue warships vectors in towards a sleepy, friendly, happy looking planet. Make the ships creepy and predatory. Maybe they are firing as they approach.

2.2 A squad of Rue mercilessly gunning down helpless Yucalil

2.3 A death camp for Yucalil, Auschwitz for hamsters: barbed wire and exercise wheels, sawdust and gas chambers.

2.4 Yucalil prisoners forced at gunpoint to serve roast suckling Yucalil to the tyrannical Rue. Make the scene a formal dinner. The Rue are dressed up for the occasion, the Yucalil servants in rags.

2.5 The heads of three of the crew, chanting. They're reliving the horrors of the invasion, and their faces are filled with anger and hatred.

2.6 One shot of the captain's head, three times. In the first, he's still lost in depression and despair. In the second, his head comes up a little, a flicker of life in his eyes. In the third, he joins the crew in fury, as he picks up the chant.

PAGE 3 (6 Panels)

3.1 Fired up with fresh purpose, the captain glares around the bridge. The signals officer looks smug.

3.2 Looking past the captain to the navigation officer at his post. The captain's still in the manic phase of his cycle. A crewmember is working to fix something.

3.3 Same shot. Maybe the captain is starting to wilt, just a little. The crewmember is fixing something different.

3.4 Same shot. The captain is definitely on his way to his depressive cycle. Again the crewmember, fixing yet a third thing.

3.5 Let's see the engineering section. The engineer is fiddling with the metashift core. Big, impressive high-tech stuff, probably with lots of coils. Maybe we can see the captain's face in a viewscreen somewhere.

3.6 Close on the captain. The excitement has kicked him back into his manic phase.

PAGE 4 (5 Panels)

4.1 Sneaker bridge. The main screen shows a star, maybe with a gas giant in the foreground.

4.2 Looking from the back of bridge, past the crew to the main viewscreen, one filled with snow and static. We may see the signals officer frantically fiddling with his console.

4.3 Ext. Sneaker under thrust, heading toward the planet of New Canberra.

4.4 Looking from the back of bridge, again. Two vague, blurry shapes have begun to take form from the static. It's still very indistinct, but there's no mistaking the outline of the Yucalil's hated enemies - the Rue!

4.5 Close on the captain as goes he gerbil-shit, screaming in terror and hatred

PAGE 5 (5 Panels)

5.1 Sneaker Bridge. Looking past the captain to the viewscreen. The shapes on the viewscreen are a little clearer, but still obviously Rue... aren't they?

5.2 Sneaker departs into metaspace. Show the ship fading, or twisting impossibly as it translates into a higher dimensionality - however you like.

5.3 Empty space where the ship was.

5.4 Ext. The New Canberra Aerospace Control centre, a modern, surprisingly unimpressive, single story building on the shoreline. Maybe we can see a bit of the landing field. The idea we want to give is of a future version of one of those outback landing strips we hear about Down Under. Stick a sign outside so we know where we are. It looks like a nice planet.

5.5 Big. Inside Aerospace Control and, wouldn't you know it, the folks there are genetically enhanced kangaroos, BRUCE and BLUE. They just happen to look the same as the Rue in most silhouettes. Just to twist the knife a little, lets make New Canberra really really laid back: The office is like one of those tropical beachfront cocktail bars, open on one side to the beach. Hell, it probably serves cocktails when there's no space traffic - which is pretty much most of the time. Let's have a party going on there with the inevitable barbie, a cooler full of beer, etc. The actual control equipment is quite scanty - just a viewscreen, a microphone and a couple of filing cabinets (A-M, N-W, XXXX perhaps) would do. Maybe there's a framed portrait of Skippy ("Our Hero") hanging somewhere or perhaps a Ghostbusters style "No Humans" sign. Have fun.

THE END

Copyright Nick Fortune, 2001.

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