At this point, I think we have a lot of solid moving pieces. We've pretty much nailed down Characters, we have some great Story Points, a Set Piece or three, and some solid Tech Tricks. I think we're close to being able to start piecing them together into a rudimentary, very skeletal plot outline.
But first...
Let's put together a sentence or two thumbnail description for each of the players. Just a little something to keep them/us focused and, maybe, inspire a few more collateral ideas. I'll toss in a sentence here and there, and you can feel free to add.
Jordi -- The spirit of an anarchist but, at the outset, too meek to be noticed. She's wicked smart, gifted in all things techie, but has spent her life trying to assimilate, with very poor results. When she goes on the run, she becomes the person she always wanted to be.
Jordi's mom. Not long for this world.
Jordi's dad. Long ago went missing. I'm thinking institutionalized for his paranoia, which it turns out was completely founded, since he thought that people were being watched from the sky.
NSA Guy. Betrayer and then the source of help and the person Jordi has to learn to trust.
Conglomerate CEO -- A decent man used. Misguided, but also too trusting.
Rovian kingmaker -- Pasty, soft, pulls the strings of power because he never had any. Yeah, I know, that's on-the-nose Rove. I trust you'll make him look less sweaty.
BAKK(s)
Field Generals -- How about three different heads of the individual companies that have major contracts with the DOD and whose products are used to come after Jordi. These are the guys who serve as the pyramid of evil that she climbs, and each of their demises/comeuppances could reflect their business/commodity in a Se7en-like way.
And I'm thinking maybe the CEO's wife. I think we need an audience surrogate (besides the conglomerate's board of directors) where we can get some exposition to inform the bad guys' POV. Or maybe not.
Labels: 4GW, Blackwater, NSA
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Very much liking Russ's idea that the unexpected ally is also the betrayer. Put this guy through the ringer and force him to change his worldview.
This might be premature, but it's looking to me like we're rounding out the major players on Jordi's side of the equation. A quick headcount --
Jordi
Jordi's mom who is going to get whacked
Jordi's dad, who is the missing parent, and whose paranoia is justified. She'll finally track him down for some necessary guidance.
The ambitious military guy who both betrays and becomes Jordi's ally, and then serves as the person she needs to trust.
So, who are the guys on the other side of the ball?
I see the ultimate, top-of-the-heap bad dude being someone in line to ascend to the CEO position of the conglomerate -- almost like he's vying to become king. I think he has staked his bid on the unprecedented revenue the company's subsidiaries are bringing in during this threat of global hostilities. But, also, I think there needs to be more than just greed and power motivating him -- some sort of personal shortcoming he's trying to compensate for.
I can also see a lower level of bad guys who run the individual military contracting companies that utilize their specializations to go after Jordi.
And I can envision a couple boots-on-the-ground bad guys who are charged with actually taking her out.
Russ, what else would you like to add to the equation on either side? Does it feel like we could use one other personality on Jordi's side?
Labels: Carlyle Group, Haliburton, Heroes and Villains, NSA
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I have to say, I like the way I see this dynamic shaking out. I randomly and without much thought or structure toss around ideas, and Russ makes sense of it all and provides us with order and elegance.
So, I've got some more "What Ifs".
I know I said I liked the War Games model, but I can also see an Enemy of the State approach going something like this:
What if -- as Russ concocted like a champ -- Jordi is searching for information about a long-lost parent, when she accidentally intercepts a satellite transmission. The transmission is captured, decoded, and saved to her hard drive.
When she looks at it later, what if she sees that it is both audio communication and satellite surveillance of a domestic, radioactive waste disposal facility. What if it's similar to this one in Barnwell, South Carolina, which happens to be one of only a couple radioactive waste disposal facilities owned by a public sector company. And what if the satellite feed she intercepted contains the set-up and detonation of explosive devices in the facility, causing massive collections of radioactive material to ignite, creating a mini nuclear ground zero.
Satellite images of the facility could look something like this. And a closer view might look something like this.
So, who would be attempting to sabotage this sort of facility? Well, what if we model it a little further on the company that owns the Barnwell facility and say that company is owned by a larger company. And let's take it one step further and say that the larger company was owned by a great big military-industrial behemoth. For reelz.
So maybe what we unravel over the course of the story is that our fictional facility had been leaching into the neighboring groundwater and was about to be exposed to a massive Erin Brokovich style lawsuit. So the corporate daddy rigged the destruction of one of its subsidiaries to avoid a lawsuit. But there's also a small residual benefit, because they also own the company that can provide emergency response up and down the Atlantic coast to the tune of who knows how many billions.
One benefit that I can see in tackling the story this way is that it gives her more to discover and reveal as the story progresses. You know, a la Chinatown -- follow the money.
Oh, and one other thing. I know that simply by typing many of these words -- like det*nate, radi*active, and n*clear -- that this site is now prime reading material for somebody in Forte Meade. So consider this a virtual wave from all of us to the good people in crypto city. Not to worry, we're just creating a story. Fiction. But if you have any cool ideas, feel free to add them in the comments section. Now get outside and enjoy a beautiful spring Maryland day.
-- Dave
Labels: Carlyle Group, It's just fiction, NSA
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