POST 42: BRAINSTORMING OVER LUNCH

    We decided to have a weekly lunch with Randy and Preuit to brainstorm and talk about thing in general and our project in particular. Yesterday's meeting pretty much trashed everything I had written to start over with new ideas. 
  Randy luckily put them down on "paper", so at least we have a good record of what we talked about and where we are, that we can potentially trash at our next lunch date:

Pendulumania

SUMMARY WORKING TREATMENT- 

Created by:  Jean-Jacques Gaudel, Randal Crow, and Preuit Holland

Time and Place

This steampunk world is futuristic, yet stuck in a early industrial revolution era on many levels and, without a way to make steam anymore. It is a dingy place in which fossil fuels have been exhausted, the air is too dirty to allow for solar energy, and the prime source of power is wind generated - from privately owned windmills scattered everywhere. They are on rooftops, in parking lots, in backyards, and pretty much anywhere there is space to plant a pole.

The city lights glow brightly, twinkling when the wind is blowing, but grow dimmer and brown with fading winds. On quiet, still nights, the city is reduced to near darkness, the only glimmers of light gathering from flickering candlesticks, and the eerie glow of  decrepit fish oil lanterns.

Characters: 

INVENTOR - Protagonist

(Male - 60 years old)

Having a brilliant creative mind, and being a "mad scientist type", he is capable of combining physics, engineering, chemistry, and specialized disciplines like clockmaking, into building unique problem solving devices.  He lives and works in an old de-consecrated church, amongst a vast collection of mysterious curiosities and mechanical wonders. 

IGOR 

INVENTOR'S assistant (curmudgeon)

A diminutive deformed creature, he is a devoted servant of his master, the inventor.

MAGNATE - Antagonist

(Male - 45 years old)

A powerful early industrialist, he thrives on making money no matter what the cost is to others, or to the world. He travels the city by air, in a weighty metallic steampunkish dirigible, festooned with operating windmills.

TWINS 

MAGNATE'S assistants (Female - 25 years old)

A pair of lovely but feisty identical twins, they are the untrustworthy agents of the MAGNATE. Although normally dressed in tight black leather, they can also masquerade as very sweet and disarming nuns attired in full habit gear.

Scenario/ problems/ complications

1) Humans have burned all fossil fuels available,  and they are desperate for a cheap, abundant, alternate energy source. Wind power is entirely inadequate to supply even their basic needs.

2) The INVENTOR has created a device that utilizes the Earth's rotation to sustain a pendulum in perpetual motion, thereby producing a small amount of electricity. 

3) The INVENTOR calculates that if millions of these pendulums are built to meet the world's energy needs, the cumulative effect would be to slow the earth's rotation to a standstill, the result being near extinction of all life on Earth. 

4) The INVENTOR'S church is the only building in the City which has plenty of lights and power when there is no wind to activate the windmills. 

5) The MAGNATE hear's of the INVENTOR"S church and is determined to learn why it has power when there is no wind.Through his relentless greed the MAGNATE is driven to acquire this secret device by any means,  and sell it en masse to the world. Pendulum power would replace wind mill power.

The McGuffin

Contained in a small wooden box and tightly packed with interlocking brass gears, wiring harnesses, and a small dynamo, this is the secret one-of a-kind invention that makes perpetual motion power a reality.

Story Options

Under command of the MAGNATE, the TWINS pose as nuns in habits and visit the INVENTOR"S church. Under the pretense that they wish to tour the old church because of its history, they convince IGOR to let them inside just to have a look. As they stroll in, pretending to marvel at broken plaster and decayed frescoes, one of them sits down at the dusty old pipe organ. She plays a few full, bold, menacing  chords that echo loudly throughout the chamber, rousing the INVENTOR away from his work at the far end. 

Story exposition is carried out through an exchange of questions and answers between the TWINS and the INVENTOR, as the very suspicious IGOR looks on. The TWINS at first are very sweet, kind and likable in their questioning of the INVENTOR. The INVENTOR initially is mean, unreceptive, and rude to these very pretty and delightful nuns. As the discussion escalates into an argument about the source of his power, one of the nuns sneaks away and climbs the long circular stairway to the bell tower. 

We see the MAGNATE in his airship docking the dirigible to the church steeple, and lower a gang plank to the bell tower. The TWIN who has climbed the stairway opens the bell tower door, and the MAGNATE enters.

Back in the chamber below, through discussion we find out that the Pendulum is the source of power in the church. We also learn that if millions of pendulums are built they will stop the Earth's rotation and everyone will die. 

The MAGNATE enters the chamber from the stairway with the TWIN close behind, and there is dialogue escalating to a climax/resolution. 

Possible ending: The swinging sensor (pendulum) has a very sharp tip at the bottom, and is capable of slicing a person in half as it swings inches from the floor at its lowest point. The INVENTOR loses his device (or mechanical drawings) to the MAGNATE, and is tied up on the floor below the pendulum, so that at midnight the pendulum begins slicing him into lengthwise filets. However in classic Indian Jones style, he escapes from the murderous pendulum at the last second (IGOR saves him?).

2nd Possible ending: The INVENTOR is tied up in the path of the pendulum, and as the MAGNATE is trying to unhook the secret box from the pendulum, he is electrocuted (along with IGOR who is trying to save his master). In the last frame we see the pendulum point coming right at the INVENTOR as the TWINS look on, but we cut to black before it hits him.