Hello, and thank you for reading my ebook! I welcome all feedback, whether negative, positive, or anything in-between. I'll appreciate any feedback you send my way (especially any links to any mentions or reviews you post on the internet), via my contact URL:
https://earthbound.io/contact.
To connect with me or keep up with what I'm creating, you may also try my homepage:
https://richardalexanderhall.com.
As I published this ebook, I'm in the process of writing many things. A preview snapshot of many pages of one of my next works, tentatively entitled “COUNTLESS,” follows.
Incidentally, I know you may have wondered what on earth I am doing publishing something in screenplay format, and some kind of obscure (as I write this—though I hope it catches on!) “fountain” format. I explain why this at a blog post:
https://earthbound.io/blog/2014/08/20/why-hybrid-fountain-screenplay-format
Following is that screenplay development snapshot, with a spec book cover, too. It comes out to 56 screenplay pages according to my screen-o-computer, so this may be the first half of the film. I doubt I'll revise much of it at all—I'll probably just run along to the end of it as I write—but you have been warned: this could change. If it does, it stays the same in this ebook preview for posterity. Then you can gripe about how much better the first draft was, or marvel at how much worse it was (or at worst, marvel that it didn't grow to your liking any further at all), if I do revise it. And/or if it's made into a film.
Enjoy!
EXTENDED PREVIEW OF “COUNTLESS”
In fountain screen format, in development, expected to be full-length upon publication.
FADE IN:
EXT. SPACE--NIGHT
A star like Earth's Sun spills her glorious, fiery white light over the crescent of a planet which could be Earth. Brilliant blue oceans and patchy, streaky blankets of clouds come to light. We descend and orbit toward the day side, and continents come into view. Before we can determine which continents these may be, a second, slightly smaller yet brighter Sun comes up over the horizon.
Unless Earth somehow got a second Sun, we may be certain this is not Earth.
Two planetary moons, one brown, one green, rise up over the horizon.
The edge of an apparently very large black disc rises over the horizon of the planet. It is far too large to be a moon, and it slightly eclipses one of the twin suns.
INT. KITCHEN--DAY
JAKE CARTER, white, male, thirty-five, happy, fit, bespectacled, handsome, and friendly, and who somehow manages to mix tweedy and punk and pass it off as Business Casual, browses the internet on his desktop PC. He is lost in thought. His face says "I wonder if?..." He turns to speak, but to whom?
JAKE
So, they've found about one thousand seven hundred exoplanets.
CHOP, CHOP, CHOP goes a knife as it cuts a green pepper on a cutting board. Children chase each other, and produce boisterous, giddy, playful screams. These children, all of them white, are DOMINICK CARTER, a nine-year old boy, stocky, wide-eyed and energetic, HEIDI CARTER, seven, petite, pretty, inquisitive, and feisty, TERRENCE BARBER and KIRK SUTTON, both seven-year old boys similar enough to Dominick that we could guess they are cousins, and SHIRLEY WATSON and JEANETTE SMITH, both seven-year old girls whom we could also guess are Heidi's cousins.
The repeated CHOP sound stops, and so does the tag game and squeals of the children. The children stand and stare curiously and expectantly at Heidi, because she has a puzzled expression, hands on her hips, and stares quizzically at Jake.
The living room and kitchen are well lit by sunlight, which comes in through the ample bay windows and front door. The house just surpasses 90's Neo-Victorian blandness. The furnishings are an afterthought from the 60's and 70's, with just enough "ugh" factor in them that you might go partly crazy if you didn't replace them. The only appealing installations are the kitchen table and a large island. The children are scattered around the table and island.
An entertainment center and large-screen TV are on one wall. Toys and art supplies are strewn everywhere. Very imaginative original "LEGO" creations of every kind imaginable populate many bookshelves. The centerpiece is a magnificent, five-foot-long star cruiser that only could have been invented by a top-notch designer. Children's art of every style plasters the walls.
At the island stands VICKI MORRISON CARTER, white, thirty-four, bright-eyed, compassionate, attractive, of average build and fitness, and who is accustomed to being asked "What? What's so funny?" when she doesn't even laugh. Meal preparations are scattered on the island surface.
HEIDI
Exo-what? Is that like an exoskeleton? Ew. I don't want to know about any thousands of exo-anything.
Vicki laughs.
VICKI
Exo-planet.
DOMINICK
Outside?
HEIDI
Huh? What's outside?
DOMINICK
No, "exo-" means "outside." So what's meant by "outside planet?"
Heidi shakes her head, shrugs, spreads out her hands, and gives Dominick an expression that says "What in the world are you talking about?"
HEIDI
Again, "HUH?!" What is anything what-in-the-heck could you mean by what's meant by "outside planet?"
She affects a bombastic, didactic, deep "Starship Captain" voice.
HEIDI
"CAPTAINS LOG, STARDATE I WISH IT WERE CHRISTMAS. There is a massive planet outside. It's totally freaking awesome. I think I'll call it 'outside planet.'"
Everyone laughs. Heidi enjoys the attention.
HEIDI
"But I'm still freaking depressed, because it's still freaking not Christmas, and I don't have my spaceship Lego set yet. Also, I wonder if 'planet outside' maybe isn't such a good name for a planet. Maybe I'll name it 'totally freaking awesome planet', instead."
Everyone laughs more. Heidi has nothing more to say as a Starship Captain, so she raises her arms like a zombie and makes a menace of a moan and roar at Shirley, who squeals, and runs around to the other side of the island. All the kids except Dominick take up the game of zombie-chase-and-shriek tag again. Vicki chops the pepper again, CHOP, CHOP, CHOP...
Jake resumes his perusal of the internet.
Dominick walks over to his Dad.
DOMINICK
Dad?
Jake doesn't notice his Son for all the noise.
DOMINICK
QUEIT PLEASE!
Jake turns around. The noise and ruckus continue.
JAKE
CHILDREN?
The kids all stop and look at him.
JAKE
More quiet, please. In fact, a lot more quiet. In fact, could you please go outside?
Shirley runs outside in a pretended scream of terror. All the other kids except for Dominick follow and resume the game outside.
JAKE
That was really sharp, Dominick--I mean that was great that you noticed that exoplanet means "outside planet." But that doesn't really make sense, does it?
VICKI
(matter-of-fact)
Nope, but I think it would make a great name for a planet.
Jake gives her a "huh?" expression.
VICKI
Neptune, Pluto, Eris--what are they going to name any of those new planets they found out in the scattered disk beyond Pluto? I think it would make sense to call one of them "outside planet." You know, for like, outside, out there. Far away.
Jake, stunned at the badness of this idea, opens his mouth to express his dismay.
JAKE
Uh...
VICKI
Uh, not.
She smiles and winks at him. She had him. He laughs.
JAKE
Oh, right.
(to Dominick)
Uh, anyway, oh yeah, so "exoplanet" just means a planet that isn't part of our solar system. It's a very bigoted yet helpful term.
VICKI
Bigoted? Huh?
Jake stands up and imit
ates Heidi's prior display.
JAKE
HUH?!
Vicki and Dominick laugh.
JAKE
It's bigoted because it separates all other planets besides those in our Solar System under a different term. As if they're "another kind" of planet. Tell it to the seven thousand thousand thousand trillion people who live on all those other worlds.
DOMINICK
What? Wow! What number is that?
VICKI
The name for that number makes juveniles and juveniles-at-heart laugh.
DOMINICK
Huh? Why?
Jake gives her a face that says "What? Seriously? Now?" She blushes. Jake glances at Dominick, who only looks a bit puzzled. She stammers.
VICKI
Uh, sorry, anyway, yeah, so, uh...
Jake laughs. She hides her face in her hands and laughs.
JAKE
You were starting to ask me some question after I mentioned exoplanets, Dominick--
DOMINICK
Oh yeah--
VICKI
Sorry, wait. I have something to say about bigotry. I am an Earth Bigot. I haven't met the uncounted people we believe live on other worlds, and maybe I'm just narrow-minded, but you see, I've rather lived on and only known any certain facts about Earth for my whole life, so I think I'm entitled to a bit of earth-centric, er, thinking.
JAKE
Uh, okay.
DOMINICK
Dad?
JAKE
Sorry. What, Son?
DOMINICK
Oh, wait. You answered my question. No wait, you didn't--I mean, I have another. So, so what? Why did you say they've discovered, how many?
JAKE
About one thousand seven hundred.
DOMINICK
Yeah. Why did you say they've discovered all those.
JAKE
Because it's just an incredibly cool fact. We've only learned in the past two decades about the existence of planets around other stars, and mostly thanks to this space probe we've got named Kepler--oh, and a very enterprising man who decided to search for extrasolar planets--
DOMINICK
Extrasolar?
JAKE
Yes, another bigoted term that says much the same thing.
DOMINICK
Oh.
JAKE
Anyway, I just think it's really awesome that we're beginning to see so many other planets, in other solar systems.
DOMINICK
See? Like we have pictures of them? Wow! Why haven't I seen them?--
JAKE
Well actually we haven't seen them. If we had, the pictures would be ridiculously famous. Actually we do have several real photographs of extrasolar planets--
VICKI
Wow! Really?
JAKE
Yep, but since they don't look anything like the images from "AVATAR", few people realize how amazing they are. Just blobs of light is all we have. Even so, I agree. Amazing. But anyway, some of the ways we find extrasolar planets is to use light, radio and other detection tricks to figure out that they are there, and how big they are, or maybe what their orbits are like, and stuff.
DOMINICK.
Oh. How? I mean, what tricks?
JAKE
Hoy! Well, that will be a science lesson, and uh...I think I wanted to say something else. Uh, what was it? Drat. It'll come back to me.
Jake resumes his internet perusal. On the monitor is a fantastic depiction of an exoplanet that looks like a blue Jupiter with giant white blobs and storms on one side.
DOMINICK
Wow! I guess that wouldn't be a real picture, though. Did an artist make that?
JAKE
Yep.
DOMINICK
How?
Jake is lost in thought, and doesn't reply. Dominick, disappointed, walks toward the front door to join the other children in their game outside.
JAKE
Oh! Hey wait! Sorry. I just remembered what I wanted to say, and I guess you're going to get your science lesson. So, one of the ways they detect a planet that orbits another star is that the planet passes in front of the star, from our point of view, which makes the star slightly dimmer while the planet is in front of it, because the planet hides some of the star's light. Because we're still seeing light from the star, but we're also not seeing some light from the star, or in other words, we're seeing the shadow of a planet in front of a star. Using super tricky software or genius human analysis, they can identify whether those "dips" of a star's brightness happen at regular intervals. In other words--
Vicky impatiently and nervously taps her fingers on the table through the rest of his monologue--
JAKE
If a planet circles a star, say, every hundred days, then every hundred days they'll observe a slight dip in the brightness of the star--while the planet is in front of it. That's only one of the ways they detect planets. But what I was thinking was: what if we built a statistical model about the characteristics not only of stars where we have found exoplanets, but also of the star systems that are nearest to that exoplanet? Could there be any kind of unexpected correlations between characteristics of a star around which an exoplanet orbits and stars near an exoplanet--other, nearby stars which the exoplanet does not circle? And from that information, could we build statistical models of what kinds of stars may have other stars nearby, other stars around which exoplanets orbit? And might that give us an idea where in the sky to look for stars that are likely to have orbiting exoplanets?
DOMINICK
Uh, so...you mean, could we find ways of identifying relationships between stars without exoplanets, and stars with them, so that we could find stars that might have other stars near them with exoplanets?
Vicki's jaw drops.
DOMINICK
What?
VICKI
I was tuning out, and having a really hard time following what Dad said, and--I'm sorry--I was getting kind of bored--but Nick, you just took everything Dad said and turned it into a lot less words. Maybe you should become a news reporter. You'll be a Politician's worst enemy. 'So, what you're really saying is you hate Mexicans, is that correct?'
Jake laughs uproariously.
DOMINICK
What?
VICKI
Ask your Dad to teach you sometime what he thinks about modern politics and bigotry.
DOMINICK
Uh, okay.
JAKE
Totally Earth-centric. All of them. SO bigoted about non-Earthlings.
VICKI
Jake, do you have a way to try that? Or do you know anyone who could try that? I think that's a good idea. I don't even know whether anyone's tried it. Do you?
JAKE
I think I'd have read about it somewhere if someone had, but heaven knows that what experts know isn't always findable with a search of the internet.
VICKI
Uh, seriously? You think that maybe all the expertise the world needs can't just be found with a few Google searches? Do you think?
JAKE
Uh. Not following you.
Vicki is flabbergasted. She throws a green pepper at him.
VICKI
Sarcasm. No, of course all the expertise we need can't be summoned with a few or even quite a few internet searches. The day we think that is the day we lose our brains.
JAKE
Uh, we may already be there. Anyway, I'll look around. I'll ask around.
INT. PROFESSOR SAMPLES' OFFICE--NIGHT
PROFESSOR SAMPLES, an Asian woman, thirty, short, pretty, bright-eyed, meek, and dressed mostly in business casual pink, sits at her computer workstation in her neat office.
Her office is full of books and stacks of astronomical papers and charts. The walls are lined with diplomas, awards, and spectacular charts and photographs of celestial objects and phenomena. Near her computer a photograph is mounted; it is a family portrait of herself, a very handsome Asian man, thirty-one, and two gorgeous children
: a seven-year old girl and a nine-year old boy. Also at her desk is an open lab book with doodles and notes, and a pen.
She opens an email client on her computer, and reads her email.
JAKE (V.O.)
Dear Professor Samples, I wonder whether a certain method has been tried for searching for extrasolar planets. I've researched it some, but I think I probably don't even know where really to look. However, my guess is that you may have a better idea where to look, or even whether this idea has already been tried. Here's the idea...
She reads, and considers. Her face says "Hmm...that could be."
She opens software on her computer; a splash screen that says "orange" appears and vanishes, and then a main application window comes into view.
She opens a spreadsheet populated with numbers. The column headers include these titles: "STAR MSINI MSTAR HIPP V VURL VREF." She looks at the numbers. She frowns.
PROFESSOR SAMPLES
Right. A table of stars with distance and vector relations to other stars, with all-degrees vector categories and original uncategorized vectors. I can do that.
She sighs.
PROFESSOR SAMPLES
Easy-peasy.
She pulls her lab book toward herself, picks up the pen, and doodles what looks like thinly sliced pie charts in it.
INT. KITCHEN--NIGHT
Jake reads his email. As he reads, his eyes go wide with amazement.
SAMPLES (V.O.)
Jake, thank you for your excellent question. One way to answer your question is with data or information analytics, also called data mining, which many Astronomers use. Your particular question, about the motion of stars near each other and exoplanets, can be formed as an "association rule" or "market basket analysis." I don't know whether your question has been explored that way before, so I put together an analysis of the exoplanet database, and ran it. It produced a seemingly good rule set, and I ran that rule set against a database of all known stars. To my astonishment, it identified most of the stars in the exoplanet database, but much more than that, it also identified very, very many other stars as candidates. I have access to telescopes and equipment to hunt for exoplanets, and I did so with one of the unexamined candidates which your rule set found. You won't believe what I found.
Jake leans forward.
JAKE
Uh, I might believe you. You're going to tell me what you found, right?
SAMPLES (V.O.)
I hope you don't mind that I've carbon copied my analysis and the results, and this email, to many of my associates. Ladies and Gentlemen, please verify or refute my results, and if you think this looks promising, let's please refine this model, and go a-hunting for the best exoplanet-hosting star candidates.
JAKE
You didn't tell me what you found!
A notification of a new incoming email message appears on the computer monitor. He opens the new message, which is from Professor Samples.
SAMPLES (V.O.)
I apologize, but in my haste I forgot to tell you what I found. What I found was--
Jake stands up, stunned and wide-eyed. He slaps his hands to his forehead in disbelief.
EXT. HOUSE--NIGHT
From his front lawn near the street, Jake stares at the constellation Orion in the night sky.
JAKE
The hunter. Oh, we're going to find them...the Children of God, everywhere. Uh, no, I don't mean hunt in a bad way. Sorry.
Vicki giggles, and he jolts, startled, and turns to see that she has spied on him. She stands at the front door, in the moonlight, in pink pajamas.
VICKI
Who are you apologizing to?
JAKE
Uh...the hundred billion sextillion children of God that we're going to find. Or maybe to God. Or maybe to space.
He affects a line from Luke Skywalker in "THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK."
JAKE
Or...oh, I dunno, maybe I'm just going crazy.
She giggles.
VICKI
Find them? Who? How? Did that professor you found have anything to say?
JAKE
She invited me to a meeting with a bunch of scientists at the next Southern European Astronomy something-or-other Association, uh, thingie.
She goes bug-eyed with amazement.
JAKE
Yeah, crazy.
VICKI
To do what? I mean, do what, at the meeting?
JAKE
She said she doesn't know. She said she just wants me to show up there, because my email gave her some ideas that she wants to discuss with her peers.
VICKI
Huh?
JAKE
Makes no sense to me, either. Well, I guess maybe it does. Maybe she thinks I'll say some things that might give other people ideas. But I have no idea what I'll even say. I had no idea what I was even--
VICKI
Had no idea what you're talking about? You got a trained Astronomer to explore ideas that she hasn't explored before. That counts for something.
JAKE
Huh. So, it's next weekend. It's just that she can only fly me out if I'm a student, because she can't justify the expense otherwise, so, I sorta...registered as an Astronomy student. Major.
She laughs.
VICKI
You gonna go back? To school?
JAKE
Absolutely not. Did the diploma thing, done, thanks.
VICKI
Or maybe not.
She winks at him.
VICKI
I think it would be super-duper hot if you said "a hundred billion sextillion" in a Carl Sagan voice.
He laughs uproariously, then realizes how loud he is, and silences himself and covers his mouth. Many dogs throughout the neighborhood bark in alarm. He looks around for any lights to go on or angry mobs to appear, decides he's okay, and relaxes.
The dogs continue to bark.
JAKE
Yes, O Barking Dog, it is I, your Mortal Enemy, again. Anyway, uh, no, the Carl Sagan thing, NOT. Thank you. Declining to try that impersonation out.
Her eyes bore into him with a meek, sultry implore. She tilts her head and playfully twirls and tosses her hair.
JAKE
Oh. Uh, the answer to that is still no. However...
He walks to her. He stands in front of her and admires her eyes. She admires him back.
VICKI
What?
Unsure what to say, he is silent.
JAKE
They've looked at only a relatively small area of our galaxy to find all the planets they've found. And from the number of potentially habitable planets they found there, they extrapolated how many habitable planets there could be through the rest of our galaxy. They estimate there are two billion earth-like planets in our galaxy. Multiply that by the number of galaxies we think there are in the universe, 50 billion, and that's one sextillion habitable worlds in the observable universe.
VICKI
Children like the sands of the sea.
JAKE
That's what I think of. What God said to Abraham. Worlds without number. And Joseph Smith said they all have the children of God on them.
VICKI
We don't know whether all those worlds are in this universe or other universes.
JAKE
This universe.
VICKI
Why do you think?
JAKE
Apocryphal doctrine here. Watch out. When I look at those stars, a voice, a feeling, a thing burns inside me, and it says My children. These are my children. It's not my voice. It's not my point of view. It's God's point of view. Maybe I'm crazy to imagine I could even begin to see or feel God's point of view.
She shrugs.
He admires her eyes. She's a bit uncomfortable at his stare. She blushes.
JAKE
The number of people on our planet--
She places a finger over his lip. He stops.
JAKE
Oh. Damn. Er, darn, or something, s
orry.
VICKI
Maybe you're not crazy. I could believe we could each be given some glimpse or small feeling about what God feels or thinks. Maybe he's shared it with you. Maybe that happens when you stargaze.
JAKE
Hmm.
VICKI
You were saying?
JAKE
Uh. Oh. Seven billion people on our planet, times one sextillion habitable worlds. Except that's not counting all the people who have ever lived on our planet or may yet. They estimate that one hundred billion people have ever lived and died on this planet. So one hundred billion times one sextillion--that's my estimate for the number of God's children who might be all around us, or who have at any time been around us, right here in our own universe.
VICKI
What number?
JAKE
Huh?
VICKI
What number does that come out to?
JAKE
Oh. One hundred nonillion, or a one followed by...thirty-two zeroes.
VICKI
Wow!
He admires her.
VICKI
Please forgive me, but that's getting a little old. And there's more to me than my eyes...
JAKE
Nope, not right now.
He weeps. What?
VICKI
What? What is it?
He shakes his head.
He says nothing.
VICKI
You can tell me.
JAKE
It's more corny than you could possibly imagine.
VICKI
If that's even a shred better than Darth Vader saying "more powerful than you can possibly imagine--"
JAKE
Nope. Not right now. Sorry. And that was Obi-Wan Kenobi. And it wasn't cheesy.
He walks back to the front lawn and stargazes.
She walks to him, stands in front of him, and kisses him. He kisses back.
He bolts and withdraws.
VICKI
Oh no, is it my breath?
JAKE
What? No, that's nice and minty. Good Girl Scout. Be Prepared.
She giggles.
JAKE
No, I forgot to tell you what the Astronomer lady found!
INT. CONVENTION HALL--DAY
TWENTY REPRESENTATIVES from a dozen European countries, men and women of many different ages and ethnicities, sit around a very large table, each of them with a microphone in front of them. Professor Samples is seated among them. Her husband, Mr. Samples, sits next to her, and Jake sits next to him. Everyone is in blue and gray business attire, except for Samples, who wears a bright purple woman's suit, and Jake, who wears, to his regret, a flashy blue dress shirt studded with yellow stars. He covers his chest with his arms to try to hide the stars.
SAMPLES
The preliminary model and results we put together from Carter's idea is very promising.
Jake visibly squirms.
SAMPLES
Well, whatever, Mr. Carter, we can say that it was our idea. But you helped me form the idea. It wouldn't have come to me without your email.
Mr. Samples frowns and looks at Mr. Carter sternly.
JAKE
Uh, stern Asian Man frowning at me, insisting that I take some credit. Okay, thank you. I accept credit.
Mr. Samples laughs, and beams at Jack. Several others laugh.
SAMPLES
Anyway, the first star I examined from the preliminary results--and again, this was only in just the past week, so we haven't verified this or published anything yet, but--
PROFESSOR FELIX FASSBINDER, white, male, forty-two, stocky and cheery, interrupts.
FELIX
Please publish them. Just put it up on arXiv. The whole point is to engage others and filter out errors.
SAMPLES
(meekly)
Thank you for the suggestion. However, I think it's too early--
FELIX
What do you think you found?
SAMPLES
A binary earth-analogue, or two potentially earth-like planets which orbit one another--
Everyone except for Jake and Mr. Samples gasps.
SAMPLES
Which pair of earth-like planets in turn orbit a double star system--
The same group of people gasp.
SAMPLES
Furthermore, between the binary earth-analogue and the twin suns, a tight cluster of seven stars orbits the binary star.
EXT. SPACE--NIGHT
A star like Earth's Sun spills her glorious, fiery white light over the crescent of a planet which could be Earth. Brilliant blue oceans and patchy, streaky blankets of clouds come to light. We descend and orbit toward the day side, and continents come into view. Before we can determine which continents these may be, a second, slightly smaller yet brighter Sun comes up over the horizon.
Unless Earth somehow got a second Sun, we may be certain this is not Earth.
Two planetary moons, one brown, one green, rise up over the horizon.
The edge of an apparently very large black disc rises over the horizon of the planet. It is far too large to be a moon, and it slightly eclipses one of the twin suns. It has a dark side and a crescent of an illuminated day side, just like the planet in our main view. It is another Earth-like planet. These two Earth-like planets orbit each other.
A cluster of seven, apparently much smaller and/or more distant suns come up over the horizon, in a void apparently in orbit somewhere
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