Backstory for the Films

by Kai Staats

I wrote the backstory while developing the feature length film script in the fall of 2010. The original three stories were originally written against the backdrop of what even in the late eighties and early nineties was apparent to me—a modern world yet confronted with a heritage of antiquated thinking, ethnic conflict, and fear of change.

In a way, the backstories helped to build a deeper foundation to that which I had envisioned as a teenager and a young man. Later, with two decades of world travel and ten years work in the technology sector, I was able to tighten the storyline and create something very real, perhaps, only a few years from now.

In particular, I had never, not even when I wrote the original Monitor Gray, felt completely comfortable with the use of drugs to maintain the general demeanor of the citizens of the City. It felt too similar to Lucas’ THX-1138. But unlike Ayan Rand’s Anthem or it’s screen child Logan’s Run, Monitor Gray takes place here, now, in our world with very little change.

The mind controlling drugs were replaced with a nanobot-bacteria hybrid, a means by which nano-scale machines could be injected into the human body and not only never flush from the system, but maintain a healthy, living, self-replicating maintenance system.

Why enter the heart once every ten years to perform dangerous removal of clotted material when the nanobots could do this bit by bid, daily?
 
Why use nano particles to deliver focused chemotherapy when fully articulated nanobots could move to the site on command and physically disassemble the cancer cells?
 
Why not move nanobots into the brain to increase serotonin up-take such that moods swings are balanced, depression is not so deep, anxiety reduced, and overall demeanor brought to a sustained balance?

And that is where it gets interesting … for what will people do, for you, if you offer a permanent path to being content in life, no matter the education, religious beliefs, or personal goals?

Therein lies ultimate power.