Wyldspace Episode 3: The Great Space Tree

Written by Wyldspace

Scene 1

[Exterior deep space] A circular warp appears in space near a churning colorful nebula. In the warp the distant stars appear to move closer and larger. Eight small space tugs come through the warp and spread out to he perimeter of the warp ring.
[cut in various closeups of the busy pilots operating the small spacecrafts]
[return] It shudders and collapses, then reopens. The tugs emit rays <and buzzing sound effects> that stabilize the warp ring. The Wyldsapce mother ship only comes through after it is stabilized. The long ship takes a while to completely emerge.
[cut in Closeup views of Captain and tug pilots and various crewmembers at first worried as they study ship displays then relieved and even proud that the warp was successful and undamaging.]
[rear view head to waist] The Captain (a woman dressed as a retro-futuristic space woman) (with one person standing on either side of her) sweeps one hand in ther air, and the massive viewing screen in front of her pans to center on the churning bright nebula.
[face, off angle] The Captain is fascinated by this serious spectacle.
[return] The Captain sweeps her arm the other way. The image pans around to view a dark colored grey brown black nebula cloud of darkness, seething dark matter.
[face] The Captain is curious about this oddity.
[return] The Captain gestures squishing something together, and the image warps like a fish-eye view to see both nebulas at the same time.
[Closeup side] The Captain turns to the woman on her left, (the burly ship Quartermistress, who dresses like a fairy princess), holds up three fingers, then points one finger to the bright nebula. The QM nods. The Captain points three fingers down (or sideways), then points one finger at the dark nebula. The QM nods again, then turns and leaves.
[Rear head to waist] The man on the Captain's right holds a datapad showing a computer display. He pulls both sides and it stretches wider. He pulls the top and bottom, and it stretches taller, expanding the display to fill the new larger screen. On the left side are pink icons of people with tiny words. On the right side are similar blue icons. The Captain taps two of the pink icons, which then glow brightly. She thinks a moment. The man points to another pink icon. The Captain taps it and it glows too. Then he holds the screen closer so she can reach the right side of the display. She thinks a moment. He shows no opinion. She taps one, then one more blue icon which both highlight. Then she waves her hand dismissively, and he shrinks the display to its previous size.
[Option to cut in scenes of each crewmember receiving the alert to join the extravehicular investigation team, happily interrupting whatever they were doing]

Scene 2

[Shuttle Docking bay wide door] The wide docking bay door slides down to open. Three women and two men walk into the bay. The leftmost woman wears fencing armor and carries a rapier, the second wears a leopard print long dress, and the third is dressed to ride a motorcycle. The man next to them is the Chef from Episode 1, and on the far right is Sonic, the only one undressed.[Continuous, pull back] They all stride into the room confidently. Sonic separates from the others who are also spreading out.
[Another door to the docking bay]The door opens like an iris, and the Captain walks in.
[wide view] The Captain walks toward the QM who is close to the transparent external door to space. The three women walk to the front of one Stinger shuttle, and Chef walks to the other. Sonic jogs to the sidewall.
[Head to waist] Sonic waves.
[Head to waist] QM nods approval.
[return] A compartment in the wall opens revealing various sized silver rings mounted on the wall. Sonic takes one and slide it on his thumb.
[Continuous, pull back] A green tartan fabric rises from inside the flooring and wraps around Sonic as a kilt with a sash over his shoulder. He is pleased. He runs offscreen. The compartment closes automatically.
[Head to toe] The Captain, standing next to the Quartermistress, waves he hand. A transparent model of the bright nebula arises out of the flooring. It slowly spins, revealing that it is only showing half of it. The Captain waves a hand in circles and looks at the others.
[Head to knees] The three women salute and nod.
[Return] The Captain waves again and a half model of the dark nebula rises similarly, but it is much smaller and moves slower. The Captain waves at it and then to the men.
[Head to knees] The men salute and nod. (They are a bit disappointed to see they have the less glamorous job, but they obey and salute.)
[Head to chest] The three women give side eye to the men with a bit of a snicker. (They have the more glamorous job.)
[return] The Captain makes a sweeping wave with both hands. Both models descend into the flooring.
[Head to knees] The three women salute and turn and run to their Stinger.
[Head to knees] The men salute.
[Head to waist] The QM suddenly remembers something. She lightly taps the Captain on the shoulder, points to Chef, then indicates herself. The Captain nods acquiescence.
[return] Chef happily slaps Sonic on the shoulder and walks to the QM. Sonic is not delighted but accepts the idea of doing the boring job alone, salutes again then turns and walks to the other Stinger with no enthusiasm.
[wide view] The Captain leaves, the QM follows her, leading happy Chef. The women's shuttle rolls out first, passing through the clear door, followed by Sonic's shuttle.

Scene 3

[outside the ship] The first Stinger turns and launches to the bright churning nebula. The second drifts forward to the dark one.
[Inside cockpit with cut scenes of faces] The three women marvel at the bright nebula and the various display screens analyzing it.
[Inside cockpit with cut scenes of face] Sonic is unimpressed with the dark nebula. It looks like floating dead leaves and torn brown rope. He gets an idea. He taps a control and slides his finger on the control panel.
[upper outer hull of shuttle] A white flexible tube arises from the hull. It wavers much like Sonic's sliding finger did. Bits of brown detritus drift about. Eventually a bit gets sucked into the tube.
[Cockpit side view, head to waist] Sonic excitedly bolts away.
[Head to knees, Dolly to follow] Sonic swims in microgravity to the back room of the Stinger, finally having some happy excitement about this job. He sits at a well lit table next to a window to the outside space. Four bits of brown debris plop onto the table from a white flexible tube above.
[face] Happiness turns to a bit of frustration.
[return] He squirts what looks like water on one, using a small squirt bottle he pulled from under the table. No effect.
[face] disappointed
[return] He squirts what looks like catsup and mustard on the next two. No reaction.
[face] disappointed again
[return, Dolly to follow] He turns and looks at a possibility. He rolls his chair to a wall of shelving bearing identical tubs. He pops the lid off of one, reaches in, and withdraws a handful of green goo from Episode 1. He rolls in his seat back to the table and plops a big dollop of green goo onto the fourth sample. It immediately starts to pulsate.
[face] Sonic is a little happy.
[Closeup] <slurp> The brown bit absorbs the goo and stands up, looking like a stick figure or a mandrake. It dances about on the tabletop.
[face] Sonic is happy and amused.
[return] The figure runs over to the water soaked piece, picks it up, and tosses it into the dollop of goo. The other one hops out of the goo just as animated as the first. They dance together.
[face] Sonic is delighted.
[return] The two figures pick up the remaining two Ina inanimate pieces in catsup and mustard, and toss them into the goo too.
[face, slowly zoom out] At first Sonic's face is exactly the same. His eyes don't change, but his smile slowly fades. He holds a large glass half dome in one hand.
[return to table top slightly zoomed out] Sonic slams the glass dome over the now four animated little figures. They run to the opposite side.
[Side view face, pan across] Sonic crouches down to peer in. The four figures seem to be waving their arms at someone. [pan back] Sonic slowly lifts his gaze up.
[window from inside] Brown debris bits are sticking to the window, more and more.
[face] Sonic slowly develops a worried expression. <warning klaxxon> A red light above flashes. Suddenly he bolts offscreen.

Scene 4

[wide view, follow] The springs through the Shuttle back toward the cockpit. (There are several potential upkilt views.) <CRUNCH> He stops a moment, gripping any handle and stares at the ceiling, searching for the source of that sound. <CRUNCH> He fearfully resumes his sprint to the cockpit and pulls himself into the pilot seat, noting the many brown strands stuck to the windshield and many more floating nearby outside.
[Side view, head to waist] The seatbelt fastens around him automatically. He is worried by what he sees all around through the windshield. He looks down at the control panel and presses a few buttons on it quickly.
[display] The image shows a pale green outline of the shuttle and the English words and Kanji for "Damage Location". He taps on the screen. A few red spots appear on the diagram, scattered about. New spots continue to appear until the entire ship is glowing red.
[return] Sonic is nearly ready to panic. <CRUNCH> He looks around.
[windshield looking from behind his head] Cracks form in the windshield and ceiling. <HISS> He leaps out of the seat so fast that the seatbelt bounces him back.
[Side, Head to chest] Sonic holds his hands in front of him with fingertips touching and thumb tips touching making a sort of triangle symbol, then he shakes his hands back and forth rapidly. The pilot seat disassembles into sheets of fabric which wrap around him into a cocoon. The cocoon over his face starts to turn transparent.
[wide view from hallway looking forward] The windshield is almost completely covered in brown strands and the cracks are worsening. <Hiss> Sonic is floating in a space suit where the pilot seat used to be, with his knees bent and his feet firmly on the floor. He stands up, then steps into a balanced stance, his feet seem to magnetically stick to the floor. Sonic's green tartan kilt wraps around the space suit. He turns his head to look at a display on the console.
[display] <several hisses continue for the next several scenes> A digital air gauge has a smiley face on the right, a frowny face at the top, and a dead face with X's for eyes on the left. An arrow points from the bottom of the screen to the smiley face, but it moves toward the frowny face.
[face to waist] With open palms, Sonic makes striking gestures with both arms. The sash part of the kilt above his waist disconnects, and inch-worms to his hands, separating into two pieces. Each piece takes the shape of a machete in his hand and then turns silvery metallic color. [Dolly back slow] As his weapons are forming, brown strands come into view from behind the camera all over the hallway. [Dolly back faster] Sonic starts stomping forward to slash at the brown tentacles, chopping them with every hit as he proceeds down the hall. Around him bits are floating and drifting. [circle him, around behind, still following] Some of the now long brown tentacles wrap around his arms and legs. He continues to slash and walk to the work desk, hindered by the vines. When the floating slashed bits touch a tentacle, they attach to it and become animated again. Sonic turns, wildly looking around as if he sees an enemy in each tentacle all around, backing toward the work table with the glass dome still on it. He has difficulty moving now. Vines wrap around his helmet and torso as well as limbs. He falls back onto the corner of the worktable and is suspended like in a spider's web. [slowly zoom in face and right hand] His helmet is held still by the vines, but he looks to the side and swipes one machete to flip over the glass dome. It spins and drifts away in microgravity. He is clearly afraid, but he carefully swipes the four small figures with the flat of the blade and tosses them into the brown webbing before the vines seem to overpower him, spreading his legs and arms, crawling up under his kilt, and immobilizing his head, and blocking much of his vision. [track the figures] The four animated figures dance about on the brown vines, then. start to tug at them. They redirect the vines to explore the tubs on the shelves. When the vines open a tub, the figures jump for joy as the green goo is exposed. The vines reach into the tub. <slurp> They seem very excited. The green goo is siphoned out of the tub quickly.
[face] The brown vines have cracked the clear visor of Sonic's helmet. They start to unwind and give him a clearer view.
[return] The empty tub is discarded to float away. All brown vines thrust toward all the tubs, opening and devouring the green goo.
[Head to toe] Sonic is still fearful, but they seem to be losing all interest in him. They are unwinding from his face and limbs.
[return] It is a full feeding frenzy as all the tubs are open. Some green goo floats around in microgravity, but is sucked up by the ravenous brown roots. <slurp slurp>
[Head to waist] He observes with interest as the fear passes. But he does retreat a few inches while watching. He gets an idea. He holds two index fingers and two thumbs together then stretches them out into a rectangle in the air. He looks down. He looks back at his fingers. He is disappointed that nothing happened. Then some material in the wall stretches into a rectangular keyboard right under his fingers. He is a bit relieved. He types frantically. He presses the enter key with a flourish and stares at the keyboard/display.
[wide view]  There are more tubs in another dimly lit room. One by one, the tubs sink through the flooring or are pulled through the walls of the storage compartment.
[Exterior wide] Outside the Stinger shuttle, the tubs drift away different directions. The brown tentacles pull away from the stinger and swarm around the tubs.
[Head to toe] Back inside, the tentacles recede back through the cracks they made. The cracks slowly seal up. <hissing stops> When he sees it appears safe, Sonic scrambles to get to the pilot seat, on all fours as necessary.
[display] Air gage display is pointing directly at the dead face, empty, no air remaining in the ship.
[Side view, head to waist] He crouches where the pilot seat used to be and shoves the controls forward.
[Exterior] Outside, the Stinger thrusts away from the dark cloud which largely ignores it now.
[return] Inside, a new pilot seat and seatbelts animate and hold Sonic into the seat properly.

Scene 5

[Head to chest] He reaches for a control panel.
[display, click on from blank screen] Young appears at his work desk. He seems to be operating a small milking machine extracting some green goo out of a potted plant. Behind him are many hydroponic plants. Young looks up from his work.
[return] Sonic waves with urgency on his face, then taps a button.
[Exterior] Out in space, the brown tentacles pry open two of the tubs and happily siphon the green goo out.
[return] Young's eyes grow wide, (staring directly into the camera). He types a few keys (offscreen). <click click>
[Outside from further away] The brown tentacles appear to funnel the goo to a central trunk, then out through other tentacles in the form of oblong leaves. The leaves face toward the light (of the brighter nebula) and start to glow. The brown gaseous tentacles start to solidify and grow a more healthy shape and color.
[return] Young has an idea.  
[Rear, Head to waist] Young taps a button on the display on his desk showing the healthier branches and leaves of the space tree. <click> Sonic's face appears in closeup. Young taps his own chest with an open palm. Then he gestures like his hands are extending a telescope. Sonic nods.
[Side view, Head to elbows] In the Pilot seat, Sonic looks up from the display screen and yanks the controls.
[Exterior] Out in space, the Stinger shoots toward the Wyldspace Starship, <whoosh>, spins, and slows itself. [zoom in] A white tube extends from the Wyldspace toward the Stinger. The tube docks sideways onto the top of the Stinger, which is facing away from the Mother ship.
[face and shoulders] In the cockpit, Sonic checks his space suit.[Closeup] A gauge reads almost empty.[Return to Cockpit] Sonic stands up, steps up to stand on the seat, steps onto the console, and passes through the windshield.
[close Exterior, outer hull] On top of the Stinger, his obviously magnetic boots allow him to trudge to the mounted large tube.
[Closeup] He gazes out in the distance (ignoring a red light that starts flashing inside his helmet) and finds what he seeks. [Rear head and shoulders] He is looking at the ghostly tree in space with just a few bright green leaves . He aims the large tube at it and waves dramatically with one arm.
[side view, Head to elbows] Young stares intently at a display screen, then suddenly pulls a heavy valve lever with all his might.
[Face to chest] Sonic holds the tube and looks out of the corner of his eye as a wobble runs along the tube toward him. His warning light starts flashing faster. The surge arrives, and Sonic struggles to hold the vibrating and bucking tube
[Rear, Head to knees] He aims at the "roots" of the tree as blobs of green goo spurt from the tube.
[side view, Head to elbows] Young reads displays and suddenly pushes the lever back closed.
[return to face view] Sonic keeps aiming the spray until it finishes, with the red light flashing even faster. He seems tired and out of breath. A white cylinder drifts along the tube behind him. [zoom out slightly] An identical cylinder (aside from his distinctive tartan color) disconnects from the back of his encounter suit. He realizes he cannot breathe. The white cylinder snaps on to his back. Suddenly he can breathe again and the flashing red light goes out. He is relieved. He stares out toward the tree again.
[Exterior wide angle] The whole tree appears more solid and less ghostly.
[Closeup] Floating in space, the roots catch the green goo globules and such them up.  
[Closeup] The leaves grow lush, aimed at the bright nebula. Bright red and blue fruits grow alongside the leaves.
[Rear head to waist] The Captain views both the nebulas on a large screen. The dark grungy nebula starts to look lush and colorful.
[closeup] The Captain is amazed.

Scene 6

[return to face view] Smiling Sonic turns and looks back at the ship just in time to see that Young is approaching in his EVA suit, riding a small white surf board along the tube. Sonic waves to Young as he approaches.
[Pivot to follow action] Young waves for Sonic to follow as he passes and launches off the end of the tube toward the tree. Sonic shrugs, disconnects the tube, and holds out his hands.
[waist to feet] A blob of metal rises out of the hull and forms a control panel under his hands.[Closeup feet] Straps rise out of the hull and attach his boots securely.
[Head to toe] Sonic controls the Stinger from atop to follow Young toward the tree. (offscreen)
[Inside cockpit of other vehicle] All are diligently studying the bright nebula. One glances over and is stunned by the change in the dark nebula.
[closeup] She is amazed and delighted at it.
[PoV] From her point of view, it looks much like a red rose bush with lush green leaves and brown wood.
[Head to thigh, rotate and track] Young spins through the branches and leaves. He produces a large magnifying glass and inspects the fruits growing. He finds them amazing. [rotate to action] Sonic and the Stinger slowly pull up nearby.
[Rear view] Young turns and tosses two fruit to the camera, one red, one blue.
[Head to knee] Sonic awaits them to slowly drift to him and catches them, regarding their beauty with wonder. A container arises from the Stinger hull which surprises Sonic. He deposits the fruits into the container and it descends into the vehicle. Sonic looks up and is surprised.
[PoV] Young and his surf board drift down with a floating swarm of colorful fruit.
[wide view, drift to follow action] As Young drifts down to the Stinger, multiple cannisters appear out of the hull and catch the slowly drifting fruit and bring them in. Young lands and firmly atraches to the hull. He is still focused on a handful of red flowers which he scans with a medical scanner glove, and glances between two displays that float around him. Sonic notices Young is absorbed, and controls the Stinger.. [track] ...to circle around the space tree once before cruising back to the Wyldspace.
[Exterior wide] The bright nebula churns prettily as the other Stinger shuttle turns and leaves to return to the Wyldspace mother ship as well.
[Continuous, zoom in] Through the windshield, the three women scientists pour over their data until one by one they all stare in shock ahead.
[PoV, inside cockpit looking forward]The women see the dark matter nebula has transformed into a beautiful space tree and Sonic and Young ride atop their Stinger towards them, both smiling.
[Head to toe] Sonic busily drives the shuttle while occasionally glancing at the ladles. Young sweeps his arm and sends the red flowers drifting toward them.
[external, looking in windshield] The ladies smile as the flowers drift and land on the edges of their windshield.
[Continuous, pull back] Both shuttle's dock with the Mother ship at the same time.
[fade to black]

Plot type

Episode

Parent Plot

Wyldspace