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There is no escape from possession.
In Nikita Ivanenko and Daniel Garcia’s, ‘The house on the lake’, a strong spirit called Veronique seizes control of her prey.
In V1 of ‘The house on the lake’, the possessed soul disappears in the red swirling storm of the abyss.
In V2, the victim is lured into a cell and trapped in her own mind.
In ‘The house on the lake’, the seduction has a terrifying outcome, with the possessing spirit gaining complete control however most of returning spirits are not strong enough to completely control their prey. As a result, most of humanity will not survive Day One.
Classes of possession
The ‘Moscow series’ introduced archetypes from history. These spirits take control, destroy or imprison the possessed soul.
London based, Alex Soliven has created another exploration of possession. Soliven asks, ‘What if there was a collaboration between the possessing spirit and the possessed medium?’
All mediums, (that’s us), represent real estate to spirits seeking to possess however those being possessed may recognise that having a great spirit or a powerful historical character from the past may enable them. If both the spirit and the medium are willing they could collaborate to form a powerful team. They may even seek each other out.
For example:
Class 1: Strong Spirit and Strong Medium
Both entities are in sync. They form a bond to achieve a mutual benefit.
Class 2: Strong Spirit, Weak Medium
A powerful possessing spirit struggles to find a strong match so relies on the closest potential match. It’s not perfect real estate and you may not like or want the neighbor.
Class 3: Weak Spirit, Strong Medium
This is the opposite of Class 2. The Medium wants to draw out spirit’s potential while being strong enough to reject other’s control.
Class 4: Weak Spirit and Medium This appears to be two arguing drivers at the wheel of the same car but Soliven feels this relationship has huge potential.
Special class – Mediators: A hub spirit or medium that connects many.
Reflections
Talking heads between the spirit and the medium is possible but it is very difficult to execute.
In a traditional possession story, the battle between the possessor and the possessed gets pretty freaky.
In ‘Dexter’, the protagonist, a serial killer, voice-overs his thoughts. His conscience also appears to him as his dead father. The dead father acts as a, ‘character reflection’ who Dexter can converse with to explore the, ‘for and against’, of his choices.
The reflection approach would allow the possessor to appear external to the possessed but this will quickly become confusing if you to try to employ it with more than one character. There is also the tonal issue of having historical characters appearing in costume. It may be wiser to have them appear as apparitions, (misty reflections in steamy bathroom windows etc).
Disputes over custody
Two strong personalities may be able to align to achieve more but like most collaborations, a good team that works well together is not easy to find. A relationship breakdown in that situation would be, ‘interesting’. There ain’t no family law court in the world of the possessed.
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Perhaps you have other examples of how the relationship between the possessing spirit and the possessed medium could take place. Got a comment? An idea? Why not share in the comments area below. Log in to do so. Not a member? Join us.
This entry was posted on Monday, July 28th, 2014 at 9:19 pm
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Tags: Alex Soliven, Classes, Daniel Garcia, David Steinhoff, Day one, Journey of the seeds, Nikita Ivanenko, possession, Presence Films
Posted in: Day one scripts, dog, Help, Uncategorized, Writing
I’haven’t witness such a great and critical analysts as regards to spirit-medium breakdowns. Possession experimentation, investigation and examination.
Using a very mathematical and undying approaches. Great ideas to all and more kudos to #Alex for this innovative idea. #Nikita is such a gem!
From Journey member, Alex Soliven
A study of character- Evil is power exercised to do harm.
http://www.ted.com/talks/philip_zimbardo_on_the_psychology_of_evil?language=en
Should we explore this part and write it down in more detail? ^_^
Didn’t get the idea. Wha twas that all about? Agree with the definition of evil ))
Take a sample of 100 normal people infected with the souls.
Approximately 1/3 (30-35) do not survive and die during the process of posession.
the rest is divided into the following sub-categories.
Class A
Weak spirit and medium (about 60 of 100 infected)
The situation when neither of souls can take control. Their minds and reasons are fighting with no success, accelerating the madness of the “bad soul”. As a result, class A loses his personality (both) and starts existing, satisfying the passions either of the medium or the spirit. It has memories of both but can’t understand who he really is. The desires consumes all logic and reasoning of Class A. Note: would be nice to divide them into categories with respect to their desires. Can be thought of a guy with really bad schizophrenia. When gathered into groups, Class A becomes very agressive and violent, usually they fight to death. Controlled by stronger classes. The internal struggle reflect on how it looks like – pale, thin, exhausted, don’t care of haircut, dress and etc. Also has high pain shorthold. Still needs food, water, etc.
Example – whatever, they’re plenty of them. When see a crowd of psychos – class A for sure.
Class B
Weak spirit and strong medium (about 15 of 100 infected)
This happens when a strong bad soul takes body (2 options are possible, later about that). He completely replaces the personality, he knows who he was and where he was. More stable than class A, but still has flashes of madness. The entire process of going mad is much slowlier. That type has some desires, but most of the time it controls them (but not in the flashes of rage). Speaks the language of the personm, whose body it took. Can control small groups of class A (not more that 10). Has no contact with Abyss. Looks normal, but can use attributes of his previous lifestyle. A little bit more physically stronger than a usual person.
Example – Veronique, Dzhitindzhi
Class C
Strong spirit and strong medium (about 5 of 100 infected)
Rare class. When 2 persons are strong enough, they exist in 1 body simultaneously as 2 personalities, they keep memories and knowledge and can share them with each other. They either make an alliance (temporal) or fight till the end (and become Class B). The flashes of madness are actual only for the spirit, not the medium here. Dependant on the time they have, Class C can exist for long periods of time. Also is capable of controlling small groups Class A 9up to 10 species). Behave in the way the 2 persons in the head agree to.
Example – Yuri (after being infected) and Michael
class D
Medium and many spirits (1-2 of 100 infected)
Occurs very rarely. When more than 1 soul takes the control of the body.
Note: the process of possession in my mind looks the following: many souls move to the soul in the body to start a fight for the control. Imagine something like ovule being fertilized – many men’s cell go to 1 female cell and only 1 reach it first – voila – new life is created. Same logic here.
Class D is born when many souls takes the body. Medium is gone, but the souls can’t decide wo actually leads, so his mind splits into many and they can’t reach the compromise. As a result, Class D is a madman with many persons in his head, and 1 of them take control from time to time. Unpredictable, dangerous thing. Has some connection with the Abyss, like hears an echo of it. Can control huge masses of Class A (up to 150-200) and even class B (less), but does it seldom, cause he’s mad (so it doesn’t go mad in future)). Looks like Class A, but more weird. Can be cooperated with, but not for long. Stays aside from the other infected.
Examples – have none yet
Class S
Strong spirit – (1 in thousands)
These are the special infected, chosen by someone who started all the thing on Earth. They are almost stable, knows everything about themselves, also consumes the the knowledge of the persons they possess. Some of them have direct contact with the Abyss and can see the other souls in bodies (and knows everything about them), infect the normal people, have special unique abilities. On sub-conscious level go the ultimate goal they were chosen for (but can struggle with this programm in their heads). Controls huge crowds of lesser Classes, behave in accordance with their own reasons and willings. Extremely rare subjects.
Example – Manuel
Conclusion
So, as we can see, the 3 styles are all combined in the way it was assumed from the beginning. I think we can use this summary as the starting point of the basic elements of Day One about the covered topics and fit all the rest to this ideas. New ideas and corrections are most welcome)).
Some ideas are not covered in here, so we’ll have to dea with them later.
Your Class D is also a rare case of Class S. Although I think we can call that character something like “Legion”. Class S is extremely rare and not easily exposed.
Also it’s the other way around. The spirit’s the outside force and the medium is the soul attached to the body. There might be some confusion there.
Spirit: Outside spirit from the abyss(Spirit of the Dead)
Medium: Soul and Body (Whole Person)
The missing class is Weak Spirit, Strong Meduim. He/She could be maintaining control over the spirit who’s attempting to take control. The person can draw power and knowledge from the spirit who’s trapped inside host/medium’s body.
Yes, can consider class D as a part of class S, but there is still a difference – class S is a single entity, while class D is a pack. “legion” is cool, straight from the bible)). if we continue idea with living abyss, it’s kind of an avatar will be the ultimate LEGION. but, it’s a matter of future (and probaility). About missing class:
first, we should define if there are people immune to the souls
or
all are infected, but those who survives becomes this new class
Actually speaking, i used the concept that those who won the battle with the spirit just become immune without getting knowledge and memories of the defeated. Anyway, i think we can make this 10% of infected (subtract from the class A and dead). But the picture gets clearer =)
Classes A-D reflect the most common 1-1 relationship and would probably be the only documented or recorded cases so unique instances can just dumped into Class S. I was thinking Class 1 Strong-Strong to be what’s expected by most to be an already rare class at less than 10%. Class S could be a lot more intriguing at less than 1%. These extremely rare examples should be handled with more care. They’d be significantly more elusive and the chase to uncover them could build up within several episodes or seasons. It would be such a tease.. Like an Urban Legend or a myth. Some of them could hide in plain sight for the whole series and never be revealed building up fan fiction and speculation.
Hm, nice approach. Like master-mind of the series – cool idea. Still, in Moscow series both i and Dan have special examples of the infected with unique abilities and they have pretty a lot of time in current version of the story. but new chars are always interesting to introduce)). We can discuss it later. And what do you think of the rates? Can we keep these ones or should we re-think them?
There seems to be a limit to the replies. I think we should keep it flexible at this early phase. We’ll see how it goes. I need to read through the rest of the existing content we have.
Alex, i’m not sure about the existing content of other teams, but I and Dan have about 24-27 episodes from 3 to 16 pages long (2 separate storylines), so if you want to read, ask Amanda or David or i can send you in one file (actually, i’d like to know anyone’s opinion about my story as a whole, cause David still didn’t get further 3-4 first episodes ^^).
Wow.. I’m intrigued. I’ll just see how much I can scan through just to analyse the info from a technical perspective in regards to the rules. We’ll see how it goes. I’ll ask David and figure out the best way to do this.
I can see there may be some potential here for interesting story lines – especially at the time of possession. While the hoi polloi turn into mindless zombies driven by instinct due to a cancelling out of wills (have I got that right?), there are the few special cases in which the more powerful take charge. But I think David N. is right; we need to ask what exactly do theses entities want? What are they taking charge of? And, of course, the conflict. Who or what will oppose them?
I don’t mean to burst anyone’s bubble, far from it, I just like to ask lots and lots of questions at the outset.
Well done to all the writers, by the way. It is a huge achievement to get script done at all, let alone in another language. I’m impressed.
I agree. We need a set of needs and purpose for their arrival and deserves a separate topic of its own. We’ll have to pool our thoughts into that one. Like, is it all the souls of the dead that’s sent back or selected specifically for different purposes? Could it be just souls in limbo who refuse to move on. I’ll focus on this next so if anyone has any ideas, send them my way and we could tie in the ideas into another solid yet flexible set of rules we can all agree on.
Ok, when first heard this idea I assumed the 2 minds, or the mind with 2 halves, was/were in conflict, as the spirits were hostile invaders. So if there collaboration with the host, what is the shared goal?Why do they want the same thing and what is it? Apologies if these questions have been answered elsewhere.
Good Qs. Over to Alex.
Nice questions. When I came up with the idea, I laid it out to the fundamentals to allow quite a bit of freedom to it as long as it stays consistent with the overall feel. You’re free to choose some grand scheme or something seemingly insignificant or ridiculous but simple and believable enough. I’m working on a Class C who works with Miyamoto Musashi or Nikola Tesla. If you’re a spirit that’s been drifting in the void for decades with your knowledge, experience and further expanding from that from where they came from. I thought it would be funny just to have them taste some fine hot sake and whiskey in exchange for their skills. I mean.. decades without sake would be hell to some.
Or something as big and noble like the transcendence of the human spirit through mass enlightenment. Fighting angels and helping the resistance would be impossible without humans gaining some form of edge over them. The weakest of spirits are driven purely by their desires and regrets they’ve taken beyond the grave that they’re driven to madness by it.
But it’s all up for Steiny’s approval though. Can’t go too crazy. ^_^
Having said that.. A bit of Musashi bloodlust is starting to sound like a neat idea. Can’t have them in check all the time right?
Comments, questions and suggestions welcome. Just leave a message. Let’s cause some chaos!
I think 4’s the limit. Ignore these replies guys, just running diagnostics.
See? I can reply to your first comment, and I should be able to reply to Alex’s first and second reply, but no deeper.
And now I can reply to one of Alex’s nested replies. You can read more on this at http://wptavern.com/how-to-limit-activity-comment-depth-in-buddypress
It’s not a bug. BuddyPress actually now respects the limit that was always there in WordPress.
I won’t post any more replies … this site seems to be going reeeaaalllllyyy slow at the moment …