‘My God, it’s full of stars’
Who can forget Stanley Kubrick’s immortal film ‘2001’ and Commander Dave’s famous last transmission from space? ‘My God it’s full of stars.’ The design of the alien lifeform in Sentient pays homage to and adds to the mythology of the monolith in Stanley Kubrick’s 2001.
Run
The last scene of the Australian pilot, set at dusk, features the Royal Australian Navy’s Lt. Com. Michael Dowd shepherding survivors to a safe location when he observes what he thinks is another survivor striding ashore.
The survivor stomps over the top of a sea of floating bodies in the harbour, ruthlessly pushing them aside to get to the beach.
Dowd arrives to discover a naked male crouching on the sand. When the figure becomes aware of Dowd’s presence it turns and rises. It’s then that Dowd realizes, what he thought was a survivor of the storm, is a translucent black lifeform, full of stars.
The lifeform makes its first awkward steps on terra firma then begins to stride towards Dowd. The stride becomes a determined run, straight at Dowd.
Dowd turns to the survivors and delivers one clear instruction, ‘RUN!’
Metamorphosis
During their take-over of a human host;
- The storm will interrogate humans to determine;
- Whether they possess the compatible DNA required to achieve successful offspring with the Sentient or
- Whether they can become hosts
- Some without the DNA will be spared because they are divined to survive. They are special. The G_d mythology within the story sees the Sentient know the divine will because they are sent by a creator. The rest of humanity will be vaporized by the storm, (it’s not personal).
- Those selected to become hosts will be temporarily paralyzed whilst the lifeform takes root and locks into their systems.
- The Sentient will then take the host bodies to a water source so they can commence the rewrite of the body. The immense heat generated during the process requires water to cool the bodies.
- Once back on land they will appear translucent black and full of stars.
Human form
Some but not many will evolve to the next step of mastering the human form.
The transition takes time. It will not manifest straight away. Some will remain stuck, unable to transform.
Those who do achieve transformation undertake an intense, painful and extreme transition. You will see them brace themselves and experience extreme heat transfer but at the end of it, they will emerge in human form and become the alphas of the lifeforms.
Those who cannot evolve into a fully human state will serve the alphas but NOT without resentment and this is another chance for conflict.
The fully evolved form can speak but rarely do. When they do, their words will few and poignant.
First steps – Predator touch
The transition process burns through an enormous amount of energy. By the time they take their first steps on land, they’re desperately hungry.
The Sentient ingest energy through touch. Their first attempt to feed after the transition will see them so hungry, their touch, extended to a tree or an animal will kill it.
They have not learned to moderate their ingestion of energy through touch yet but this is an opportunity to demonstrate just how dangerous they are.
Behaviour and the 12 cycles
The next post in this series will address how the Sentient engage with the world and each other as well as the 12 cycles of their journey.
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This entry was posted on Saturday, May 12th, 2018 at 8:42 pm
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Tags: David Steinhoff, Lt. Commander Michael Dowd, My God it's full of stars, Presence Global Entertainment, sci-fi, sci-fi TV series, Sentient, Sentient evolution, Sentient.tv
Posted in: Artwork, Composition and soundtrack, Contracts, Cosplay, Pilot, Sentient, Series Bible, Uncategorized, Writing
So no more bluish hue?
There is still blue hue.
Where do we see it?
Close up, probably not.
In the distance or from OH yes.
I like the obvious fact that their body reflects a “translucent black lifeform full of stars” during transformation. I have seen vampires, shape-shifters, werewolves transformed. It is strikes the imagination to see this time, a sentient undergoing transformation, frankly different.
Quibble: The line “My God, it’s full of stars” is not in the movie 2001. Apparently it is in Clarke’s novelisation and then was used in the movie 2010.
Hey, thanks for that clarification DN.