Brief

A team from the United Nations Investigation Task force discover an alien device maintaining portals to preserved ancient civilisations using dark matter energy. A powerful cartel also seeks the energy source for weapons use.

What We Liked

- The story starts off with an alien device, and the mysteries keep coming. With the reveal that Atlantis is real, it really ratchets up the "need to know." The characters, good and bad, are experts at what they do and are dedicated to getting the job done. Interesting new technologies, and even more interesting ancient technologies, keep the story exciting and fresh. Mysterious aliens and legends are also fascinating elements. There is a strong "need to know" from the beginning and throughout the story.
- This film would pull people in for the promise of aliens and the lost city of Atlantis. Buttressed by capable, heroic protagonists and arch-villains, the story does not lag anywhere and is action-packed. Shadowy organizations are always interesting, as is the plentiful treachery and mystery of the antagonists. There are lots of scenes that have a "cool factor" with new and ancient technologies.
- It treads where few shows have gone and there are plenty of great cliffhangers to keep a viewer excited for the next episode. There's plenty of action and a strong good vs. evil thread until the very end.
- Key points: Action; Aliens; Atlantis; Technologies; Mystery.

Synopsis

MIRO, teens, is the eldest son of his father and is revered in his (Australian) aboriginal tribe. He is painted and carrying his speer as he sets off on a quest in the desert to kill a giant roo. He wanders down into a gorge and encounters a giant black pyramid. When he touches it, it’s so cold it pulls the skin off his hand. He uses grubs to make a paste for his hand and wraps it in stringy bark. He continues, deeper into the desert even though he thinks he’s going home for help. Miro was lost and so exhausted he can barely move. He lies down, and gets a glimpse of a giant insect flying down onto him as he becomes unconscious. JOSHUA CARVER, 43, ruminates on his position with the UN Security Council where he is an investigator under the United Nations Investigation Task Force (UNIT). The Council has grown in scope and power since 9-11. His house has been modified to include an underground communications bunker. He goes down into it and connects with CHAIRMAN SEBASTIAN VAN DER KLEIN, who tells him he has to go back to work. There’s a situation. A boy was found unconscious in the desert with radiation burns. Everyone is concerned there may be a nuclear device hidden, and Josh will get a team and investigate. DR EMMA BOWEN, 34, an anthropologist, is called away to a hospital room to investigate the boy with the tribal markings and weapons who’s currently in a coma. She takes pictures of him, but then is knocked out by a guy in doctor garb. She meets Joshua. Nothing has been taken from Miro’s possessions although someone extracted a vial of blood. Josh goes to check the security cameras but the guard is dead and the footage has been removed. Outside, a Japanese man holding a vial of blood gets into a waiting car. Emma examines Miro’s clothing and weapons and finds it all authentic and is fascinated by what seems to be the work of a lost tribe. Josh invites her on to his team to investigate further and she accepts. LEROY, late 30s, handsome and built African American, is on his way to Australia and intends on having sex with as many women as possible. His travel companion, Marcel, a stocky short Italian, is also in his late 30s. Leroy is an expert at disarming nuclear devices and Marcel is a weapons expert. They meet up with Josh and Emma at a bar as two Japanese men surreptitiously take their pictures from another table. The next day they head into the desert, now with a local aboriginal tracker, JIM, late 20s. They fill up on supplies at an old roadhouse. When they’re gone, the Japanese men show up and kill the owner and blow the place up.

In Geneva, an elite group meets in a grand room to discuss the situation in Australia. The old man who’s in charge asks that the ill-mannered American be replaced. Soon after, there are reports of an ex Vice President of the US and his family, who all died when their limo flew off a mountain road. JUN and MICHIO, two dangerous mercenaries, have been recruited by the shady organization to follow Josh et. al and retrieve what they’re looking for. They’re following them in the desert, far behind so as not to be seen. Josh and his group find two large stones with shimmering air between them. They wonder if it’s like a “stargate” and Josh decides to try and walk through it but nothing happens to him and the other side has a different landscape with more mountains. They find an old aboriginal man, PINDARI, and Jim talks to him in native tongue. He says he is looking for his son Miro who has disappeared and he thinks the group are sky gods. He says the head of a big black snake led him to a ravine that wasn’t there before. Jun and Michio follow Josh et. al to the anomaly and stay camped on the one side since the group is camping close to the portal on the other side. The group eats a giant lizard caught by the old aboriginal man. The next day, Pindari will take them to the source of the radiation, about a day’s walk. They find the massive pyramid sticking out of the gorge and are relieved that the radiation is relatively low and theorize that it must have been degrading since Miro was there. The pyramid shimmers, similar to the portal they went through. Their satellite readings show a map of the earth from a bygone before continental drift. They find pieces of the pyramid nearby. They each get a voice in their head from different yet familiar people, explaining that the pyramid is dark matter technology and they mean them no harm, and in fact are fascinated by how quickly human evolution has occurred. There’s flash as Jun throws a grenade down into the team, then followed by a grenade that uses chemicals to render them unconscious. Jun takes some pyramid shards, then shoots Emma, wounding her badly. He is about to shoot the unconscious team members until a spear hits him. Pindari threw the fishbone-tipped spear but Jun is wearing a kevlar vest and it does no harm. When more aboriginal warriors appear, Jun gets out of the gorge and he and Michio start running. The group wakes up and tends to Emma’s bullet wound but she’s losing too much blood. Leroy is dispatched to run back to the portal and get help.

At the portal, he finds numerous booby traps with C4 in them. He disarms them all then calls for a helicopter to come. He’s relieved when he sees the rest of the team headed toward the portal, which is now shrinking. They make it through and a helicopter delivers Miro back to his tribe and takes Emma off to a hospital. Mirro talks with his tribe about what he went through and he will go down in history. Pindari sees that Miro’s hair is falling out. Away from the portal, Jun and Michio see the helicopter and blow it out of the sky with a shoulder missile. Marcello fires at their retreating car which rolls over and retrieves the stolen pyramid fragments then puts C4 in the wreckage and blows it up. More air support is called in and the team is taken to New York and Josh is interrogated by Van der Klein who is not happy. At the Vatican, CARDINAL SPITETI takes his younger brother Marcello though several secret chambers until they come upon the Arc of the Covenant. Inside are two smooth pyramids made of the same material as the stones found in the Australian desert. They put the stones in the Arc and the Cardinal says their family has been charged with the Arc’s protection. OTTO GUINSMAN, an old man, is in his big villa in northern Italy. His grandson FRANZ tells him they are ahead of anyone else who may be trying to recover the stones from Australia. Franz goes back to his computer where he can control their trillion dollar empire and manipulate the world. What he really wants to do is kill his grandfather. He would rather live his life out in the open instead of operating in the shadows as is his family’s way. Franz decided to blow up a school bus in the middle east to escalate conflict and so his family can sell more weapons to both sides. OMAR and a few bad guy underlings go to the Cairo Museum of Antiquities and detonate a car bomb that empties the museum except for Omar, who cuts through glass with a big diamond ring and steals a pendant that has a black stone in it. HEINRICH, the driver, shoots the four thugs and steals the black stone center of the pendant then plants a bomb in the car. He takes the stone to a professor who is unable to alter it using any method.

SALLY from the NSA alerts Josh to phone chatter about the black stones and he’s off to interview the professor in Munich. The professor gives him his report on the stone and he looks at security camera footage for Heinrich, then runs him through criminal databases and gets a hit. Meanwhile, Heinrich meets with Franz who tells him to find whoever killed their mercenaries in Australia and retrieve the stones. Marcello is kidnapped by Franz and put on a “rack” at his Geneva chateaux and questioned about the stones. Josh heads to Geneva after asking Otto about Franz’s whereabouts. Otto choppers to Geneva and sees Franz torturing Marcello and tells him to stop. They argue, until Otto blows Franz’s brains out with a gun hidden in his walking cane. Josh enters, gun drawn, and Otto tells him he had to kill his grandson when he caught him torturing Marcello. An ambulance comes to take Marcello to the hospital. Josh finds the black stone on the floor. Meanwhile, Heinrich is assassinated by a woman driving a Ferrari. Josh visits Marcello in the hospital, and Marcello assures him that the stones from Australia are as safe as anything can be. They’re called back to New York where they meet with Van der Klein, who says his secretary was leaking intelligence. Josh suspects Van der Klein as well. He calls Sally and asks her to check out Otto. ALYOSHA, on his fishing boat, wears a family heirloom pendant with a black stone in it. He sails toward a bright light and a giant cruise liner suddenly is bearing down on him. Surely they would collide, but the cruise liner disappears, as does Alyosha’s boat from the perspective of the captain of the cruise liner. Van der Klein is assassinated by the same Ferrari driving woman. JEAN LUC RENOUF takes his job as head of the UNIT squad.

TITUS, one of the three kings of Atlantis, gathers with the other two rulers, PRINCE TATACHIAN and KING OLAF. Long ago, three giant black pyramids appeared in each of their cities and were thought to be the trident of Poseidon. They agree to send a fishing boat and warship to investigate the light portal where the giant cruise ship came from. Marcello, Leroy and Josh meet with Jean Luc who tells them a portal may have opened in the Mediterranean. The three fly there and take a stealth boat. Otto takes his superyacht to the site where a fisherman saw an anomaly in the ocean. They see the ancient fishing boat that almost collided with the cruise ship. The portal is closing and they figure they only have a few days to get in and out with more black stones. CERUS, the Atlantean diplomat, tries speaking to the crew on the yacht but neither can understand the other. The Atlanteans have a gift - a giant gold shield with their history inscribed on it. Otto sees that the Atlanteans wear the black stones around their necks. The shield has stones in it as well, and Otto orders them pried out and then orders that everyone on the other boat to be killed. The boat captain, ABJUA and Aloysha are the only ones who avoid the gun fire by jumping in the ocean and swimming through the portal where their warship awaits and they are pulled aboard. Josh, Leroy and Marcello arrive in their stealth boat and take out the shooters on the super yacht before boarding and confronting Otto. The three stones at his table begin to spin in the air and Josh’s father’s voice fills his head, informing him that the portal was accidentally left open and that Atlantis is supposed to be partitioned off in a parallel dimension. When that ends, an arrow hits Otto in the chest and another takes out his butler. Josh, Marcello and Leroy get back to their stealth boat after bringing along innocent crew members, take the gold shield, and then watch as the warriors from Atlantis’s warship board the yacht and kill the remaining mercenaries. Abuja the fisherman is taken back to Atlantis with Aloysa, and shows him modern fishing techniques. XIANG HO, part of Otto’s organization, is pleased he’s dead and he and his eight sons can take over running the world from the shadows. He assassinated two other members of their international board, and one of his sons died attempting to assassinate a third. The board convened in Geneva and Xiang Ho is the new leader. Sally was able to figure out from flight records the people who are on the board and Josh, Marcello and Leroy are dispatched to search Otto’s house for clues on the conspiracy. The place is swarming with movers and guards, so the trio pose as interested buyers for the chateaux and are let in to look around. They find a safe in a hidden room and it’s full of documents. They decide to leave and come back later, but not before Xiang Ho’s son finds out who they are from his father and they’re shot at. After a battle, they kill all the guards and Ho’s son. His other son is there, but is killed by a man who is the scribe that encodes records of the secret meetings. He turns them all over to Josh. Back in NYC, the same woman tries to assassinate Josh but he stops her. When the trio is together and each has a stone, the alien voice talks to them and tells them they want to communicate directly with them since they are superior specimens. Somehow, Emma is alive and well. The tribe choses a new warrior to test.

About The Author

G.J. Busiko, 60, is an Australian who works as a scientist and read extensively in the sci-fi genre and then decided it was time for him to give it a go.