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TERMINAL TRILOGY
Synopsis and background information
Please find below details of my scripts that make up the "Terminal Trilogy", a trilogy that confronts the recent
turbulent history of Southern Sub Sahara Africa through two conflicting characters.
Each script addresses a different fundamental issue of the region, all of which are constantly in the headlines:
Terminal Seed: Food security.
Terminal Flow: Mineral exploitation.
Terminal Debt: Fiscal control.
A running theme through all three scripts is the corruption prevalent in all aspects of big business and Governments,
from West to East, North to South, Black, White, Yellow and Red, and the power of the individual against these
behemoths.
TERMINAL SEED
Synopsis:
Terri Scott, (32, Black South African) beautiful, intelligent and emotionally scarred, is thrust back into the world she
hoped to have escaped when Crow re-enters her life.
Crow (42, Black South African) is a former commander in Umkhonto we Sizwe (Spear of the Nation) The ANC
military wing, now turned “Gatekeeper”. He represents the dark past Scott has been trying to escape, but when Crow
needs a beautiful, native girl for his latest contract, there was only ever one choice.
Crow had been contracted by EJL Biotech, an emerging South African company, to steal details of a GM wheat seed
that can withstand drought conditions from RAMAT Bti, a Multi-National Bio-tech company, but Ramat Bti takes
its security extremely seriously.
Crow’s first attempt failed, resulting in the kidnapping, torture and death of his inside man. For his second attempt
he uses Scott in a “honey trap” to ensnare Dr. Patrick Collins (34 White English), the brains behind the GM wheat
seed.
Unknown to Scott, Collins is eager to help. He feels betrayed by RAMAT Bti who introduced a “Terminator” gene
into his GM seed. This Terminal Seed allows only one harvest, forcing the farmers to return to RAMAT Bti for
future yields.
This goes against Collins’ conscience; he wants his seed to eradicate famine, not for a company to increase its
profits.
As Scott makes her play for Collins there is initial suspicion, then as the relationship deepens they discover they are
kindred spirits and become lovers. They plan a future together, one that will allow them to leave their haunted pasts
behind and use the GM seed for good.
But Crow’s inability to relinquish Scott and RAMAT Bti zealous protection of its investment plunges Scott into a
terrifying race to deliver the precious seed into the right hands before she loses everything.
Background:
The Holy Grail in genetically modified foodstuff is a wheat seed that can withstand drought conditions. This seed
would have the ability to eliminate starvation on a global scale.
The Bio-tech Company that creates it will be worth billions.
To protect their asset the company would protect its GM seed intellectually (copyright), physically (security) and
financially (terminator gene).
The terminator gene is introduced to make a single harvest seed, not allowing the farmers to use any of the crop to
replant for future harvests.
The company argues that they need this to recoup their investment.
The sceptics say that the companies are trying to copyright the very essential basics of life, that they will be shackled
to the company, held to ransom for all future harvests.
TERMINAL FLOW
(Scott’s Story)
Synopsis:
With the opportunity to release the political prisoner, Jean Loveday Baptise, Scott is once again manipulated back
into Crow’s terrifying world of smoke and mirrors.
Crow needs her as a “face” Baptise will recognise and trust, before he is sprung from his prison cell and smuggled
into exile in England.
In London, Baptise is set make a high profile speech attacking the regime, with the complicity of the oil companies,
for the suppression of his community.
Initially set in an oil rich West African State, Scott’s journey takes her through the “Heart of Darkness” that is the
result of the curse of oil.
From the initial opulence of the rich and powerful, to the slow decent into the filth and pollution that blights the poor
and powerless and finally to the Industrialised West where the dependency on fossil fuels is all too apparent.
With Billions of petrodollars at stake for the Regime, oil companies and the faceless “middlemen”, the hunt for
Scott intensifies as she struggles to deliver Baptise to safety while deciphering Crow’s true motives.
Background:
The destructive "gift” of oil on Africa states is well documented.
Secretive contracts between the oil companies and corrupt governments result in devastating pollution and local
tension as the wealth is drained away.
The scramble to secure these vast reserves pits “friendly” countries, (Britain, American, France), against each other,
while “emerging” countries, (China), also want a slice of the cake.
With vast amounts of petrodollars available, outside parties are keen to join in the feeding frenzy.
This makes fertile ground for a man like Crow, a “Gatekeeper”, to use his contacts to facilitate deals.
"Gatekeepers…..are not uncommon in Africa; such people gain huge influence in weak countries, and become
channels through which foreign investors must pass in order to get in. They can get very rich in the process."
Nicholas Shaxson
Poisoned Wells
The dirty politics of African oil
May 2008
TERMINAL DEBT
(Crow’s Story)
Synopsis:
The concluding novel in the “Terminal Trilogy” follows Scott as she tracks Crow’s money trail, his past exposed
through flashbacks.
Scott is hurled back into Crow’s underworld when, while lying low, she is attacked by a gang of Eastern European
hoods, only to be rescued and taken to Crow, who is being brutally held in Kosa prison.
She springs Crow who explains that they are being targeted by a splinter group of the Moscow Mafia who wants to
muscle in on his “empire”.
Crow, with his Cold War contacts, had set up a money trail to clean the Bratva’s dirty money through a number of
Southern African countries.
Crow send Scott to follow the money while he returns to South Africa.
Chased by the splinter group, Scott’s journey takes her through Europe, meeting Crow’s old contacts who tell her of
Crow’s deals as well as his past.
As she fits the pieces together, the threat to Scott and Crow increases, until Crow bows to the inevitable and cuts a
new deal, leaving Scott with the moral dilemma:
To walk away from money that could do so much good, or to deal with the devil.
Background:
Crow’s story is intertwined with the recent turbulent history of Southern Africa.
In 1976, students from the township of Soweto protested against the oppressive, white minority, Apartheid
Government of South Africa. The uprising was brutally suppression and caused countless young black South
Africans to flee the country.
Many ended up in Angola and fought in the bloody and cruel civil war that was raging at the time.
This war was used by the Soviet Union and America as a surrogate battleground for the Cold War.
In this theatre the KGB actively recruited the most promising candidates for special training behind the Iron Curtain,
ready to be dropped back into Southern Africa.
When, in 1991, the Soviet Union collapsed, various elements of the KGB evolved into criminal gangs, and used
their Cold War contacts to expand their criminal activities into Southern Africa.
These contacts became hugely influential, providing introductions, facilitating deals and making massive profits in
the process.