Protagonist:
Maverick Holt
MAVERICK HOLT is a white man in his late 30s. He looks strong, rugged, with a serious demeanor, like he's always prepared for a fight. He carries his high-tech futuristic origins of the OASIS wherever he goes, in the form of a cybernetic arm. He lost his original arm during a preventable INCIDENT where an agriculture automaton malfunctioned on the Oasis farm he was once a ranch hand for. He has a good heart and holds his morals in high regard. As someone who has been lied to, beaten, and entrapped so many times, he values trust, respect, and freedom over everything. However, he can be mean as a snake. A life of trauma, loss, and oppression by the Oasis weighs on him making him gritty and tough.
Our story begins with him losing his arm and his friend in a preventable mechanical malfunction on the farm. When the totalitarian government of the Oasis tries to cover it up, they imprison him for repeated public outbursts. Maverick decides he would rather die free than live as a slave to this corrupt government. He manages to escape prison and the Oasis all together, deciding to risk his life venturing into the wasteland in search of that freedom.
There is always something in the wasteland trying to kill Maverick. Yet, with his expert gun-slinging, cowboy skills and can-do attitude, he never makes excuses and finds a way to fight through. While he is wary of outsider help, he learns that he needs to accept help and make new companions if he wants to survive his treacherous endeavor to head West.
Inciting Incident:
In the OASIS, they use futuristic technology on the farmland where our main character, MAVERICK, works as a ranch hand. One day, Maverick’s longtime friend and fellow ranch hand notices that one of the agricultural automatons sounds on the brink of malfunction. They bring it up to the android field manager, but after running a basic diagnostic, it claims there is nothing wrong with it – dismissing their concerns, sure of its conclusion. But while in the field, the equipment does malfunction, killing his friend, severing Maverick’s arm.
The false-utopic, totalitarian government tries to cover up the robot’s miscalculation by blaming his dead friend. Misuse of equipment, they called it. His friend had been working around those machines for over a decade and knew them inside out. The government talks with Maverick. They commission him a new mech arm and try to convince him to stay quiet “for the good of the Oasis.”
Central Conflict:
Once MAVERICK escapes the OASIS, everything in the Wasteland is trying to kill him (ghouls, vampires, werewolves, mutants, ghosts). But one threat stands above the rest – a Vampire, SHERIFF CHAYTON, wanders the wasteland like a warlord subjugating others, accumulating power, threatening the allies he's made. Now Maverick has to decide whether or not to run from this new, yet familiar, oppressive authority or stand and fight for the freedom he's cultivated.
Story Engines:
Slice of Freedom
These stories will center around the value of freedom and how everyone deserves to live their lives by whatever rules they choose. The characters will always be trying to escape metaphorical or physical prisons containing their bodies or their spirits. In these stories, the antagonist will be the one trying to restrict others or trying to oppress a people or their way of life.
For example:
In the OASIS, when MAVERICK snaps from witnessing injustice and his behavior being so harshly policed, he is imprisoned. In prison, he decides to risk his comfort, his safety, and quite possibly his life in order to get away from this oppression. He needs to escape a literal prison cell to pursue liberation in the West.
JUDE refuses to live in SUNDOWN to get away from the dismal and violent dictatorship of SHERIFF CHAYTON. Later, she even leaves the REVENANTS because she would rather risk it on her own in the DEAD ZONE, despite having no consistent shelter from the sun, which could kill her, than take orders from MORRIGAN.
The humans symbiotically with the Werewolves and other monsters have found and cultivated their peace and freedom. The Others and Hidden keep the undead monsters of the desert out despite their constant attempts at subjugation.
Our main villain, Sheriff Chayton, wants to take as much territory as he can, stripping others of their freedom. By the main story's climax, the only place he hasn't been able to invade is the mountains, but he thinks he's found a way. Maverick and Jude must try to stop him.
Living vs. Surviving
These stories will center around MAVERICK’s entanglement with others and their journeys to find the correct way to live. The narrative will call into question one’s moral obligation to truly seize all that life has to offer and experience it to its fullest, or simply get through one’s day-to-day, while also exploring the line between the two.
Some characters aren’t given a choice. Individuals living in the WILD WASTE, hurting for resources, or those who live under SHERIFF CHAYTON’s thumb are just trying to survive the circumstances that deprive them of that choice. These stories will explore the moral value in simply surviving.
Other characters, like ADELINE STARK, are given the choice but choose not to exercise it. Instead, they choose to play it safe and just go through the daily motions. The narrative will push these characters to reexamine their choice. On that journey, they might find merit in breaking away from the simple baseline of living and choosing to adventure for more out of life. Otherwise, they might choose to make what they see as the responsible choice and continue to simply do enough to get by.
Some characters who have built their identities around living for adventure and fun will be thrust into living based on pure survival. The characters struggle to adjust to having to make the smart choice over the fun one. But often these characters are still able to find little ways to make life a party.
On the opposite side, there will always be some who treat the world as their playground and take advantage of their freedom to live in gluttony at the expense of others. The narrative will push them to examine their selfishness and learn that just because you can do anything doesn’t mean you should do everything.
Maverick and our audience will learn that there is no single correct way to live, but everyone deserves the freedom to make that choice for themselves.
Supporting Cast:
Jude
JUDE is a vampire woman and an outlaw on horseback. She wears black leather from neck to boots and a wide, flat-brimmed farmers' hat with a black tulle veil, protecting her from the sun while she rides during the day. Her thick black hair is pulled back in a tousled Dutch braid and swings down to her waist. Her red glowing eyes burn from beneath the veil. She rides a black steed with matching glowing eyes. She's clearly a grown woman, appears to be 25-30, but her actual age is anyone's guess.
She's an antihero with a snarky personality who takes a special interest in MAVERICK and has a knack for showing up to help our protagonist when he needs her most and not a second before. Maverick and Jude have a cheeky will-they-won't-they dynamic, and she serves as our main character's draw towards lawless nihilism while mirroring his operational theme.
She rejects all forms of vampire society, especially Sundown's. When SHERIFF CHAYTON tries to conscript her into his militia, she turns him down cold. The Sheriff doesn't like resistance, and Jude doesn't like restrictions or threats of intimidation. Chayton is constantly trying to capture her, and Jude is always dodging his goons. She refuses to give up her freedom and refuses to take part in the denial of others' freedom.
The West is covered with her wanted posters.
She was a REVENANTS and MORRIGAN 's lover at one point, but even that group got too constricting for her. She favors the lawless freedom of the Wild Waste.
She'd rather die in the desert free than live in a group for safety and feel restricted in any way.
Sheriff Chayton
CHAYTON is a robust, middle-aged vampire. He wears a dirty, tattered, white cowboy hat and a three-piece suit with a bolo tie. He is the sheriff of Sundown and our main antagonist. He is a tyrannical, blood thirsty, exploitative, weapons tycoon.
He encourages the citizens of Sundown to be bloodthirsty and violent. Like a warlord, he forms a militia to destroy and/or subjugate settlements while recruiting other creatures. Those who refuse conscription are killed. Those who escape run and hide with bounties on their heads. He kills MORRIGAN ANHEDÖNIA and Adeline Stark and burns the shop to the ground.
He lusts to conquer as much territory as possible, including the werewolf settlement. However, no vampires can enter the Rocky Mountain forests because the Others and the Hidden protect the woods. He is amassing an army of vampires and radioactively mutated mindless monsters to invade the wood and set the trees on fire, driving back the Others and Hidden, cutting them off from their power.
He cannot rest while anyone remains free from his control.
Morrigan/
the Revenants
MORRIGAN is the vampiric leader of the notorious all-female gang, the REVENANTS. Morrigan appears 32 years old. She has dark hair, dark skin, burning-red eyes, and a reputation for ruthlessness. Morrigan and the Revenants live in a hideout on the outskirts of the DEAD ZONE, where they rest during the day. When the sun dips down, they prowl the Dead Zone for easy victims to rob and prey on.
Morrigan wasn’t always cruel. She once lived happily on the periphery of SUNDOWN with her lover, Evelyn, until Evelyn was brutally murdered by two men. Morrigan was too weak to fight back, and her helplessness was terrifying. She was only saved because her neighbors heard her screams. Afterward, Morrigan swore that she’d never be a slave to that fear again. She would find her freedom through making others feel terror. Morrigan left Sundown and found women, ones looking for security and belonging. They rallied under Morrigan’s rage-fueled strength and formed the Revenants.
For a time, JUDE was one of them. However, theirs was an alliance of convenience; Jude had no interest in their offer of family or security. Feeling challenged by Jude’s willful independence, she and Morrigan had a short, passionate love affair. But Jude became more and more uncomfortable with Morrigan’s lust for violence, and the Revenants started to just feel like another cage, so she eventually left them … and Morrigan.
The Revenants often sweep the Dead Zone, prowling for humans from the Oasis trying to slip into their territory, although it is extremely rare. If they find a human woman who has made it that far, the Revenants allow them to become like them; if they refuse, they are drained. If they come across an Oasis man, they simply rip him apart.
Morrigan has a deep hatred for men, seeing them only as the brutish wretches who killed her lover. To her, humans are inferior, repulsive parasites who poison their own planet with no regard for the other things that live here.
She despises MAVERICK upon meeting him; he’s a man, a human, and it vexes her deeply to see Jude’s interest in him. She is itching to kill him.
SHERIFF CHAYTON is also her enemy. He consistently tries to conscript her for her infamy and control of the Revenants and the Dead Zone, but Morrigan will be second in command to no one.
Adeline Stark
ADELINE STARK is an old southern vampire, a shopkeeper dead set on neutrality, “politics are bad for business.”
Despite SHERIFF CHAYTON’s goons/liaisons constantly imploring her to take a deal of exclusive trading with the Sundown Militia she continuously refuses to arm them.
She provides MAVERICK weapons and supplies but she does not trade with him in money. Adeline only takes his blood as payment to sell back to her more undead patrons. In exchange she keeps their dealings private and does not advertise her knowledge of a human wandering around the WILD WASTE.
She tips him off about odd jobs in the area and occasionally sends him off on errands for her to acquire other items in exchange for goods.
She hides her growing fondness for Maverick behind a singular desire for profit.
Key Locations:
The Oasis
The OASIS is where the remainder of humanity resides after the planet's total ecological collapse, which turned most of the United States into desert or toxic swamps. There are multiple Oases scattered along the East Coast.
Our story starts in the Oasis located in the region formerly known as North Carolina. It is a glass dome with white walls, separating it from the natural perils and gothic monsters that roam the DEAD ZONE outside.
The Oasis – the only place for miles you can get fresh water or shelter – is split into four sections.
In the heart of the dome is the City. It's a skyline of minimalist futuristic architecture, skyscrapers of pristine white and glass. Small patches of meticulously trimmed grass and perfectly pruned trees scatter the streets, where lampposts emit a calming yellow glow to reduce blue-light exposure and improve citizens' moods. This is where the majority of residents attend work or school, and at the very center is the Central Government building.
Early in their education, children of the Oasis are introduced to the idea of monsters roaming outside of their walls, but in a way that encourages dismissiveness by reducing these gothic creatures to a campy spookiness. They propose it as a theory — stories and light evidence brought in by their founders. The government's official stance is that it's not worth further investigation. The climate crisis is reason enough to stay in the Oasis. It is safe and comfortable in the Oasis, so why inquire further about the outside world?
They create films as propaganda — family-friendly children's movies that depict cartoonishly evil vampires as bumbling fools easily foiled by the human hero, to relieve the anxiety of the threat while keeping it in the public's mind as another reason to squash their wanderlust.
The suburban area where the residents live serves as the City's outer ring. Identical houses row after row with manicured lawns with mailboxes at the end of a concrete walkway. There is no animosity between neighbors born from envy.
In the easternmost corner is the agricultural section, where all the crops and animals are reared. Ranch hands like our protagonist, MAVERICK, work on horseback with automatons to tend the fields and livestock. This section is the main purpose of the artificially manufactured weather, but it does extend to the rest of the Oasis.
On the far west side is the prison; still, a futuristic minimalist aesthetic. The prisoners are kept under precise surveillance at all times. Every moment is scheduled – what you can eat, where you can sit, who you can talk to is very intentionally chosen with no allowance for deviation. Every negative behavior is trained out of them in the interest of rehabilitation and in the pursuit of reintroduction into society. Amiability is valued above all else. Any disruption to society could land you in prison, even repeated social infractions.
Interconnecting all of these areas is a system of sleek white trains that hovers above the street. There are no personal vehicles.
Contrasting the inside, sludge and smog pour out of the Oasis into the Dead Zone. Disregarding what caused the ecological collapse, they burn fossil fuels and pollute the surrounding world in order to keep their paradise comfortable. Everyone inside is blissfully – willfully – unaware.
They all walk around with a smile. Perfectly content with their white-picket-fence domesticity, they never question how it was obtained.
Nobody ever aspires for more. No one ever takes the risk.
The Dead Zone
Located directly outside the OASIS, the DEAD ZONE is a vast, desolate desert full of danger.
Outside of the Oasis, there is no food or water, and sandstorms in the Dead Zone are near constant. Skeleton riders on skeleton horses roam inside the storms in packs of hundreds, drifting across the desert with the clouds. Multiple vampire gangs prowl the Dead Zone; the most dangerous is the Revenants, led by MORRIGAN .
It’s near impossible for a human to cross it and survive. So, when MAVERICK escapes the Oasis, authorities assume he is a dead man.
The WANDERING TRAIN, a train with no tracks, no conductor, and no stations to stop at, is the safest transport across and out of the Dead Zone. Although it’s true to its name, its route is unpredictable.
It’s a lawless land, every man for himself. Maverick doesn’t expect it to be a walk in the park, but even he is completely thrown by the natural brutality and is completely shocked and terrified by the existence of monsters. He runs into danger after danger until he is almost killed by his first encounter with Morrigan and rescued at the last second by his first encounter with JUDE.
Arc One
We open in the OASIS.
The main character, MAVERICK, leaves the Futuristic Minimalist city aboard a sleek, white, hover train for the large farm with a Solar Punk aesthetic, where the food for the entire city is produced.
He walks into the barn where they house the ranch hands' tack gear and the agricultural automatons. He approaches his long-time friend and co-worker, Connor, who is examining one of the automatons skeptically. Maverick asks what the problem is, and Connor claims that the automaton has been acting a little strange and that when he listens, there is a small, odd sound coming from it. When Maverick leans in to listen, he can just make out the sound Connor is describing.
The android acting as the field manager sees them huddled around and asks, what might be the problem? They tell it there is something wrong with the automaton and they are going to bring it to the repair bay. The android politely stops them and says he is going to run a rudimentary diagnostic on it. The diagnostic comes back clean, and the android ignores their protests and urges them to continue on with their workday. Since it ran the diagnostic, there couldn't possibly be anything wrong with it.
However, their human intuition was right. The automaton malfunctions in the field, and its spinning blades begin to suck Connor in and rip him apart. Maverick jumps from his horse to try to pull his friend out, but he's too late, and the blades just end up dismembering his arm.
Maverick wakes up in the blinding white hospital room to learn that his friend is dead and that his arm is gone.
He is devastated.
His doctor recaps the incident and tells Maverick they are working on a mechanical prosthetic arm for him, but, given the rarity of accidents like this, they don’t have one ready. Maverick asks how something like that could happen. The doctor reads the report claiming that Connor was killed by the automaton due to his ‘misuse’ of the machine. There was no prior issue with the automaton, so there is nothing more they can do, citing the diagnostic run and witnesses as proof. Maverick, enraged, yells about how well Connor knew those machines and how no one knew how to handle them better. He curses while throwing things, and the nurses sedate him.
When he is discharged from the hospital, he responds to a summons from a government official who pulls him into a room and tries to sympathize, saying, “they know how hard this must be,” but never directly admitting fault. They ominously proclaim that their systems couldn’t possibly have been wrong because the Oasis rests on a foundation of perfection and safety. Mistrust and fear (especially towards the government) are how societies crumble. Humanity’s existence is so delicate as is. They must do everything in their power to maintain harmony. They reiterate how his mechanical arm will be ready soon, but to honor his traumatic experience, they are going to give him an early retirement; he’ll never have to work again.
Maverick refuses to speak.
He spends his days in an agitated depression – drinking in bars, drunkenly wandering.
He no longer feels obligated to fulfill community pleasantries. His neighbors grow uneasy. Tickets for social infractions start piling at his door – at first, community service summons that go ignored. Then, it’s mandatory therapy sentences that, again, go ignored, until officers show up at his door to ‘escort’ him to a session.
He only screams at his therapist as she struggles to maintain her pleasant smile, raving about her superficiality and ulterior motives. Her goal is only to correct his behavior so as not to disturb the status quo, to prevent these people from seeing anything ugly, to prevent them from seeing anything human, to prevent them from examining the gilded cage they’re living in. The therapist’s visage falters, and she jots something down in her notebook.
Later, Maverick is thrown out of a bar, plastered. Officers approach. Dismissively, he asks, “More mandatory chitchat with that shrink?” Instead, the officers arrest him. He has committed too many social infractions, and it’s been deemed necessary that he be separated from the public until he is ready to be a positive member of it again ... if.
The prisoners wear sterling white jumpsuits to match the pristine walls of the windowless futuristic prison.
Every moment Maverick is surveyed, his every minute scheduled, and every negative reaction instantly subdued. The walls are closing in around him. It's getting harder and harder to breathe.
In the dining hall, there is a man, designated to sit far from any others, sitting contentedly. Maverick cautiously slides from his designated zone to ask him what he’s in for. The man says, “Murder,” with a light frown that quickly bounces back. He explains that while his son was playing in the street, he was struck and killed by the hover train. He could have sworn the safety rail was down and the light blinked green with the chiming voice saying “safe to cross”. He stuck a pen through the Head of Public Transport’s eye when she insisted that witnesses and camera footage proved his son had ignored the red blinking light and climbed over the guardrails. After a time in this prison, the man says he accepted that the Oasis couldn’t have made a mistake like this. The responsibility was on himself and even his young son.
Mid-story, Maverick notices the guards realize who he’s next to, and slowly encroach. He struggles to suppress any reaction to the man’s story or the guards closing in, despite the myriad of emotions – rage, sadness, and confusion – bubbling just under his skin. Just as the man’s story finishes, a guard grabs his arm, smiling, he says, “Why don’t we escort you back to your room, Mr. Holt, since you’re finished eating?” Several others are positioned behind him, smiling, but rigid, ready to provide backup in case Maverick exhibits another outburst. Maverick’s glare burned into the guard like the end of a cigarette, but he just slowly rose to his feet, every muscle in his body taught, and let the guard escort him back to his cell.
He lay awake that night realizing this was his last straw. He needs to break free – free of this cell, free of this prison, free of the Oasis. He knows there is nothing but desert outside of these walls and even whispers of something worse, but he'd rather die with his freedom out in the desert than stay trapped in this false utopia.
Maverick escapes his cell.
A guard sees him sneaking around. The guard struggles to apprehend him, and in the struggle, Maverick kills him. He stares down at the body and tries to justify it to himself – it's the same as a dog biting its owner when they've kicked it too hard. He grabs the badge and futuristic gun from the guard's belt and continues looking for an exit. In a back room, he finds a service door for the interior of the dome's wall. The inside of the wall is the exact opposite of the Oasis. It's dark with gray concrete walls, wires, and pipes spewing gases. He spots a vent funneling gases to the outside. Just as he is about to kick open the vent, an alarm sounds in the distance. Someone found the body. He kicks out the vent and slips out. He falls 20 feet down the wall, landing in a sand drift. Sand whips across his face as he painfully gets to his feet.
He looks to the horizon, and he sees a sand storm amassing in the distance.
Arc Two
Unafraid of the approaching storm, Maverick trudges West into the DEAD ZONE.
He takes the undershirt from his prison uniform and wraps it around his face. The storm slams against him and pushes against the whipping sand for a while until he sees a figure in the haze. He's about to step forward to call out, but it turns its head, and he sees its face more clearly. A skeleton with old, dead skin hanging from its skull, obscured partially by a cowboy hat.
Maverick dives behind a rock, trying to subdue panic. More and more corpses walk past him in various stages of decay, some on horseback, all dressed in tattered old western clothes. Maverick just stares, terrified and bewildered.
The horde seems to have passed when Maverick crawls from behind the rock, eyes trained in the direction they lumbered. He turns his head back around and lurches away when he comes face to face with the corpse of a little girl dragging a teddy bear behind her. He is frozen in horror. It cracks its neck and unhinges the jaw held together only by dried-out tendons, and it lets out a blood-curdling screech.
The skeletons' heads snap in the direction of the scream and come sludging back. Maverick tries to run as they tear at him with bony fingers. One catches his shoulder with a pitchfork. He unholsters his futuristic gun and shoots wildly. Hitting their torsos has no effect. He aims for their heads, shattering their skulls. That seems to keep them on the ground, at least for now. He runs, shooting behind him until the sand's blast begins to lighten and he sees sun through the haze. He pushes as hard as he can toward the daylight and busts through the cloud. He lands on his back and rips the shirt from his face, gun trained on the bellowing sand. But the skeletons stop at the edge of the storm and simply turn around and disappear back into it.
IN PROGRESS ...