• Hi Guest!

    The costs of running this forum are covered by Sea Lion Press. If you'd like to help support the company and the forum, visit patreon.com/sealionpress

the zaffre zone: title cards, joaos, and other oddities

#2 in 2242 WORLDS CUP

———

THE ROUND OF 60, also known as the SECOND STAGE, is composed of 12 sets of 5. Each set contains the 1st / 2nd placed teams from two adjacent groups: i.e. JANUARY SET contains Vyesta, England, Uruguay, and the Omaha Pact. Each set also contains an TOP 3 or “UNLUCKY THREE”, so nicknamed because they have the tougher schedule and have to play all four other teams, while the 1s and 2s simply have to play the three teams they have not met before. The highest-ranked 3 is matched with the “lowest” set and vice versa.

one team advances to the ROUND OF 12, otherwise known as the FIRST KNOCKOUT STAGE

[Ed. note - While no longer mathematically necessary, the sets of 5 are a widely beloved artifact of the old 80-team World Cup and due to public pressures have been (inelegantly) retained]
 
#3 in 2242 WORLDS CUP

———

The ROUND OF 12, also known as the FIRST KNOCKOUT STAGE, consists of six matches, between the winners of January and February, March and April, and so forth. The six winners advance to the ROUND OF SIX, more commonly known as THE TRIADS.
 
#4, 5 6 in 2242 WORLD CUP

———

THE TRIADS, also known as THE ROUND OF SIX, consist of two groups of three, the top two of each group going on to THE SEMI-FINALS

THE SEMI-FINALS match up the first placed in LEFT TRIAD with the second placed in RIGHT TRIAD, and vice versa. Losers advance to THE THIRD-PLACE PLAYOFF. Winners advance to THE FINAL

THE FINAL is pretty self-explanatory.
 
Le Fol.png

---

LUA SATURNI is a rogue gas giant hurtling through space, unaccompanied by any star and, of course, notorious to all of mankind - it's discovery in 2246 is indelibly linked with the Angel Years and The Flight Of The Varley, as such it's name and the attendant symbolism are, of course, self-explanatory. Lua Saturni is the only practical means of access or egress for the LUA SATURNI SYSTEM, by means of THE VEIL - although the pressure differential between SATURN and Lua Saturni's upper atmosphere is a bit difficult to handle, as is the disorientation, most modern ships are equipped to handle it.

The rather pleasant sea-green color is believed to be due to a mix of methane and tholins in Lua Saturni's atmosphere - and it is not commonly observed, as without a parent star, Lua Saturni is dark and very, very cold. There is currently speculation that other Veils exist in lower levels of the Luan atmosphere (and magnetic distortions seem to bear this out) but in light of the circumstances surrounding the first Veil, exploration, by human or tulpa, of the remainder has been put on hold.



Lua Saturni has a sizable cloud around it, amassed on its journey through the loneliness between stars. 42 bodies are astronomically significant, 22 of which are massive enough by IAU standards to be named, 6 of which are important enough to be listed here:

LE FOL stretches the meaning of the term "moon", a cream-and-coffee gas giant just over half the size of Lua Saturni; the center of mass is well between them, and their constant ballet defines the orbits of every other body in the system. Pretty, mild, and not equipped with a gate between worlds, Le Fol has generally been overlooked. Aside from it's severely tilted orbit, observation has noticed little. It certainly hasn't noticed the life inside, which, far from the bloated "gasbags" of science fiction, could best be described as color in motion.

LE BATELEUR is a small, taut, world a little under half the size of THE MOON, which still makes it the 7th largest object in the Lua Saturni System. It is one of the five objects to orbit exclusively Lua Saturni or Le Fol, and in consequence - it's tight, irradiated orbit goes between the two gas giants, experiencing tidal forces that would make IO look like a still pond. It's surface is a mess of chaotic, molten furrows, wracked by lava flows and enormous earthquakes. It is currently ranked as the second safest terrestrial object in the system.

L'EMPEREUR, on the other hand, looks like a placid white ice ball from space. (Well, technically it doesn't look like anything at all, since there is no natural light, but you get the point). It's underwater (and above-ice) inhabitants, commonly called Emps, are a funny, affectionate species with strong family bonds, that look somewhat in between a shark and a firefly. When the Varley arrived, over 85 million Emps were on the surface of L'Empereur. Mounted on stakes.

L'ERMITE is third biggest in the system, an cold rock roughly twice the size of Mars. Giant, compared to all the other rocks. And up until recently, it looked like the best bet for a human outpost in the Lua Saturni system - being neither too small nor already gotten to. A few weeks after the JUGEMENT WAR, however, observations in the north latitudes noticed something - a strange, crystalline 'bloom', that was spreading across the surface at close to exponential rates. It's expansion has since slowed down, and the patch is often (mockingly) called The Yellow Snow - but scientists are fairly certain that it's not new, or mineral, but very, very old, and coming out of hibernation. Ships that land on The Yellow Snow do not return.

LE DIABLE is frigid, a bit smaller than Titan, and dotted in large, dormant, cryovolcanoes. It is very quiet.

LE JUGEMENT is on the outer limits of the system, training Lua Saturni and Le Fol at a distance larger than the Earth to the sun. It ought to be a pitch-black, frozen lump the size of Mercury, spinning in the dark.

It is brimming with life.

Crimson plant-analogues carpet the surface - fringe an ocean with liquid water - and tall beasts walk through the forests while vast gliders soar through the skies. But it is not known for that, and the Varley, searching for something, anything, to explain the madness raging on Earth, found much more than life there. It is where we met I AM.
 
JURASSIC PARK 2, Mk. Z


Cold open to: a dinosaur

no not some small annoying one mauling a random girl on an island, a replica on a museum tour. we aren’t really sure why we’re following it, until, woah, Lex is the tour guide and it’s her first day and Tim, Grant, Sattler are there and it’s really rather heartwarming.

Grant and Tim make all the appreciative noises but Sattler is obviously not paying attention and leaves for an appointment partway through. The camera follows her because, shocker, she is THE MAIN CHARACTER this time around.

She can’t have children. That’s what the doctor tells her, and rather than skipping to Dinosaur Now Dinosaur Smash, we have to sit with this for a bit. The frustration, the sense of helplessness, the darkly ironic conversation with Dr. Grant where he has to repeat all the old arguments about never really wanting kids in the first place.

Dr. Sattler’s moment comes, not on an exciting, windblown dig, but in a dark, miserable lecture hall, at her lowest ebb, when she gets a call from Sarah Hammond.

“I just want you to come to one event - a publicity stunt, really.”

The last park is being decommissioned and shut down - the barely even built Jurassic Park Europe, nestled on a hilly island off the Azores (it’s from the first book - screw randomly introducing a slightly more jungly island). “You shut it down - you deserve to be in at the death.” John Hammond’s eldest daughter, his heir (Julianne Moore) pauses. “If anyone can fix you - we can.”

It is not a difficult decision. Except for Alan Grant who cannot, in good conscience, let a corporation that created literal bloodthirsty monsters take advantage of his fiancée’s desperate hopes. They argue. She goes.

Ellie Sattler quickly realizes (but tries to ignore) how odd the cruise assembled to the Azores is - politicians, journalists, business competitors (Dodgson) - everyone that brought John Hammond down. She chalks it down to daughterly schaudenfreude and ignores the matter.

Ian Malcolm is there too, as a matter of fact. Because of her - he only agreed to the second excursion to be a friend and talk her out of getting InGen’s “help”, which strikes him as insane. She throws all his comments about life inevitably succeeding back in his face. Malcolm’s rival, an evolutionary biologist is there too, and if anyone has even more of a deplorable excess of personality, it’s her - Dr. Conrad (Tilda Swinton). She’s bizarre, says that Malcolm was so focused on explaining mother nature that he forgot about human nature, and is generally tough to get along with.

So Ellie tries to avoid her and generally just wants the event to be over. But Sarah Hammond is weirdly insistent that the group cruise around a bit of the island before tearing it down, and after seeing the one radio dish, the incomplete railway, and in general scenic dinosaurs roaring from the coastline, she swears that the "big moment" is coming up as the ship stops at Idyllic Isles. One awkward tiki dinner party w/ shapes moving under the boat later, Sarah Hammond gets on stage. "It took all of you, together - yes, you can clap - to bring down Jurassic Park. To kill it. And as his daughter, as head of InGen - I owe it to you - I've been waiting for so long to tell you - MY FATHER WAS A GREAT MAN! And because of you - because of all the work you did - this is all that's left. On the edge of extinction." A pause. "Their turn."

Sarah pushes a torch over and the curtains go up in flames. Chaos - Sarah fleeing on the only motorized boat - Dodgson gets in the way and gets a harpoon in the chest. And Ellie Sattler (yes, she's still here) is a) fucking furious b) forced to clamber into one of the lifeboats with costa rican politician (Alfred Molina idk), businessman (Pete Postlethwaite), journalist (what the hell, Philip Seymour Hoffman) and last but not least, the ever-strange Dr. Conrad. They promptly get separated from Ian Malcolm in a terrifying sequence where the survivors fleeing off the ship are attacked by icthyosaurs. (Whatever the fuck was in Jurassic World was big, but trust me, a swarm of these is, ya know, actually terrifying). They clamber ashore, and as the only one that's been there Ellie proceeds to try and Save Everyone's Ass All The Time. They realize that to find the radio station and get help, they're going to have to go into the island. Not going to lay out the entire hour+ of dinosaur sequences that follow, but there are pterosaurs, stegosaurs, and, more thematically - maiasaurs, protecting their nest, and proving that even dinosaurs were caring parents. As were T-Rexes. After a narrow escape from a pack of raptors they find a wounded baby T-Rex and (despite running away from it, because they aren't fucking morons) the mother T-Rex proceeds to attack them and slaughter (corrupt) Molina and (fairly nice) Hoffman anyway. Conrad, who has gradually proved herself not an asshole, points out that it's not like it chose to do that - it's running on instinct, incredibly deep-wired.

They manage to get to the cable railway and start it, putting them on a direct path to the radio dish. It heads towards a forested, hilly pass - and they see a desperately injured Ian Malcolm. Conrad grudgingly admits they should save him.

"Don't - don't stop." He groans. "Bait."

Raptors start leaping on from above and it is absolutely horrifying - Ellie manages to kill one, and the trolley manages to get near the transmission station - but Postlethwaite (lemme remind you, he's just a businessman who we first expected was a coward in this, not some master hunter) realizes they need more time. "I never had a daughter", he says to Ellie, and as she tearfully points out "but I'm not yours" he goes "I don't mind" and sacrifices himself to save them all.

Subsequent escape to the dish - they turn it on to signal for help, and Sarah Hammond greets them with a bullet to Dr. Conrad's knee. She directs them to the ski-lift down, at gunpoint.

"Dad wouldn't have approved, probably. Who knows? But I'd do anything for him. Anything for my family. Just like you."

Malcolm and Conrad are barely even conscious at this point. Sarah puts her gun down. "I never meant for you to die, Ellie. I meant for you to escape. To report how the notorious Dr. Malcolm - and all the rest - got in a boating accident, fueled by disrespect and greed, and we - so nobly - tried to save them. I meant for you to live." She leans in, now, and presses a hand to Ellie's stomach, gently. "Life finds a way."


"...I've found my way, bitch." Dr. Sattler lunges for the gun.

They fight, desperately, as the ski-lift descends and Malcolm and Conrad bleed. Sarah gets the gun, and then falls to the side, as the ski lift lurches and wires screech. And then she screams, when the T-Rex below bites down on her leg.

So it is Ellie Sattler, Ian Malcolm, and Emma Conrad, who stumble, battered, to the beach, where a helicopter has arrived, and gets them, exhausted beyond belief, to safety. Alan Grant is (of course) one of the people that came to get them. Ian Malcolm and Tilda Swinton at this point make out like two drowning men, and Grant, who is trying to be gruff but has also had a very emotional few hours, hugs her and points out "Look, about the-"

Ellie Sattler smiles, quietly. "I'm not worried about it."


fade to black
 
Last edited:
JURASSIC PARK 2, Mk. Z


Cold open to: a dinosaur

no not some small annoying one mauling a random girl on an island, a replica on a museum tour. we aren’t really sure why we’re following it, until, woah, Lex is the tour guide and it’s her first day and Tim, Grant, Sattler are there and it’s really rather heartwarming.

Grant and Tim make all the appreciative noises but Sattler is obviously not paying attention and leaves for an appointment partway through. The camera follows her because, shocker, she is THE MAIN CHARACTER this time around.

She can’t have children. That’s what the doctor tells her, and rather than skipping to Dinosaur Now Dinosaur Smash, we have to sit with this for a bit. The frustration, the sense of helplessness, the darkly ironic conversation with Dr. Grant where he has to repeat all the old arguments about never really wanting kids in the first place.

Dr. Sattler’s moment comes, not on an exciting, windblown dig, but in a dark, miserable lecture hall, at her lowest ebb, when she gets a call from Sarah Hammond.

“I just want you to come to one event - a publicity stunt, really.”

The last park is being decommissioned and shut down - the barely even built Jurassic Park Europe, nestled on a hilly island off the Azores (it’s from the first book - screw randomly introducing a slightly more jungly island). “You shut it down - you deserve to be in at the death.” John Hammond’s eldest daughter, his heir (Julianne Moore) pauses. “If anyone can fix you - we can.”

It is not a difficult decision. Except for Alan Grant who cannot, in good conscience, let a corporation that created literal bloodthirsty monsters take advantage of his fiancée’s desperate hopes. They argue. She goes.

Ellie Sattler quickly realizes (but tries to ignore) how odd the cruise assembled to the Azores is - politicians, journalists, business competitors (Dodgson) - everyone that brought John Hammond down. She chalks it down to daughterly schaudenfreude and ignores the matter.

Ian Malcolm is there too, as a matter of fact. Because of her - he only agreed to the second excursion to be a friend and talk her out of getting InGen’s “help”, which strikes him as insane. She throws all his comments about life inevitably succeeding back in his face. Malcolm’s rival, an evolutionary biologist is there too, and if anyone has even more of a deplorable excess of personality, it’s her - Dr. Conrad (Tilda Swinton). She’s bizarre, says that Malcolm was so focused on explaining mother nature that he forgot about human nature, and is generally tough to get along with.

So Ellie tries to avoid her and generally just wants the event to be over. But Sarah Hammond is weirdly insistent that the group cruise around a bit of the island before tearing it down, and after seeing the one radio dish, the incomplete railway, and in general scenic dinosaurs roaring from the coastline, she swears that the "big moment" is coming up as the ship stops at Idyllic Isles. One awkward tiki dinner party w/ shapes moving under the boat later, Sarah Hammond gets on stage. "It took all of you, together - yes, you can clap - to bring down Jurassic Park. To kill it. And as his daughter, as head of InGen - I owe it to you - I've been waiting for so long to tell you - MY FATHER WAS A GREAT MAN! And because of you - because of all the work you did - this is all that's left. On the edge of extinction." A pause. "Their turn."

Sarah pushes a torch over and the curtains go up in flames. Chaos - Sarah fleeing on the only motorized boat - Dodgson gets in the way and gets a harpoon in the chest. And Ellie Sattler (yes, she's still here) is a) fucking furious b) forced to clamber into one of the lifeboats with costa rican politician (Alfred Molina idk), businessman (Pete Postlethwaite), journalist (what the hell, Philip Seymour Hoffman) and last but not least, the ever-strange Dr. Conrad. They promptly get separated from Ian Malcolm in a terrifying sequence where the survivors fleeing off the ship are attacked by icthyosaurs. (Whatever the fuck was in Jurassic World was big, but trust me, a swarm of these is, ya know, actually terrifying). They clamber ashore, and as the only one that's been there Ellie proceeds to try and Save Everyone's Ass All The Time. They realize that to find the radio station and get help, they're going to have to go into the island. Not going to lay out the entire hour+ of dinosaur sequences that follow, but there are pterosaurs, stegosaurs, and, more thematically - maiasaurs, protecting their nest, and proving that even dinosaurs were caring parents. As were T-Rexes. After a narrow escape from a pack of raptors they find a wounded baby T-Rex and (despite running away from it, because they aren't fucking morons) the mother T-Rex proceeds to attack them and slaughter (corrupt) Molina and (fairly nice) Hoffman anyway. Conrad, who has gradually proved herself not an asshole, points out that it's not like it chose to do that - it's running on instinct, incredibly deep-wired.

They manage to get to the cable railway and start it, putting them on a direct path to the radio dish. It heads towards a forested, hilly pass - and they see a desperately injured Ian Malcolm. Conrad grudgingly admits they should save him.

"Don't - don't stop." He groans. "Bait."

Raptors start leaping on from above and it is absolutely horrifying - Ellie manages to kill one, and the trolley manages to get near the transmission station - but Postlethwaite (lemme remind you, he's just a businessman who we first expected was a coward in this, not some master hunter) realizes they need more time. "I never had a daughter", he says to Ellie, and as she tearfully points out "but I'm not yours" he goes "I don't mind" and sacrifices himself to save them all.

Subsequent escape to the dish - they turn it on to signal for help, and Sarah Hammond greets them with a bullet to Dr. Conrad's knee. She directs them to the ski-lift down, at gunpoint.

"Dad wouldn't have approved, probably. Who knows? But I'd do anything for him. Anything for my family. Just like you."

Malcolm and Conrad are barely even conscious at this point. Sarah puts her gun down. "I never meant for you to die, Ellie. I meant for you to escape. To report how the notorious Dr. Malcolm - and all the rest - got in a boating accident, fueled by disrespect and greed, and we - so nobly - tried to save them. I meant for you to live." She leans in, now, and presses a hand to Ellie's stomach, gently. "Life finds a way."


"...I've found my way, bitch." Dr. Sattler lunges for the gun.

They fight, desperately, as the ski-lift descends and Malcolm and Conrad bleed. Sarah gets the gun, and then falls to the side, as the ski lift lurches and wires screech. And then she screams, when the T-Rex below bites down on her leg.

So it is Ellie Sattler, Ian Malcolm, and Emma Conrad, who stumble, battered, to the beach, where a helicopter has arrived, and gets them, exhausted beyond belief, to safety. Alan Grant is (of course) one of the people that came to get them. Ian Malcolm and Tilda Swinton at this point make out like two drowning men, and Grant, who is trying to be gruff but has also had a very emotional few hours, hugs her and points out "Look, about the-"

Ellie Sattler smiles, quietly. "I'm not worried about it."


fade to black

No but Zaffre this is incredibly poignant and well thought out and is actually thematically appropriate for the ending to the series

what we actually need is a mansion full of dinosaurs and then someone taunts one of the dinosa
 
No but Zaffre this is incredibly poignant and well thought out and is actually thematically appropriate for the ending to the series

what we actually need is a mansion full of dinosaurs and then someone taunts one of the dinosa

thanks

Once the core idea came to me, I simply had to try and do it justice - glad people didn’t think it was terrible.

I’m generally fond of most of my attempts to “fix” movies, but after writing this one I’m legitimately a bit sad that it doesn’t exist.
 
Last edited:
1535420218108.png

2020
---
Donald J. Trump (R-NY) / Michael R. "Mike" Pence (R-IN) - 279 EV, 48.8%

Bernard “Bernie” Sanders (D-VT) / Linda Sánchez (D-CA) - 254 EV, 46.9%
Condoleezza Rice (CA) - 3 EV*
Christopher "Chris" Powell (L-OK) - 1 EV*
Y. Francis Fukuyama (CA) - 1 EV*
 
Last edited:
Back
Top