This is a story about a story — a story with the potential to change the world. It starts with a movie script — a screenplay introducing the sci-fi series with the mysterious title ‘Strands’.
Though the premise of this epic adventure — the mission to break the light barrier and save Humanity from destruction — is awesome, the script… could use some work. It has plot holes, undeveloped dynamics, and lots of verbose and stilted dialogue.
But then, that is the point of the Strands Project. My theory is that a bunch of us sharing ideas and collaborating can, in time, turn this diamond-in-the rough into a radiant, sparkling jewel.
But before I put the word out to potential collaborators, I just want to get ahead of the inevitable criticism and point out the five biggest plot holes I already see in the screenplay. I’ll explain as best I can why that plot hole is still there, and I’ll give my thoughts on how I’m thinking we should handle it.
Let me know what you think!
1 ~ Where did all the aliens go?
So here we are in a not-to-distant post-apocalyptic scenario. We don’t indicate so explicitly other than using known names like Norad and Pacifica, but we want to suggest or indicate that this is a future that follows from our present reality. In fact, this assumption will certainly be questioned as the series continues.
In this seminal story, assuming that this future scenario follows from our current one, a big question comes into my mind. What happened to all the aliens that seem to be buzzing all over our planet currently. You would think that cataclysmic events like the collapse of global civilization, the invention of a Quantum Annihilator, and the discovery of Strands would prompt some kind of intervention or at least more direct content by any aliens monitoring our situation.
As it is, there is no mention of alien species other than the Aeliars that we think we are reaching out to. No greys, no reptilians, no Nordics. It’s obvious that there has been no contact because the Outreach team has chosen to take this critical, hail mary mission to reach an advanced alien race.
So where are all the aliens we hear about today? Did they all just bug out when they saw the Earth’s shit hitting the fan? Surely they can’t still be standing by and just watching from a distance? Quaze and the crew on the Phoenix would surely have exposed them by then.
Or could it be that all the sightings we have today were, in fact, just elaborate hoaxes carried out by some devious villain?
I’m sure we can come up with something. But we do need to explain this apparent gap, even if we don’t go into it until one of the sequels.
2 ~ How did Quazarus miss Zarg’s deception?
Quazarus, the most brilliant man in human history, who understands everything about the universe, and astrophysics, and every kind of science, receives a message featuring these beautiful, highly advanced, angelic aliens in beautiful environments and deduces that the message came from the planet Chara.
When I first thought of this premise, I was thinking that there would be another planet super far behind our target planet, Chara, and that the signal was coming from there. But then I realized that between red shift and who know what other technology, that mistake would just be way too obvious. That’s when I came up with the idea that Zarg intercepted messages from other aliens and just retransmitted them.
I thought that was a pretty clever fix, but still, it seems like Quaze would have detected that the signal had changed somehow from the original. I’d like to expand on this aspect. Like, there actually was some clue that this was a recording that he might have noticed if he were looking for it, but he was just so focused on the Aeliars that he didn’t even consider the possibility that it might be a counterfeit message. I would like to get into this in the story, but at 139 pages already, it’s going to take some pretty skillful writing to squeeze that in.
3 ~ Why was Phoebe not at the big ‘Linguists’ Convention’?
This is the most embarrassing plot hole of all. So Phoebe has been recruited to the Phoenix because she is a gifted linguist who can both help interpret the Aeliars message and design the HyperBabble launch required for the mission. But she resists joining the Outreach mission because she has a lot of work to do on Earth.
So Roger says, “fine, I’ll just have to get another linguist.” And then, Fritz launches a nuclear attack on Pacifica 7, killing all of Phoebe’s people and, coincidentally, a whole convention of the leading linguists (really?), forcing Roger to take Phoebe.
The question I have is, if there was a big convention of linguists going on, why wasn’t Phoebe there?
You know, as I write this I realize what the answer could be. When they tell her she’s been called to the Phoenix, she says “but what about the big linguist convention?” and somebody says, “this takes priority”. Just that. Well, maybe a one-line speech about how language and communication are the key to holding humanity together. And now we’ve foreshadowed the nuclear explosion.
4 ~ How does Zarg so easily detect the Dove crew with their super cloaking mechanism?
This one isn’t so bad. When I wrote it originally my intention sas that Zarg has lots of technology. They are an advanced, ancient race. So he knows all kinds of things. Still, again we come back to Quaze and to a lesser extent, Zak? Aren’t these guys supposed to be super science brains who know just how to cloak us from everything?
That said, I suppose I would say that every question like this is a chance to deepen the characters. For example, this is the second case of Quaze not figuring something else. That’s gotta be messing with his mind. He can think of the most far out, powerful insights — as long as he’s in his comfortable one with plenty of space to contemplate. But when it comes time for quick decisions based on limited available information, he’s not in his element. There’s something there to explore.
Meanwhile, ChatGPT o3 came up with a good solution: One line of dialogue (“He’s reading our neutrino exhaust!”) closes the hole.
5 ~ β Canum Venaticorum (Chara) is a yellow star
Our heroes travel to the Chara star system and encounter Zarg on an ancient planet orbiting an orange-red star. But Chara is a yellow star. You have to cut me some slack on this one though. When I originally wrote this in 2008, I did some research to find out the most likely planets to have liveable exoplanets. Chara was the most likely prospect I could find at the time.
That was before the Kepler telescope was launched, and since then a lot more exoplanets in the goldilocks zone have been discovered, including ones around red stars. Kepler-443 b looks like a good replacement for Chara.
So this isn’t so much a plot hole as a minor detail to be swapped out. But I will just take this opportunity to mention that that’s one of the cool things about this project. This will be a living production, always being updated. If some little detail can tighten up the story a little, why not update the canonical version? The only reason not to is because the process of producing final versions for film are so expensive. But in a digital world with virtually limitless computing power, why shouldn’t we continue tweaking on the final product, making it constantly incrementally better?
Conclusion
So there you go — five issues with the screenplay that I could really use some help with. And now that I’ve exposed my own writing shortcomings, you don’t have to worry about hurting my feelings with your constructive criticism.
So what do you say? Can you think of any other solutions to these plot holes that clarify the situation and add depth to the story?