Wision--SesQuaTercet USA ™ de facto trademark Petry System Family Wision USA

in conjunction with

project NEMO

presents

ROGUE HOLE (StarTrails)

a science-hypercubed fiction conference, PG-13

Mr. Raymond Kenneth Petry, Strategic Director
a Wision--SesQuaTercet USA production

(a division of Lanthus Corporation)

[index][script][music][sets&settings][budget][prospectus][roles]
[science-hypercubed fiction conference] ROGUE HOLE is a one-scene video insert integrated into the main feature, The StarTrails Game, science-cubed fiction adventure of a little girl who excels in virtual starship command, and takes a summer-long ride aboard a NASA simulator-trainor: ROGUE HOLE explores the possibility of rogue black-holes, the remnant cores flug-away by supernovae, passing within Earth detection, scientific and historic: when one passes near our solar system, enough to adjust planet orbits and our calendar by mere seconds per day, minutes per year, a day in centuries ... NASA and the major news media must decide in conference, when and how to report its nontrivial ramifications.
[Music specified in this screenplay is the Strategic Director's selection]

Scene

'revelation'

FADE IN (DISPLAY)
1 INT - NASA HOUSTON PRESS CONFERENCE - ROOM LIGHT (PLAYBACK)

("ROGUE HOLE" for the [OUTER-STORY])

SUPERIMPOSE:

      "Dateline: 1999/12/03:03:15 Houston"
Along the walls WIDESCREEN VIDEOS DISPLAY, for impressing news media with NASA's high-technology telecommunications facilitation, DIAGRAMS of logarithmic-compressed exo-solar-system, planet-icons [labeled "Earth", etc.] MOVING in diagrammatically simulated months-per-second:

SHE is a NASA Research-Director, a lip-sticking woman. HE is her Assistant Research-Director, star-emblemed white-shirt. THEY are mixed video-news teams in representative jackets and gear (ABC, CBS, CNN, FOX, NBC, XBS-Christian Broadcasting System [emblem of cross+sandals+ground]), plus 2 quiet NASA SENIOR-SCIENTISTS:

They are puzzled by NASA's openness on this dilemma:

NBC
(amused)

Earth-crossing cometoids, planet-busting asteroids with cute names, are just not big media news these days - NASA must have lost another budget-bout in D-C, again: How much did you ask-for this time? Was it what you expected? 10-billion? 20?!
(clipped)
SHE
(clips stern)

Asteroids are gypsy-jive - I'm talking about a rogue black-hole: a gravity singularity, with the mass of 3 suns, packed into the space of 6 miles cubed, moving in the vicinity of our solar system.
CBS
(waffles serious nonchalance)

And it's coming this way - of course: Is it going to hit Paris, first? or China?! And, how many people are we talking about being annihilated by a rogue - or was that a, rouge, black hole?!
ALL
(CHUCKLE)
ABC
Aren't they all - If we didn't have lip-stick armageddon scenarios rerunning every week-end on T-V, we'd have to invent a war, to raise a few dickies at the next Congressional House picnic.
ALL
(CHUCKLE)
CBS
(flat)

We have, a war.
ABC
(irked)

I mean a real war - Congress has issued no mandamus: They only promised we'd pay, if the President shoots - again.
ALL
(CHUCKLE)
CBS
(flat)

It's a war if I say it's a war - I'm a news-reporter, here, and what I say, is what's going on.
CNN
(lightens)

Let's play, Spin-The-Headline: Who wants, Black Hole Heads For Earth -- Not!?
ALL
(CHUCKLE)
CBS
(snide)

That's sure to confuse someone, enough to make a newsy movie about stratospheric finance-stockpiling: Argo Meddlin' ... Fort Knoxygen.
ALL
(CHUCKLE)
NBC
(quips)

Was that the name? I thought it was, Arms-a-gettin!
ALL
(CHUCKLE)
ABC
(mock-envisions)

Full-page spread, opposite, Army Builds Near-Missile Base.
ALL
(CHUCKLE)
HE
(clips)

Hold it down - NASA is being as open about this as we can - this is not hype - this is for real - we've learned lessons about secrecy we don't want to repeat - and the President agrees: We need to see now, how the world reacts to this threat: Too-late can be worse than too-early.
CNN
(quick)

And we've got about a couple years, you say: Why can't NASA be more openly accurate on this one?
HE
We are telling you as much as we can compute: This rogue hole is fairly dry - it must have swallowed its debris rings long-ago: We can barely detect it is there at all.
CNN
How do you know it, is, there, at all?
HE
It has a gamma-signature: It's been spotted in the U-S-Air-Force X-ray Facility - the Wide-Field Gamma-Ray attachment: We always send-up extras on any platform.
FOX
Congressional Defense Bills attached with milk-money riders.
ALL
(CHUCKLE)
ABC
What's your limit on precision - or do we say, accuracy, here?
HE
Accuracy, is what your audience wants: We estimate it'll pass the solar system in 10 to 16 months.
NBC
Is this R-L Forward's thesis, Dragon's Egg? I read that he worked for NASA - didn't he?
HE
Dr. Forward researched condensed matter: neutron stars. This is a mass-hole: what happens when the velocity of light across the surface of a very large neutron star, gets exceeded by the gravity-pull: it can no longer orbit, and falls-back onto the neutron star: then the neutrons themselves can no-longer withstand the gravity, and the whole star collapses into its own hole.
ABC
Well, gravity sucks, as my kids say.
ALL
(CHUCKLE)
NBC
Don't say that: NASA will kick us out for profanity on the premises.
FOX
(quiet-prompts)

Maybe it's Greg Benford's, Cosm!?
NEXT-TO-FOX
(shakes, no, mouths)

No.
CBS
So what's the scenario? Why aren't we keeping this little secret, little - so you guys can send-up a team and plug the hole? Why isn't the President keeping this under national security wraps?!
HE
NASA officially has an open-information policy - only specifics that are pre-determined to impinge national security and national intelligence gathering, are ever pre-secured - and we never really keep anything from you-guys.
CBS
So what's going to happen? The rogue hole grazes the Oort-cloud and throws a handful of asteroids into the inner solar system - one threatens to land on the Duchy of Lichtenstein - and America will grant billions of new dollars to pay for their national defense!?
NEXT-TO-CBS
That was, Grand Fenwick.
ALL
(CHUCKLE)
HE
No, we don't believe the rogue hole will get that close: No closer than maybe a TAU - a thousand astronomical units.
FOX
(digs)

X-ray damage!? at a thousand astronomical units? Loss of a few inter-stellar asteroids sucked-up by the black-hole? What's the deal? You want billions to convert another deep-space platform into a rogue-hole fly-by mission?!
HE
Well,
(looks at She)

that would be nice ...
(looks at them)

But, no: Bolden is going through regular funding channels on that much: We're - we've ...
(guffaws at She)

--how do we tell them?
(tries at them)

It may - just may - get close-enough to our solar system, to alter the orbital elements and ephemerides of the outer planets, Pluto, Neptune - Uranus.
ABC
(exasperates)

Change your amateur sky charts?! Is that what's worrying you?! Big-news NASA announces Astrologer's Nightmare: Uranus Babies to live-longer!? Beat the Global tabloids to the punch, with America's News Syndicate!?
NBC
Oh, No:
(shakes head into hands)

This is a bigger headache than Y-2-K.
ALL
(ponderous silent)
XBS
(mechanical slower)

Oh, Lord-- the clocks will never be the same again: Our calendar and the seasons will be rearranged: The equinox may move a few days, Climates will change - for better or worse.... A few leap-seconds per year we can hack, but leap-seconds in a day, backward or forward - an hour, a quarter of a day, per year - will mess-up calendars forever: The new calendar may take decades to settle: and it'll never again agree with the old calendar: The Vatican may defrock Pope Gregory.
CBS
(arrogant)

It's not news!
CNN
(puzzles to CBS)

What's not news?!
CBS
It's not news: It happens just once in history: The clocks change - that's news - but a rogue hole, is merely science - cosmology: You put science in school textbooks, not headlines.
XBS
Yes, but this is, big science - a rare event - like a supernova: if it were close-by.
FOX
How often, do, these occur? Is this the first of a series?
HE
(shakes, no)

Very rarely: one in 70 million years, maybe.
CNN
(soft-suggests)

'Could explain the dinosaur extinctions, maybe?
CBS
(compromises)

We can news a new theory about how the cosmos works: But you've got to keep it to two good theories: That's politically correct - tabloids go for thirds.
ABC
(perceives)

What theories?! This is an act of God! And, we can't tell people how to prepare for any of its wildly improbable outcomes: This just happens: that's all! Do we publish science coursework updates? Are we commercialized school-book errata services? We're, not, mere internet news-groups.
CNN
Then, what can we say? Do we just leave this to the magazines? Can't we get some amateur to video-tape his computer calendar projections? This affects everyone!
SENIOR-SCI
You can cover it with other discoveries.
FOX
(to She)

Is there something you haven't told us?
SHE
No.
(polite to scientist)

Can you example for us?
SENIOR-SCI
I am recalling similar evidences recorded by K. Lande back in January of '74.
CBS
Good - guesswork is always news-worthy.
SENIOR-SCI
(continues)

Dr. Lande set-up the first neutrino experiment in the Homestake Mine. Almost immediately he got results, which he published in Nature, in October, that year.
ABC
(proffers)

Neutrinos are more evidences of black-holes.
SENIOR-SCI
Not in the quantity we can detect them: We can 'see' our sun in neutrinos, but barely: We catch a few in big N-D-E tanks over months - 20-percent more during the days than the nights. The few neutrinos counted at Homestake, were evidence of a supernova that occurred, but we don't know where or when, except that Dr. Lande got a strong fast burst signal, when we didn't expect much sensitivity.
FOX
Little green men didn't contribute to this!?
ALL
(CHUCKLE)
SENIOR-SCI
(smiles)

No, this was real - but it was the only one: Until the Large Magellanic Cloud supernova in February, 19-87, we had no comparison to prove or disprove.
CBS
Okay: We have some old evidence discarded: That's news! Could it have come from this rogue hole? Something we all missed in our new theories.
SENIOR-SCI
No. The rogue hole must be ancient - otherwise its nova would have been too close to Earth, and fried most of us larger life-forms, And it would still have a halo of debris: This thing, we think, is clean.
NBC
Okay - you're handing us something to work-with.
FOX
New science directions:
Gamma-ray discoveries open a can of objectivity.
CNN
(to scientist)

Can you tell us where these neutrinos came-from: nearer the center of our galaxy? behind the dust barrier? outside?
SENIOR-SCI
No. Just that the event was a strong detection, but Dr. Lande's experiment tank was very small.
XBS
Then, how do we use that to develop a story? If the supernova was hidden in dust clouds ... How, strong - any quantitative measure?
SENIOR-SCI
A thousand times stronger than the '87 event.
XBS
(thinks-aloud)

That would mean 30 times closer: about 5 thousand light-years away: Well, that's a lot nearer than the galaxy core!? But still no supernova remnant to tell distance!?
SENIOR-SCI
None.
XBS
I thought supernovae always left remnants, which should be visible in the radio spectrum - another piece of a puzzle!?
SENIOR-SCI
Yes, they do eventually.
XBS
(laments)

Sounds like we missed an earlier opportunity.
(one more try)

And 2 decades isn't enough time!?
SENIOR-SCI
It is.
NBC
Then, what are we missing here? Could we be inside its radio remnant, already? Would we be able to distinguish that against the cosmic background?
SENIOR-SCI
Probably not if it's a normal large supernova.
NBC
What would be a, not-normal, large supernova?
SENIOR-SCI
A re-nova, or the collapse of a large moon-size asteroid onto the surface of an already hard neutron star.
ABC
(thinks aloud)

But how does this help us? If the rogue is not emitting neutrinos, but is near to us, the other, must be, a neutron star - or is that a pulsar?
SENIOR-SCI
There is no pulsar noticed with either of these two cases.
NBC
Yet one is, moving in the vicinity of our solar system: We can update our recognition of the numerosity of these objects in interstellar space - it's beginning to look over-crowded:
(to CBS)

That's news.
(to senior sci)

How often do you expect to find these - I thought supernovae were rare: every hundred years or some.
SENIOR-SCI
Yes, supernovae tend to be rare events, but there's nothing preventing them occurring near in time: we just don't expect it.
XBS
(catching-up)

What would distinguish a re-nova caused by the fall of an asteroid?
SENIOR-SCI
Possibly its neutrino rate would be much faster and shorter.
XBS
(builds)

Like what you were describing: the easy detection by Professor Lande!?
SENIOR-SCI
Yes.
XBS
(curious)

How much, shorter and faster?
SENIOR-SCI
Tens, hundreds, thousands times shorter and faster - depending on the size and elemental composition of the asteroid.
XBS
(curiouser)

But an asteroid would be much less productive of neutrinos!
(worries)

A millionth ... how big is an asteroid in solar masses?
SENIOR-SCI
Any tiny fraction: our moon is about 37 billionths the mass of our sun - a big asteroid, a thousandth of that - neutron stars are more massive than our sun by a factor of 2 or 3.
XBS
(curiouser)

Then, if these two aren't the same ... Now I take it, they must both, be close to us - this other evidence you suggested: It must be 10-thousand times closer: less than a light year away!
SENIOR-SCI
It could be.
XBS
(awe-irks)

It's practically in our own solar system! What are we dealing-with, here?! We're news-media: not the C-I-A!
ALL
(silent)
CBS
'Christian' is right: We're not into exposing secrets - we do it when we feel the public is being cheated of its own truth - but you've rather plainly told us something you don't understand yourself! Or, can you tell us, more about this: either of these?
SENIOR-SCI
(franks)

We don't know more - about either - We don't have the funds to find-out, more.
CNN
(airs)

Well, that explains why they need billions more!
(restarts to senior-sci)

Excuse me, for returning to an earlier subject: You said, Bolden is already asking: Why, then, are we discussing what you don't know?
HE
(inserts)

He's a senior scientist: That question is my responsibility, to answer.
CNN
And, your answer, is...!?
HE
(fills)

If we go with what little we have now, we have an armageddon scenario with no guns - only the powder burns - and the big boulders at the top of the hill.
NBC
And violent assumptions!? What powder burns?! Or, is NASA getting hyped on jargon?
HE
We don't have - NASA doesn't have, a public psychology department -- none we can trust on this: We just discuss these things openly with, all, our people....
(beat)

You remember the '60's astronaut family-burn-out: It hurt us badly: We did a lot of soul-searching on that, and decided that we can't expect our people to just accept on duty and faith, whatever we tell them: The same with you: we're telling you what we know, and what concerns us deeply, as people, as adults, as citizens, as religious men and women of any faith: And we leave it to you to develop what's public news-story.
FOX
Any clues as to what your own people, do think of it!?
SHE
Armageddon - powder burns without guns - boulders on the hill-top.
NBC
What, is, that powder-burn, stuff?!
ALL
(await)
HE
Some of our people are more religious, more Scriptural - we hire without discriminating against religious curiosity: But when you're thinking about the future, scientifically, you run-into all kinds of, well, frankly, spooky, concerns: They feel that the religious fervor that goes with any really colossal impending upheaval, preceding and succeeding, does a lot of unnecessary damage in our communities: meaningless riots, prurient public broadcasting - and, they don't want to be responsible for answering your questions!
ABC
(offended)

Oh - so your people are afraid the media is too inquisitive? too overt!? Well, why don't you just announce 8-to-3 classes about all this, and we can attend your colloquia at our convenience!
SHE
They're not offended. As He said: They feel we are all in this one, together, for better or worse: They said to tell you what we have, but don't ask them or NASA for answers we don't have.
NBC
(retrying)

But, where, is, the powder burn?!
CNN
(to NBC)

What do you mean, powder burn? It's just metaphoric for saying historic evidence is upon us.
NBC
A powder burn - if it's not a woman's fast facial - means, without guns, highly explosive, easily detonated, terrorism.
XBS
What terrorism? You think America will surrender to this?
FOX
Easy, 'Christian' - you're not known for historic kindnesses in the Crusades.
XBS
Hey - take it easy:
That was militant-wanna-be-Christians, controlling their armies for Christ: certainly not our modern protestants, Catholics, and ecumenicals!
HE
N-B-C is right: but I can't explain what everyone-else knows more about: Some scholar suggests that Saint John, in his New Testament Revelation, may have actually heard the horn-like buzzing of a very near supernova.
CBS
I don't recall us reporting any horn-like tones from S-N-19-87-A.
ABC
(ponders aloud)

An interesting piece of the puzzle: Everyone else knows more about this than any scientist or reporter: Therefore we can't publicize this without talking stupidly childish.
CNN
(to CBS)

S-N-19-87-A was too far away to be detected as loud as a horn.
SENIOR-SCI
German astrophysicists, and an American, computed several harmonics in the neutrino burst from 87-A, at multiples of 5-Hertz.
CNN
(stalls)

That's that one I never get: 5-Hertz is, 2-and-a-half cycles-per-hesit: because it was previously 5 cycles-per-second!?
SENIOR-SCI
About that much, 2-point-3 cycles per hesit, yes.
CBS
(resumes)

But that's not a horn: You need hundreds or thousands of Hertz, to hear a horn.
SENIOR-SCI
Yes - a reduction of Dr. Lande's '74 neutrino data suggests about a thousand Hertz - very high 'B' or 'C' if you're musically inclined.
XBS
(recalls)

'And I heard behind me a great voice, as of a trumpet, saying, I am Alpha and Omega, the first and the last ... and his countenance was as the sun shineth in his strength ... and saying unto me, I am he that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen; and have the keys of hell and of death' ... Wow - I never realized that possibility:
(presents)

His angels are the wondrous images in the Earth, sky, and heavens!
(realizes)

But he had in his right hand seven stars - that would be the Pleiades: Could that be?
SENIOR-SCI
The Pleiades, are near the ecliptic, where the known planets go.
XBS
Then, we should publicize this: the Churches will eat this up like a book!
FOX
(quips)

And make your belly bitter.
(overlapped)
ABC
(overlaps, cranks)

Only as long as we're publishing children's books!
(to scientist, to she, to he)

How long can we stall this?! We can put a few good researchers on this - but, we don't have the resources for more: We'll have to run preparatory articles for, maybe a year... Can we all agree to run prep for one year, and return to NASA for another meeting like this one, and all publish together whatever is then current - hopefully more than we have today.
CBS
I'll have to agree on 6 months delay, but we don't have the resources to run our reporters back through astronomy school - we'll have to ask NASA to work with our news teams on re-education of the public domain - Adult-Ed. We did this back in the '60's for the Apollo moon flights - it took us all a few years to get into the swing of show and tell, but we know how to gear-up for this. Are you, NASA, going to send anything right-away?
(doubts)

Cancel my question: that's too many years late -
(retries)

What telescopes, are you using, to follow this?
HE
We've been pointing HUBBLE an hour a day for weeks - we don't get much, and it doesn't change much - we're reprogramming all available radio telescopes and X-ray and Gamma-ray telescopes - we didn't invent anything to watch for nearby rogue black-holes!
Resume the [outer-story]....
1
FADE TO LOGO


THE END

[StarTrails §11]



Screenwriter: Raymond Kenneth Petry
Strategic Director: Mr. Raymond Kenneth Petry, Director, SesQuaTercet
Registrar: Wision--SesQuaTercet USA (division of Lanthus Corporation USA)
Recipient: project N E M O Nuclear Emergency Management Organization
Registered Owner: Lanthus Surrogate Executive Accessions Management

The theory of measurement propounded in this work is not to be cited (as) considering contraband or corpses; Nor are the intellectual appurtenances hereïn to be used for or in the commission of crimes against persons, peoples, properties, or powers (States).
COPYRIGHT: BASIC LIBRARY RULES: NONTRANSFERABLE: READ QUIETLY
© 1999-2002 Mr. Raymond Kenneth Petry

project SesQuatercet