THE LAST SON OF KRYPTON
“THE LAST SON”
FADE IN
On Krypton.
An extrasolar world in close orbit around a red dwarf star, Krypton is a black-&-blue terrestrial planet, roughly the same size as Earth.
EXT. KRYPTON — DAY — TRAVELLING
Far above the surface, we find a PRISM-BIRD in flight. True to its name, the plumage of the extraterrestrial avian shimmers with iridescence as dim sunlight plays over the feathers. We stay with the prism-bird as it travels over the Kryptonian landscape. On the ground below rises a forest. The flora much resembles the kind found on Earth — trees, bushes — though here, it is black rather than green. Canals cut through the forest, irrigating the pitch vegetation.
The forest soon gives way to grassland, and the grassland gives way as we clear the wilderness and emerge over Xan, a sprawling metropolis of chrome and crystal. Xan’s towering citadels reach to touch the alice blue sky overhead.
INT. GENESIS CHAMBER — DAY
The genesis chamber is immense. All sense of its height and depth lost in its vastness, a control hub rises through the centre of this vastness, systems monitored/maintained by semi-humanoid automatons. The walls, subdivided into tiers, house thousands of large ovoid crystal pods — birthing matrices.
The matrices are in the process of being removed. Extracted from their creches, the black orbs are carried off by automatons, supported on fields of antigravity.
A violent tremor reverberates through the building, shaking its very foundations. After several seconds, the tremor passes.
INT. LAUNCH COMPLEX/CONTROL CENTRE — DAY
Inside the horseshoe-shaped control centre we find sixteen automatons at computer stations.
EXT. LAUNCH COMPLEX/LAUNCH PAD — DAY
The birthing matrices, now affixed to hexagramal bases of solid chrome, have been brought here. At roughly 67 km2, the launch pad has enough surface area to hold all 144,000 of them.
The pods surround the Codex. Resembling a stylized rocket, its top section is a prolate spheroid of white crystal three times the size of a birthing matrix. This is connected via four mounting brackets to a tailfin section of equal length. The ten equally spaced fins each have the shape of a pointed quarter ellipse, with the tapered end extending slightly beyond the rear of the squat main cylindrical body tube.
EXT. XAN — DAY
The tremors return. The citadels tremble.
INT. LAUNCH COMPLEX/CONTROL CENTRE — DAY
One of the automatons manipulates a dial on their control panel.
EXT. LAUNCH COMPLEX/LAUNCH PAD — DAY
The Codex begins resonating a white luminescence.
EXT. XAN — DAY
The tremors intensify. The crystal-&-chrome facades of the citadels fracture and shatter.
INT. LAUNCH COMPLEX/CONTROL CENTRE — DAY
The interior lighting begins flickering erratically.
EXT. LAUNCH COMPLEX/LAUNCH PAD — DAY
The Codex and birthing matrices are launched. They ascend into the heavens as the earth below splits open, sending buildings toppling.
EXT. XAN — DAY
A great geyser of green energy blasts through the earth, annihilating several hundred buildings instantaneously. A great shockwave follows the blast; it plows through the surrounding buildings, pulverizing them.
INT. LAUNCH COMPLEX/CONTROL CENTRE — DAY
The chamber caves in, crushing the automations, burying them under kilometres of rubble.
EXT. KRYPTON — MONTAGE
Passing across the face of the planet, we see Xan isn’t the only area succumbing to cataclysm. Great jets of radiation erupt everywhere, in every continent, in every ocean, irradiating everything.
EXT. KRYPTON — DAY
As the 144,001 Kryptonian starcraft make the climb to space, Krypton literally begins breaking apart below. Eruptions spring up all over the world, throwing radioactive debris into the dying sky. Though protected by particle shielding, a majority of the matrices are too close to the cataclysm; they are critically damaged or destroyed outright by the glowing fragments.
EXT. SPACE — KRYPTON
As the surviving craft leave the planet’s gravity field, Krypton explodes. In an instant, the surface is boiled down and the atmosphere ignites. What was once an inhabited world is now a molten sphere of radioactive death.
Safe in the tranquil blackness of space, the Codex and twelve remaining birthing matrices set upon their voyage. Hyper-light drives engaging, they jump to hyperspace; they will reach their destination inside thirty-three years.
FADE OUT
BEGIN OPENING CREDITS