That's right boys and girls! I've already done "I" and now it's time for Catch 33. It's a Meshuggah thing.
Autonomy lost
0:00 - 0:33
Exterior shot of a gleaming metallic spacecraft, currently in orbit around the Moon. Camera slowly moves around the craft from all angles, starting from the surface of the moon itself. No signs of life or activity are visible, just the seamless perfection of the craft's skin and the reflection of Earth.
0:33 - 1:05
A section of the exterior wall slowly opens up to reveal a smaller version of the craft itself gliding forward from it's resting place, a pale blue light being cast out from the craft's cockpit. As the camera moves closer to the smaller ship we see Jens at the controls.
1:06 - 1:40
Barking out lyrics and manipulating controls Jens brings the craft to life and flies out of the hole in the ship. Upon his exit the ships doors close behind him.
Imprint of the un-saved
0:00 - 0:31
Interior shots of the smaller craft, with an intial close-up of Jens. Closeup reveals a bright blue glow eminating from his eyes, the source of the initial glow from the cockpit. Not the controls or consoles. The ships starts it's course towards its destination; the planet earth. In the same interior shot the planet earth is show getting larger through the cockpit "glass".
0:31 - 1:04
The craft comes close enough to earth to make out clouds, land, water, all the feature of the planet earth itself. Flying close to a human satilite Jens watches various footage from earth-based TV broadcasts.
1:04 - 1:36
More interior shots. Disenchanted with what he's witnessed on the monitors Jens enters the earths atmosphere in a fireball, intent on finding out the cause of this planets de-evolution...
Disenchantment
0:00 - 0:31
Flying low over the Nevada (chase camera of the ship) desert Jens continues his scouting mission, passing over active nuclear test ranges, narrowly becoming a target himself but not without taking damage in the blast.
0:31 - 1:11
His ship damaged by the nearby explosions Jens attempts a crash landing, broadcasting an SOS back to his original ship. Crash-landing in the middle of what looks like a military base, Jens and his ship are swarmed by US military personel who promptly assume his is a danger, destroying his ship and taking Jens hostage.
1:11 - 1:44
Jens is taken belowground into a laboratory. Upon gazing onto his glowing blue eyes Jens is immediatly strapped to a table and moved to a surgery ward. Masked doctors begin cutting into Jens only to find that his wounds heal within seconds. The scientists wheel Jens out of the operating theatre and into another dimly lit laboratory, where he is thrown into a tank of a strange green fluid.
The Paradoxical Spiral
0:00 - 0:31
Trapped floating inside of the tank of green fluid, government scientists begin experimenting on their newfound toy. Mechanical arms appear from the bottom of the tank, attaching themselves to Jens' body.
0:31 - 1:36
Blood samples are taken, one of Jens' arms is removed and they attach electrodes to his brain. Jeans begins screaming at the scientists and others gathered around the tank to study him, causing the green fluid around him to ripple and distort with each word spoken. The scientists, encouraged by his screams of pain and rage, begin more intrusive experiments upon his body.
1:36 - 3:11
Jens continues screaming at the scientists with a greater and greater amount of rage, anger and fear. The tank fills with bubbles; not from oxygen being fed into his tank but from the disruption of the fluid by Jens voice. Whatever the scientists have put him into is changing him, and he knows it.
Re-Inanimate
0:00 - 1:04
The glow is Jens eyes is beginning to fade and he starts to dim, his body visibly reflecting less light than it was before. His remaining arm and eyes begin to and eventually fall completely. All life and power contained inside of his body is slowly being drained away by the machinations of the government scientists. Jens is dying.
Entrapment
0:00 - 0:32 In surge of his remaining strength and life, Jens begins to beat upon the glass of the tank he now finds that is slowly killing him. Trying to escape, trying to plead with the scientists, trying to live before what is left of him is forever removed and destroyed.
0:32 - 1:36
Extreme camera pull-back, to the ship still orbiting the moon. A bright blue glow begins to be cast out from the ship itself, a low droning noise signaling to the universe that it has Awaken. The shape of the ship itself begins to shift and change, no longer sleek smooth and metallic; now covered in jagged edges, jutting spikes and jet-black in color. Invisible in the darkness of space.
1:36 - 2:29
The ships engines begin to glow, sending the ship to its destination; Earth.
Mind's Mirrors
0:00 - 1:35
Jens fellow crewmates have by now received his distress call and witness what happened to their comrade. Through his own eyes. They feel the experience of having their arm removed various pieces of machinery forcibly injected into their flesh and their very mind placed under siege. Jens is going mad and they know it.
1:36 - 3:42
Looking at each other they feel nothing but sadness and loss. Why would the inhabitants of this planet do such a thing? Jens was on a peaceful exploration mission and nothing more; they were looking for answers. The blue glow, present in all of their eyes, begins to fade from the bright brilliant hue that it once possessed; fading away until their eyes are pitch black. No light reflects from their now ebony eyes. Looking at each other without a word said, they know what must be done.
3:42 - 4:29
Tomas screams out in pain, violently striking the console they were watching Jens descent from. Silently walking over to a nearby blinking console, Tomas turns to his shipmates and simply nods. They have to save their friend.
In death – Is life
0:00 - 1:31
The room Jens is contained in starts to violently shake and shudder. Sparks fly from computer terminals and the tank that Jens is contained in cracks and begins to leak. They have arrived. Jens senses this and with his last ounce of strength, strikes and screams at the tank hoping to free himself and rejoin with the friends that at this very moment are attempting to save him.
Flash to the others
1:36 - 2:01
Tomas, Fredrik and Marten appear in the middle of the military base that Jens is being held deep inside. The entire base mobilizes to combat this alien threat unaware of what they are truly about to face.
In death – Is death
0:00 - 2:14
Marten and Fredrik begin sending whips of energy towards the approaching soldiers with their guitars, cutting them into pieces with the soundwaves produced. Tomas' legs open up to reveal what looks like a pneumatic press in each leg, sending massive shockwaves through the interior of the base. Several rooms collapse under the earthquake-force shockwaves, burying more than half of the base personel alive.
2:14 - 3:53
Tomas, Fredrik and Marten cut through the few remaining soliders with little effort. The soilders fight valiantly but are no match to the three invaders. Fredrik begins distorting the local reality itself, causing the soilders to contort and literally fall apart on the cellular level. Marten has stopped using his sonic arsenal in favor of simply ripping apart the humans with his bare hands while Tomas is in the stages of causing the fault-lines below the base to shift, resulting in a powerful earthquake.
3:53 - 5:57
With most of the base personel now dead, they turn their attention to destroying the base itself. Destroying lab equipment, computers, records of previous experiments and encounters. While on their path of destruction Marten comes across the bases' nuclear reactor and with the help of his guitar, cuts it in half starting a nuclear meltdown.
5:57 - 7:06
Their mission now partially complete, Tomas, Fredrik and Marten make their way through the destroyed and crumbling remains of the underground military base, destroying every bit of evidence of humanity along the way, to the lab where Jens is being held. Finding a massive blast door they focus all their energy upon it, causing it to liquefy and boil away into nothingness. Then they find Jens...
7:06 - 9:44
None of the raw destruction or chaos that marked their path to this point could have prepared them for this moment. The tank that once held both Jens and the green fluid had ruptured during the battle, sending its contents into the small lab. They find Jens lying on the floor, missing an arm, covered in strange machinery and as far as they know; dead. Defeated and full of loss they rush to their fallen friends side to spend one last moment with him.
But Jens isn't dead.
9:44 - 12:12
Caused either by the unknown chemical inside of the tank, the constant experiments or a combination of them all Jens is no longer the same person they knew. The bright blue glow in his eyes replaced by a dark green light. They step closer to him and Jens head shoots up, eyes ablaze with hate for what he has now become. In a fury of insanity and rage Jens reaches out to his friends and ensnares them, forming a partially organic, partially mechanical shell around them all. For a moment there is silence...
12:12 - 13:22
In the darkness of the lab, electricity begins to arc along the edges of the cocoon, causing it to pulsate...
fade to black
Shed
0:00 - 0:45
Exterior shot of the smoking remains of the base
A large majority of the US military is now surrounding the remains of the military base that captured Jens. Without warning a massive scream erupts in the minds of the soldiers around the base and the base itself explodes in a massive fireball causing the soliders to run for cover.
0:45 - 2:02
Meshuggah appears from the remains of the base, similar to what they were before but only in shape. The bright blue glow they all had is now gone; all sharing the same dark, green light that was inflicted upon Jens without mercy. Merged with both each other and the machinery inside of the base they have become something more; engines of destruction, agents of entropy.
2:02 - 3:19
The soliders, under order to attack anything that comes out of that smoking hole, open fire upon Meshuggah to no effect. All bullets, mortar rounds, rockets and grenades simply "stop" when they get close enough to the group. The soliders, tanks and every piece of equipment begin to glow themselves with the same eerie green that now emanates from Meshuggah's eyes, being lifted upward until the force of gravity causes them to collapse upon themselves.
3:19 - 3:34
The entire area is consumed by the same green light that destroyed most of the soliders and now holds the minds of the group firmly in its grasp. Nothing remains but a crater.
Personae non gratae
0:00 - 0:46
Military jets appear in the sky and begin to make bombing runs on the group, to no effect. More aircraft appears, firing missiles, machine guns and everything the US military can muster against them. To no effect.
0:46 - 1:47
Working together, Meshuggah combines their sonic abilities to form a literal wall of sound, causing the jets to crash into each other, the ground and the wall itself that now surrounds the group.
Dehumanization
0:00 - 0:31
Blackness, with only the sound of Jens screaming piercing the darkness. A sliver of light appears and begins to widen, revealing the darkness to be inside the bomb-bay of an unknown military craft.
0:31 - 1:24
The bomber releases what is now shown to be a cruise missile, which begins flying towards the remains of the military base and the group. Flying through the air faster than sound, with only a small air contrail behind it to show where it has come from. What aircraft and soliders remaining in the area are shown to be running, trying to escape what they know is incoming...
1:24 - 1:39
Meshuggah has noticed the missile incoming by now and begin to prepare. Tomas begins pounding the ground, Fredrik and Marten taking opposite positions on either side of Tomas. Jens just stands in front of them all, not moving. Ready.
1:39 - 2:09 Now able to see the missile itself and not just the trail, the missile makes impact with a nuclear explosion. Debris is sent flying away from the explosion, the ground scarred by its blast, shadows burned into the landscape forever.
2:09 - 2:55
A Closeup shot of the nuclear impact reveals Jens screaming at the sky with Tomas, Fredrik and Marten playing at the same time, forming a shield around them in green. With every increased scream, ground impact or guitar tone the explosion begins to change, no longer the bright red and yellow of the nuclear blast but becoming green. The same shade that now makes a home in their minds and eyes. The explosion expands beyond its original blast radius, igniting the atmosphere itself and sending a burning wave of destruction across the face of the earth.
Sum
0:00 - 1:10
The wave continues to make its way across the planet, boiling the oceans and disintegrating the entire landscape of the once lush planet earth. Until all that remains is Meshuggah.
1:10 - 2:05
Standing in the crater of their own creation, they collapse. It's now they realize that whatever had infected them was gone, purged by the explosive release of energy from within the nuclear blast. Even Jens has recovered his removed arm now intact. They look around the burned landscape of what remains of earth and realizing what they had done
2:05 - 2:39
Unable to justify what they had done, not capable of living with themselves after destroying an entire planet they did the only thing that felt right. With a single tear Jens lets out the last scream of his life, reducing Tomas, Fredrik, Marten and himself to ashes. Blown away by the nuclear winds of their own creation.
2:39 - end
Flash back to their ship. A single screen is on, showing Fredrik's face. Scrolling down the screen like text are soundwaves; the ships log. The record of Jens original scouting mission, his crash and capture and the resulting rescue mission. Scenes of the battle and genocide at their hands follow, recorded unblinkingly by the ships computers. Their death and their own hands.
Ships log complete the screen powers down and the ship itself turns towards deep space, to return to wherever it was the ship came from, to tell the tale of humanity and what they had caused. To tell the tale of it's lost crew...
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