Factions: Elite Force

There are currently 3 factions in the Next Global Crisis Universe. They are not necessarily aware of one another. The first faction I wish to look at is ‘Elite Force’.

Elite Force is the only faction that the public are currently aware of. Throughout the late-90’s a concensus was reached between governments in North America, Europe, and Japan that a NATO style special forces group needed to be set up to protect the global interests of democratic countries. Intelligence agencies were aware of some members of the public exhibiting super-powers to varying degrees and had worked hard to round up these individuals. All that were rounded up were made to sign official secrets contracts of some kind and to keep their powers under wraps for fear of public confusion and panic. Many of these subjects were seen as excellent candidates for the special unit which needed to be set up. By early 2000 even Russia had agreed to help fund this unit provided their interests were also included in its remit.

Over the next 2 years ‘Elite Force’ as it was now named, set about recruiting wherever it heard stories of extraordinary deeds or actions by members of the public. Often these would be red herrings, exagerrations of events but sometimes it was the real deal. Those who had powers which could be considered useful were invited into the training camp based in Germany. Here they would work on strengthening their abilities and learn about the objectives of the unit.

Elite Force had always been partly about public relations but this was emphasised after governments had seen the positive reaction they brought to the Afghan conflict. Their support was used by the USA and the UK in taking the sting out of public discontent to the overwhelmingly unpopular conflict in Iraq. Since being unveiled to the public in early 2002 interest in key members had reached fever pitch, and their successes in Iraq and Afghanistan brought a good deal of celebrity to the occasion, capturing the imagination of the public and drowning out the critics of the conflicts in the short-term at least.

To strengthen this PR element the more beautiful females in the unit were pushed to the front, they participated in all kinds of celebrity activity and their endorsement in one policy or another was capable of swinging it into favour. Of course they were loathed by the intelligentsia for fooling the public and apparently holding no position themselves, other than those which they had been told to believe in. This was all tempered by the real action they were taking part in, risking their lives for ‘freedom’ which of course kept critics quiet.

Over the next few months disagreements sprung up about how Elite Force was being used. Large swathes of the European contingent and the Russians were never keen on the Iraq war and their funding and backing of the unit which was making it more popular was a sore point. Equally, across the board there was criticism that individuals within the organisation were becoming too powerful. Some ‘off-message’ comments had been made which had swung things in the opposite direction to the intention.

In late 2003, with the war ‘over’, Elite Force was pulled out of Iraq and put to use on domestic crime in an attempt to lower interest and influence. The public interest was too strong however and the media could not resist using them on a regular basis. With more time on their hands due to a drop in funding some well known members exploited their celebrity status and began to take political stances, something which had been feared by the backers was coming true, but as the democratic worlds great hope it would be incredibly difficult to dismantle them. Governments feared a backlash should they criticise the members of Elite Force. There were some who felt it was still a good idea at its core but needed intensive reform.

The Elite Force leadership were confident in their position, should government funding drop off, other avenues could be used and some power could be exacted. The one problem is that they can’t really say with any certainty who has been bankrolling them to this point.

Episode 1 – How we made it, Part 2

It was important to me that we didn’t get caught in a loop of making unrelated scenes, that as an idea has been done, sometimes very well, sometimes not so well. I want to see if it’s possible to continue a storyline as I would find that more interesting to do. The hardest part will be early on as I think that releases are going to be quite spaced out so keeping people interested over the next few months will be difficult.

Nevertheless it’s what I am going to try and do. Before working on a developed plot I needed at least the characters for the first thread. I am not going to go into much detail here, I will save that for post release but it’s very important to get a very deep view of who is in each scene. What sort of childhood did they have? How did they discover their powers? What have they been doing in recent years? Who, if anyone has had an effect on their principles? Once you can answer these questions then you know who the character is. You can decide what they would do and what they wouldn’t do. It always annoys me when I’m watching something on TV and a character does something totally out of character to suit the plot. It needs to be the other way around, and I have found once I’ve known the characters and their motivations it is much easier to write a plot.

Powerstar for example did some morally questionable things in her late teens, a form of vigilantism which she profited from. She has suffered from depression and has a strained relationship with family members who brought her up. Just as her power informs the way she fights, so her upbringing informs her decisions. Then throw the spanner of loyalty to her faction and she has a dilemma in this first episode.

Factions are going to be very important in this on going story, how they relate to one another, which members are really pulling the strings and which faction is really succeeding. Again, I will elaborate greatly on the individual factions as the way they interact will become a major part of this blog. Once I’d written all of this down I was ready to work on the action with a real vigour.

Episode 1 – How we made it, Part 1

Just after Christmas I resigned myself to the idea that I was going to make a film of some kind. What I knew was that I didn’t have a lot of money, I didn’t have anyone to shoot it, and I didn’t know what it would be about other than involving women in superheroine costumes.

It was clear from budget constraints that we could not have an ensemble cast for this one, so I soon resolved that it would be a guy and a girl. I had to make it interesting for myself so there needed to be a reason for them being in the scene and have it lead somewhere, but before I got deep into plot my first concern was character ideas. I had previously thought about running a site on the basis of 5 heroines, each with a different look and power. Costume-wise that translated that one might wear blue, another white, one in a Xena style Greek warrior outfit, another in pink/red, another in green. Pretty simple. This was all a bit thin but it was how I was working. I would need to introduce them individually so the one that came first was simply the one whose powers I narrowed down quickest.

At that time this character was called ‘Force Girl’ and I designed her costume, and it looked like this:

I quite liked that, it had a police-style look. Soon after though I was informed that this was a rubbish name for a heroine and they may have been right, I’m sure it’s pretty subjective. I developed this character to have a power punch or an energy punch, something which she either built up to for knocking out enemies or something she could use quickly but only had a finite amount of or she would collapse in exhaustion. So, not Force Girl, so Energy Girl? Useless, Power Girl (been done), Powerstar? I quite liked that, had an other worldly quality to it. Force Girl could potentially live at the end of your street but Powerstar wouldn’t, she’d need some kind of base in the sky… much better. I altered the costume design to fit this name. Chest emblem changed from the slightly unnerving Black Panther style fist to a 5-Point Star, add a double-sided cape and make those boots thigh-highs. Now all I needed to do was find someone to make it. Cost was important but in the end not more important than quality. I’d looked at places who could do a job reasonably cheaply but all of their models were rather thick-set to put it mildly so I had no idea if they had the skills of cutting to fit. Also the seams were not perfect. In the end I plumped for a company in Amsterdam who had done various costume dramas. I got a quote. The quote was roughly the same as the budget I’d ear-marked for the entire film, but I paid it anyway. This is the design I sent:

…and one month later, this is what I got back:

I was delighted with the quality of the work but the most daunting thing now was that this film was actually going to be made. It needed to be made as I’d just spent a fortune on a costume for it, however I had no idea about what we would shoot other than it be a fight. Nobody yet to play the role, nobody to shoot it, nowhere to shoot it, and no particular story idea about why this fight was taking place. Could I do it before going bankrupt? Episode 1 – COMING SOON

Hello Globe!

Lovely to make my first post, a very premature one. Just getting things set up here but check back soon for updates, we should be releasing Episode One soon, although I can’t promise exactly when. In the meantime I will try and get this looking the way I want it to.