| FROM THE ARCHIVE: Transformers, SECTOR 7 Pitch |
[16 Dec 2010|02:25am] |
So, about a year or so ago I'd been approached by IDW Publishing to pitch for a TRANSFORMERS mini-series.
A bit of history: I'd actually been talking to IDW for a FEW years, having been brought in my pal and then-editor, Dan Taylor, to try for a TRANSFORMERS Spotlight one-shot. Of all the IDW licenses (at the time), TRANSFORMERS has been the only I'd drop anything to write (nowadays, we can add GIJOE to the list). I grew up with the Autobots and Decepticons, collected the toys and comics, thought about them and organized 'bot battles with pals in school. So, yeah, when I had the chance to add my ideas to canon, I bit.
After Dan left editing to freelance again, I got handed to editor after editor and eventually one of my ideas took flight: a Transformers mafia story, based on the infamous Castellamerese Wars that birthed the Five Families, set on old Cybertron and focusing on Scourge, one of my favorite Decepticons. I worked on that pitch for a while, and though editorial circumstances scuttled the project, it got me amped at the possibility of one day writing something set in the many TRANSFORMERS universes. IDW's E-I-C Chris Ryall, a prince of a man, conferred with me on possible ideas and promised to keep me on his radar and then the new TF editors shot me an email out of the blue to see if I might be interested in pitching a mini-series set in the TRANSFORMERS movie universe: a five issue project detailing the history of both Sector Seven, the secret government agency charged with tracking and hunting the Cybertronians, and the Simmons family line, culminating with the character portrayed by John Turturro in the two (now three, I guess) feature films.
Hells yeah.
Unfortunately, IDW decided to go with another writer—the incredibly talented John Barber—but praised the format of my pitch and we remain on excellent terms. I hope to one day do a TF project but for now, I thought you might dig reading my shelved and passed over SECTOR SEVEN pitch. Enjoy!
TRANSFORMERS: SECTOR SEVEN
::SECTOR SEVEN DOES NOT EXIST. THERE IS NO SECTOR SEVEN::
COMMUNIQUE #09171984 – ROUTE; POTUS/SECDEF/JIC
CC: WILLIAM H. WEBSTER, DIR. FBI; WILLIAM J. CASEY, DIR. CIA
DATED: Sept 17 02:16:57 1984
ORIGINATION: THOMAS A. BANACHEK, DIR. ARD, SECTOR SEVEN
LOCATION: HOOVER DAM MILITARY INSTALLATION
Gentlemen —
As requested by Defense Secretary Weinberger (SECDEF), I’ve attached cost breakdowns of all projects and research extracted from NBE-01 in order to bring incoming Field Commander Seymour Simmons to speed. Also enclosed is this second document, detailing my concerns regarding Commander Simmons’ counter-productive policies. As previously discussed, my concerns are grounded in precedent: the Simmons men have commanded S7 as far back as anyone can remember, and though each has acted for the good of our nation, a recurring theme of paranoia, obsession and unusual behavior contributes to a disregard for Sector Seven’s original mission. I implore you to reconsider continuing this legacy and present here a brief history of Sector Seven, detailing specific incidents that explain my fears. I remind you: there was a Sector Seven before the Simmons reign—seven men, all of whom had no connection to the United States military/industrial complex, banded together to protect our world.
::BOOK ONE:: To understand how the Simmons family changed Sector Seven, we must study the shape of the organization ten years prior to NBE-01. Sector Seven began with two men: Alistair Crowther, a member of Scotland’s Yard Special Branch assigned to investigate a series of sensational murders; and Wallace Clairmont, a Pinkerton agent hunting a murderer of his own. Clairmont’s partner, Percy Whitting, was killed by a train near San Francisco—and when I write “by a train”, gentlemen, I mean that a Steam Locomotive classified NBE-00.2 (S7 RefFILE: ASTROTRAIN) deliberately and brutally murdered his party on its way across the West. Distraught, Clairmont chased Whitting’s murderer across the country and out to sea, leading him to England where some claimed Crowther’s Whitechapel killer was no human, but a metal thing. Trading stories with dubious Crowther, Clairmont tracked, and captured his first Non-Biological Entity: NBE-00.1 (S7 RefFILE: RUNAMUCK).
NBE-00.1 claimed to be a “Seeker”, one of seven searching for an item native to its planet. This lost item would grant the Seekers power to save their world and destroy ours. Determined to prevent this, the two men terminated NBE-00.1 and led Scotland Yard away from its existence by fabricating a target for the Whitechapel murders. Armed with NBE-00.1’s knowledge and technology, Clairmont and Crowther sought help from fellow students of the unusual: xenobiologist Edgar Westfield, armorer and inventor Neville Brewster, geologist Stanford Morehouse and military captain Vance Lawson. Crowther proposed a society whose purpose would be to hunt the seekers, find their lost item, and use the technology to protect humanity. They would stick to the shadows, never formally exist or be answerable to any government. They would be seven, like the Seekers (the last spot honoring Whitting’s memory) saving the world from the private sector. Established in 1888, ten years before NBE-01 was discovered in the Arctic wastes, Sector Seven operated nobly and autonomously for the rest of the century until Brewster was killed by NBE-00.3 (S7 RefFILE: RAZORCLAW) on the African plains. Since Brewster was unable to fashion their weapons, the First Seven needed money to buy them and it was money that brought Arthur Simmons to Sector Seven.
::BOOK TWO:: Simmons made his money in trains, overseeing their construction for various countries. His global connections expanded S7’s reach, allowing them to wrest control of NBE-01 from Archibald Witwicky and hush up the find. The acquisition of NBE-01 and construction of the Arctic base accelerated their mission, granting the Seven enough information to trace a path to the Cube. Assuming they’d captured the Seekers’ item, they adopted a defensive strategy, dividing their “eggs” into two “baskets.” Clairmont, Morehouse and Westfield built a second base to house the Cube, while Crowther and Lawson remained with NBE-01. With the Seven staying home to gather information and U.S. military reacting to the existence of privately funded facilities on American soil, Simmons declared they could no longer work apart from government and used political clout to assume the role of Field Commander. Sector Seven was granted military clearance in 1929, working under oversight of the President, SECDEF and Director of the Bureau of Investigation; “Agent” Simmons became their government liaison and that gave him the resolve to retool and arm S7 for the 20th Century.
By 1934, he’d assumed control of all operations. Crowther died in ’31 and J. Edgar Hoover debriefed the others. Only Clairmont remained, holed up in Nevada trying to unlock the Cube’s secrets. Simmons and Clairmont butted heads — the former wanted to go public, hunt and eliminate NBEs, while the latter had long abandoned revenge for Whitting to protect the world. Simmons forced Clairmont into retirement after botching a field operation to re-capture the reconstituted NBE-00.1 and a new entity, NBE-00.4 (S7 RefFILE: RANSACK). Simmons claimed Clairmont’s tinkering with the Cube led to NBE-00.1’s resurrection and had him court-martialed and transferred to civilian life. Simmons understood the Cube had revitalized NBE-00.1 and focused on relocating NBE-01 in order to do the same—specifically to extract the locations of the other NBEs. With Simmons at the helm, working with Hoover, S7 abandoned its defensive, scientific mission and assumed a more ruthless offensive. Arthur Simmons would never see it’s fruits, though— in ‘35, he assigned his son to the Nevada installation and after one last visit, handed control of Sector Seven to its most dangerous and cunning Field Commander: Walter Simmons, AKA “The Old Man.”
::BOOK THREE:: Walter established a new policy regarding all things NBE: Our world. Our war. Alien threats would not be tolerated and instead of plumbing NBE-01’s secrets, Walter locked it and the Cube in their respective bases while he spearheaded a seek-and-destroy hunt for alien subversives. War did come, but not the war Walter predicted, and while humanity’s attention turned to the Axis threat, Sector Seven saw the conflict as an excuse to enter military hot zones and seek out NBEs. In 1942, the government tried to draft Sector Seven into using advanced technology to fight the Axis. Walter wanted as little to do with the military as he needed and didn’t want to answer to Dwight Eisenhower. But when S7 pinpointed an energy source in Africa, Walter changed his mind and provided modified NB-enhanced Willys MB Jeeps (NBE-G.I.: S7 RefFILE: HOUND Units) to Ike’s Tunis invasion and helped engage Rommel’s Afrika Korps. The NBE-G.I.s confronted two Seekers—NBE-00.3 (S7 RefFILE: RAZORCLAW) and NBE-00.5 (S7 RefFILE: BLITZWING). They failed to capture either NBE and the units were responsible for heavy losses on both sides, Axis and Allies alike. Deciding S7 technology was more dangerous than it was worth, the government agreed to let them sit out the fighting and merely supply the Armed Forces with R&D. Simmons returned to his real work and a World War of his own: D-Day was a year away, but both the Allies and Sector Seven were ready to go on the offensive—across the sea and to the stars.
::BOOK FOUR:: Twenty years later, in 1962, Sector Seven no longer remained autonomous. It absorbed recruits from every level of the military and abandoned pretense of searching for the Seekers. Like McCarthy’s crusade, all assets were directed towards a single goal: seek and destroy outsiders before the Communists beat us to them. Securing funds, resources and military sanction, Walter gathered a team at the Arctic base and built a prototype for a series of NBE-derived spacecrafts that would seek and engage the alien world. Once launched, S7 would relocate NBE-01 to Nevada in case their offensive flushed out remaining NBEs. In Nevada, NBE-01 and the Cube would be secure and they could activate the Ice Man so that he could lead them to his fellow aliens. Simmons wanted to accomplish this now because the winds of change had arrived—soon, the government would assume control of Sector Seven, direct endgame of Arthur Simmons’ first major policy change to the organization. Additionally, the Russians were swarming, preparing to attack and take the American advantage in Cold War technology. Walter owed it to his family to be the one who stopped the NBEs, and the way to that was by taking the fight to them, so he rushed construction of the prototype ship. But when the unprepared spacecraft’s test flight flushed out previously identified NBE-00.2 (S7 RefFILE: ASTROTRAIN), mobile units had to defend it using cryo-weapons. The prototype gave chase into low orbit and enacted Percy Whitting’s revenge by obliterating NBE-00.2. Unfortunately, the ship suffered damage and was dismantled. Simmons, paranoid the Soviets would beat him to the NBE world before the government “retired” him, began work on a second ship: Ghost-1.
::BOOK FIVE:: After Ghost-1’s disastrous flight (S7 RefFILE: YESTERDAY) and desperate to retain control of Sector Seven, Walter relocated his son Felix to Nevada from Vietnam. Felix discovered an eroding military force and the last gasps of J. Edgar Hoover’s paranoid legacy as Sector Seven retreated into non-military covert operations. Felix—the first, true Simmons soldier—took command and using a decommissioned military jet, traveled the world to hide alien assets from the public eye. During this time he discovered Crowther’s journals about the NBE Seekers, and I was transferred to Sector Seven under Nixon’s orders. Simmons and I met in New Mexico, 1973, and after he detailed my operational duties we flew to Roswell where I saw the true, dangerous face of the Simmons legacy. Instead of a bunker filled with little green corpses, Roswell was an abandoned test facility—a model town that once gauged the effects of nuclear bombing. Sector Eight—the real Area 51— was where Simmons men kept their secrets from Sector Seven’s rank-and-file, military personnel assigned there by Uncle Sam. There were two rooms: the first contained readouts, photographs and accounts of NBE activity on Earth. Felix outlined the First Seven’s original mission, taught me the classifications of each Seeker and brought me to speed on the item beneath Hoover Dam. According to Felix, one Seeker still remained unclassified but he felt there were more than seven NBEs on Earth. Their race had perfected the art of “sticking to the shadows”, abandoning public attacks for infiltration and sabotage as demonstrated by their involvement with Kennedy’s assassination. Stunned, I asked if S7 had evidence of an NBE in Dealey Plaza, if Zapruder’s camera had captured an NBE on film. Simmons smiled, the first and only time I’d ever see him do so, and said: “Tom… Zapruder’s camera WAS the NBE.”
NBE_00.6 (S7 RefFILE; REFLECTOR) was Walter Simmons’ ace-in-the-hole. Since he was unable to revive the Ice Man, Walter planned to revive NBE_00.6 instead, trying various methods—electrical, nuclear, stellar—but all failed. Felix’s scientists had isolated an isotope from the Cube and he’d brought it with us to see if contact might finally work —here, where his father callously exposed nearby counties to nuclear radiation in order to get what he wanted. Here, where Walter had counter-engineered NBE-G.I.s to target both U.S. and German soldiers in Africa, sacrificing American lives in order to duck the draft. He’d also risked the lives of the spacecraft crew for the “sake of the American people” and familial glory. Arthur Simmons, meanwhile, explained in a journal how he’d taken command by reassigning Morehouse, Westfield and Lawson to WW1 battlefields and then blaming and retiring Clairmont for a failed operation that Simmons deliberately botched. The Simmons men had done terrible things to direct the course of Sector Seven, doing what they had to for the sake of their world. Felix wanted to make up for that by completing the First Seven’s mission and eliminating the final Seeker. Listening to him rant about aliens robots, being asked to cover up horrible crimes in the name of national protection, I was ready to leave, but then Simmons’ jet dropped the roof on our heads. Felix’s jet was the last Seeker (NBE_00.7 S7 RefFILE; JETFIRE), waiting to play his hand. NBE_00.7 took the isotope and revived NBE_00.6, explaining the isotope energy would lead to the actual lost item, one that still remains unclassified. The aliens disagreed about their next move: NBE_00.6 wanted to revive a “Megatron” and NBE_00.7 was determined to seek the item. They clashed, and Felix acquitted his family name by driving them off with cryo-weapons, sacrificing himself in the process. NBE_00.6 vowed to return and NBE_00.7 promised to be here to stop him. In the confusion, I recovered the isotope and returned it to Nevada, helping shutter Sector Eight and preparing the Earth to defend itself in Felix Simmons’ memory.
Eleven years later and another Simmons assumes command. Seymour is a good man, like Felix, but shows signs of Arthur’s obsession, Walter’s paranoia and cowboy bravado. One wrong move could result in more than a Ghost-1 debacle; it could mean the end of our planet. Rethink this decision. Let me assume command and continue the First Seven’s work, started before Arthur Simmons manipulated his way into their midst. With our non-biological eggs now in a single basket, the slightest misstep may finally, horribly, ensure that a Sector Seven actually does not exist to defend our world.
Thomas A. Banachek
Director, Advanced Research Division
United States Armed Forces, Sector Seven
END COMMUNIQUE
:: THIS MESSAGE IS FICTION AND WILL ENACT A NANOVIRUS IN FIVE. FOUR. THREE. TWO%%%%XXX$%%%%%%%%::
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