Lords of Misrule
(US title: Against the Rules)

pilot: Deus ex Machina

VHS recording

Cold Open

The melancholy horn motif of the theme music fades out over the creator credit and we cross-fade to...

Space: a colourful CGI image of nebulae in reds and purples and planets in greens and blues.

A caption reads: "Ten thousand years ago".

After a beat a second caption appears: "High Mart – Holleran Homeworld".

While this caption is on screen, we pan down to reveal a planet aflame. As we watch, moons and stars in the background burst and explode. Starfire consumes them: blue-white, then red-gold, then satanic crimson, umber, and black.

The camera picks out a tiny speck of matter above the burning planet, swoops and zooms and the speck expands to become a bone-like, claw-like structure, impending over the spectacle, like a spiny starfish, like a brittle spider.

A third caption: "Terminal Haven".

Dozens of spherical objects, spaceships, we infer, skim over the Haven's surface.

["Ravens and swans, my dear," whispered Mr Monkfish, "ravens and swans."]

The black-and-white patterns on the ships coil over the spherical surfaces like a three-dimensional yin-yang, intertwining like a painting by Escher, now a black bird with wings swept down, now a white bird with wings swept up. They dance and watch.

Cut to...

Close on two tall figures, a woman in blue and a man in black and silver, standing in front of a clear geodesic wall.

These are Mnemosyne and Oneiros, last of the Atalans.

They watch, from the observation dome of the Haven, as the Starfire incinerates the Holleran noosphere, cauterising an entire slice of the probability space, ending all possible stories.

"Great Gaia," she says. "Is this the end? Are we the last?"

"Ask Phoebe for prophecy, not I," he replies.

"Phoebe was lost to the Mother of Monsters and her unpredictable brigade."

"Phoebe gone. Tethys gone. Yea, even dread Kronos gone. Ask not for prophecy. I have none to give."

The scene opens up with a wide establishing shot. Visual effects establish the dome as a vast open space, darkened, lit mainly by the hellish light from the ribbed viewing walls.

A brooding triumvirate occupy a black ash conference table near the centre of the dome, regarding the Atalans.

They are Sif, Hel and Tīw. They are Gotha, the victors in this war.

We cut to a mid-shot of the table and its occupants.

Sif and Hel remain seated, feigning interest in only the scene beyond the clear wall, the hostility between them obvious. Beside them, one-handed Tīw paces back and forth, casting dark-eyed glances towards Mnemosyne and particularly Oneiros.

"So," grunts Sif with evident satisfaction, "the upstart Holleran are ended, their rebellion crushed."

"Aye, sister-in-law," agrees Tīw, pausing his stride, "and the Atalan are all but extinct. But the price, the price! The Gotha are scattered and broken; our worlds shattered and in ruin. If one hundredth part of a hundredth part remains of what we were we will count ourselves lucky."

"Not even that," Hel interjects. "The Great Winter is upon us. None shall live to see the Spring."

"Ha!" Sif is scornful "At least my husband is avenged."

"And my father," snaps back Hel.

"Your father! Fagh! If your traitorous family hadn't sided with the Holleran, this war would not have lasted ten days, still less ten years!"

"Have a care, cousin," Hel hisses at her, "it need not be over yet."

"You will both be silent!" Tīw is now cold with fury. He wears his step-mother's jewelled collar, the diadem of the Great White Empress, and it sparks with frost fire as icy as his temper.

"Do you speak for the artisans when you make such threats, Hel? Have you, Sif, any warriors left with which to prolong your bitter war? We must make an end."

All things must end. The words seem to echo around the dome, taken up in mournful susurration by the servers.

The servers: the camera sweeps around the dome – another effects shot – taking them in. Pale, simian forms, in simple black and white robes.

The servers live only to oblige, craving nothing but permission to attend and watch, wherever they can. To serve and observe. They are everywhere aboard Terminal Haven.

All things must end, they mutter, like a tragic Greek chorus.

Our point of view returns to the Atalans.

Oneiros turns from the view, his already-grim mood turning to bleak.

"Come, sister-wife," he says to Mnemosyne, "Empires are falling. If this thing must be done, 'tis better it be done and we will be over with it."

"Not falling, my brother, my love. Fallen. The mighty are fallen."

She too turns from the sight of the burning Holleran homeworld and crosses the floor of the dome ahead of him.

We follow her across the dome and now we see just how tall she is, and how imperiously beautiful, as she towers over the sturdy Tīw, like a tall tree casting shade over a boulder. Oneiros is no less tall, lean and handsome like a mountain eagle. Neither resembles the last of a race on the brink of final capitulation. But still, Mnemosyne says:

"We agree to the treaty. We will surrender the remaining World-Ships."

"And the Mind Worlds have agreed to this also?" questions Hel, ungraciously.

"Enough of them. Twelve of them. All but Lady Nemesis."

"Then her World must be blasted like the others," demands Sif.

"Are you not yet tired of this destruction?" asks Oneiros. "Does this–" he makes a gesture encompassing the consuming Starfire and his own and his sister's humiliation "–not satisfy you?"

"Do you want your treaty or not?"

"Brother," Mnemosyne places a restraining hand upon Oneiros' arm.

"It will be done," he concedes.

"And also—" begins Sif, but this time it is she who is interrupted.

"Enough," snaps Tīw. "It is enough. The World-Ships will take aboard the Minds. Pilots will be chosen from among the Gotha. And the refugees from the Gotha Worlds will be taken on board too."

Oneiros interjects: "And the survivors of the Hollaran colonies."

"Do not be absurd!" Sif is suddenly upon her feet, her fists clenched. Hel simply sneers but Tīw cuts across them again.

"It is the agreement. This... holocaust... is price enough. Remember, it is only the Hollerans' technology that makes this solution possible."

"You cannot mean for us to shelter our enemies! Not after all this—"

"If we are to survive, then we must. The Great Winter is upon us. Darkness will swallow the sun and our glorious fire will go out of the Universe. The ice is coming and all will be buried for a hundred generations.

"These World-Ships will be our arks, cast adrift on the tides of time, that when the ice withdraws there might be a fragment, a last spark of what we were, left to kindle a new flame. This is our best, our last, our only hope against the fall of night."

Sif sits down in silence. But proud Oneiros is moved. He takes Tīw by his good hand, then embraces him.

"Then let it be done," he says.

"And what of us?" asks Mnemosyne. "We wear our technology like bodies. Without our World-Ships we are less than nothing. What is to become of us?"

Hel hisses with satisfaction. "Exile," she decrees. "A living death. A place has been prepared for you. Among the Fallen."

The mighty are Fallen. The whispering servers re-echo Mnemosyne's own words back to her.

"Even a living death is better than death," says Mnemosyne. "I agree to the treaty."

"IT IS DONE!"

The servers speak, and when they all speak aloud it is not the voice of servitude. It is a voice like thunder. It is a voice like God:

"WE ARE OBSERVERS. IT IS DONE!"

The infernal light of the Starfire goes out.

Fade to black.