Universe
Three hundred years ago, the world woke up. Two ancient powers have been listening ever since. Now they are looking for translators.
Created by Sasha Samoilov and Dina Klarisse
I · The Onset
Three hundred years ago, something woke the world. Three peoples gave it three names.
A spreading silence from the deep ocean that changed every living thing it touched.
A long green dream the swamp shared with everyone who slept on its soil.
An unexplained electromagnetic event. Theirs is the name that stuck.
None of these accounts are wrong. None are complete. Matter has a grain, and since the Onset it has been listening.
And a few people were born able to hear it, and answer.
The new century built empires on that awareness and forgot what it cost.
A story about being young inside a slow catastrophe nobody is taking seriously.
II · Weaving
Since the Onset, a few people are born able to sense the threads running through everything. Working them is called weaving.
Weaving built this world. Now the world is asking for something back.
III · The Two Powers
The Mother, in Lati.
Every tree, vine, and growing thing on the surface, thinking as one vast chorus. The clearing crews arrive anyway.
Their flaw Purity. Better unspoiled than alive.
In Lati, nobody plants a tree without first telling it their name.
The Furnace, in the deep.
The molten heat beneath everything. It powers the cities, and it is proud of what they built. So they keep digging.
Its flaw Pride. It cannot imagine being wrong.
Miners say the warmth in the deep tunnels can feel like being noticed.
The two have never spoken. Each can feel the other move.
Each has chosen one human voice. The world calls them the Reached.
IV · Reached by the Roots
Reached before she was born.
A prodigy raised on land her family’s company is clearing. She can hear the forest scream. They tell her to stop listening.
Her settlement’s finest sapweaver, and the company knows exactly what that is worth.
V · Reached by the Core
Reached at twelve, the night his parents walked into the rain.
Raised on Blacktide Wharf, where the city’s money never reaches. He runs a crew called the Willing: part protection, part family.
He wears his mother’s amber on a cord. Nobody on the Wharf asks about it.
A story about the gap between
knowing the right thing and doing it.
VI · The Companions
Found half buried in mud at a clearing site. The elders say the swamp chose her.
A hurt panther seal pup who found a frightened boy when he most needed something to love.
VII · The People
Family, institutions, neighbors. All of them need something from the two.
Around Tala
Tala's mother, and an executive at Hiraya Corp. Poised, exacting, and always three moves ahead.
A physician of the Assembly's Reach order. Gentle, patient, and quietly devoted to her work.
The Assembly's public voice. Warm, polished, and never at a loss for exactly the right words.
An analyst in the Assembly's security wing. Precise, private, and very difficult to impress.
Around Marek
Commanding officer of the Low Delta Peace Corps. Calm, methodical, and used to being obeyed.
A laundress raising her son on Blacktide Wharf. Tired, kind, and stronger than she looks.
Nira's son, seven years old. Curious, quiet, and always drawing on whatever paper he finds.
A sapweaver of ninety one who lives above a noodle shop in Midtown. Sharp, blunt, unhurried.
VIII · The Assembly
The world’s largest religious and academic institution. It trains weavers, keeps the records, and decides what the Onset means.
The scholars and physicians who study those touched by the great powers.
The face. It decides how the Reached are presented to the world.
The quiet one. It watches how weaving is used, and who uses it.
IX · The World
The great southern swamp of mangroves and stilt villages. Tala’s home, and the front line.
The corporate capital. Glass towers above, the docks of Blacktide Wharf below. Marek’s home.
A desert city of archivists. If it happened since the Onset, there is a scroll.
Sandstone cliffs at the edge of the map, where the strangest records are kept.
Salt-worn port towns painted bright, run on trade, and loyal to no one.
The grey place weavers mention only in whispers. Few claim to have seen it.
The Music
Original music from the world of Onset. The surface in wood and voices, the deep in drones.
The Series
A swamp prodigy, a wharf operator. What does it mean to be chosen?
Low Delta from the terraces down, and what being useful costs.
Every bond here was imposed. What does a bond freely made look like?
Back to the swamp where the world woke. The oldest living thing remembers.
A short film from the world of Onset
Anay harvests vine sap, the only medicine that eases her husband’s hands. Her mother knows how to make it stronger, and refuses to share it.
A standalone prequel story, set 150 years before the events of the Onset series.
For agents and producers
Three hundred years ago, the world woke up. Two ancient intelligences became aware, and a few humans learned to feel the lines that hold matter together. Now both intelligences are failing, and each has chosen a human voice: a swamp prodigy who can hear the forest her family is clearing, and an operator from the wharf no institution would have picked. They were told they would be enemies.
Four books, told as a prose series and a television series of approximately 50 to 56 episodes across four seasons.
The Leftovers, Andor, Severance, Arcane, Peaky Blinders. Literary lineage in Le Guin, Hobb, Jemisin, and Butler.
Sasha Samoilov and Dina Klarisse.
What exists today
Available on request
The pilot, the bible, and the pitch deck. We are seeking representation and a production partner for the series, and a publisher for the books.