A conceptual short film/music-video following a machine’s increasingly desperate journey as he struggles with his growing physical burden.
In a desolate, lifeless world a tree grows parasitically from within a dormant war-machine. Unexplainably the machine awakens lost and confused, deciding to follow a flock of birds. As the machine ventures towards his unknown destination the birds make their home in his tree, rendering the robot into a traveling microcosm. The birds breed and other feral animals begin to follow, however the tree continues to rapidly grow, and the machine struggles under its weight. The robot’s journey becomes increasingly dire, as the ominous tree makes his every step more difficult as time goes on, roots spreading to his joints, crushing his frame. He reaches his unknown destination, a coast of fertile soil, but the tree has become too enormous, the machine drags itself to the edge of a crater and pulls himself over, destroying what’s left of him in the process, but the tree remains, safe at the bottom, a shelter and home for the robot’s followers.
BACKSTORY
History of Earth
A few years from present day an unforeseen rapid decrease of resources affects the entire globe (due to a predicted decade-long heatwave). Society becomes increasingly desperate for basic necessities such as water and fossil fuels, countries started to work together, however it wasn’t too long before things began to appear hopeless. Even prior commonwealths and empires turned on each other. Of course, no one wanted to destroy resources of their enemies, so development began for non-explosive ‘invisible’ weaponry. Countries created gases that were designed to destroy specific DNA combinations, namely ‘C42VNM Gas’, bio-weapons which would target a selected race (ie, Asian, Caucasian, Arab).
Soon enough, leaders panicked, and what happened next was the most devastating, and shortest war of all time. Although military (and civil) combat took place C42VNM, much like every other Bio-weapon, completely backfired, not just affecting it’s supposed target, but all life. Wether it were human, animal or plant, everything burned, like being thrown in a pool of acid, everything died a torturous, slow death.
The C42VNM War lasted 6 hours – there were no survivors.
Physical conflict did happen, but most cities remained largely intact, abandoned by their people, left to crumble and erode with the soil, as the world became consumed with sand and dust.
The Robot – C42VNM-HAIDS J14.23
As mentioned previously, C42VNM was designed so only the ‘enemy’ was killed, without causing any physical damage to surrounding resources. Releasing the gas from planes wasn’t an option, as they needed to stall, and would therefore be shot down. Dropping C42VNM bombs wasn’t an option either, as due to not having any explosive qualities it was hard to infiltrate bunkers or structures.
So development began for C42VNM-HAID’s (Heavy Assault and Infiltration Drones) across the globe. HAID’s were un-manned heavy mobile tanks with basic AI, designed for being dropped out of aircraft and breaking into hideouts and communities to release the fatal gas, usually with cover from foot soldiers.
After the war C42VNM-HAID’s were left without orders in a dead world, they scattered, walking aimlessly for centuries as their mechanics slowly eroded. Others went into standby mode, waiting for orders that never came.
J14.23 was one of them, in standby mode for four hundred years, until he restarted, a malfunction due to a short circuiting caused by a seedling, growing from the C42VNM, unexplainably, life was now somehow immune to the once toxic chemical.
