Premise: Children of Metal is the story of bio-mechanically augmented children who covertly protect the world from dangerous technologies. 

SYNOPSIS:

Children of Metal is a television sci-fi action epic.

Our goal is to tell a story that shows the intersection of technology and power and how the two expose either the best or worst in human beings. While it’s true that technology has given us the ability to travel to the moon, cure diseases and connect like never before, it has also given us the nuclear bomb, mustard gas and chemical warfare. In this sense, technology becomes the perfect conduit to explore the nature of humanity—are we inherently brutal and self-serving or is our nature good and just?

At its core, Children of Metal is a coming of age story about a group of young heroes thrust into a world on the brink of either calamity or a golden age, where they have the power to tip the scales one way or another. The children are diverse and unique with often tragic backstories that illustrate the brutality and divisions that exist in our world.

Set in 2029, technology is used not only to improve or harm our world, but also to perfect ourselves... with potentially devastating consequences.

Driverless cars have resulted in massive unemployment, militaries outfit their soldiers with exoskeletons that grant super human strength and big pharma offers gene therapy to obliterate imperfections. In addition, machine learning is on the cusp of creating true artificial intelligence, neuroscientists have found a way to hack into our very thoughts and death itself is close to being defeated.

But where does this all lead and how do we manage a world of ever increasing haves and have- nots? To paraphrase the great Ian Malcolm of Jurassic Park—we’re spending too much time seeing if we can, and not enough time asking if we should.

Governments failed to debate these questions, despite many warnings from scientific leaders, and now it may be too late. Brimming beneath the surface are two groups that hold the fate of the world in their hands.

Our heroes...

The Children of Metal: an off the grid organization with no formal allegiances and one major governing principle—that it is the group’s responsibility to protect mankind from its undoing at the hands of technology. Comprised almost entirely of children, their leader, DR. NOLAN EVERETT, believes that while technology is pure, people will twist its power and use it to further the few as opposed to lift the many.

Dr. Everett started the group after he fled from the CRAFT (Coalition for the Radical Advancement for Future Technologies—more on them later). He left for a simple, but terrifying reason—he discovered that CRAFT was in fact a new-age eugenics project hell-bent on using technology to craft a new world order of genetically superior humans.

A brilliant scientist, Dr. Everett took with him many cutting-edge technologies, including: nanotechnology, 3D bio-printing, human augmentation and rudimentary artificial intelligence. Along with his brother, BRAGG EVERETT, and colleague, DR. CLARA LENNOX, the group rescued many children being used as human experiments by CRAFT and formed the Children of Metal.

Many of the children being used as test subjects had been abducted by CRAFT from areas of the world where strife is a normal part of life. As a result, many were orphans with missing limbs, eyes and debilitating conditions that CRAFT deemed unworthy.

While at CRAFT, Dr. Everett believed his research could be used to help the children. As a result the children he rescued, along with some he recruited, are now outfitted with augmented limbs, eyes and other enhancements that make them capable of more than the average human.

Dr. Everett realized he had to make a choice—stay off the grid and help those he could with the technologies he developed or use the augmented children to stop CRAFT from bringing about genocide. In the end, Bragg was the one that convinced him to use the children to combat CRAFT’s aims, which caused Dr. Lennox to leave the group to pursue her dream of bringing about a transhumanist future.

Our main characters are children just entering that age where they start to think and act like adults. What kind person do I want to be? How do I want to live my life? What do I believe in? A trying time to be sure and intensely magnified by being charged with keeping the world safe from dangerous technologies. To say these kids are under pressure would be an extreme understatement.

As a result, conflict routinely erupts between the group’s young members. A few feel that the group doesn’t do enough and should rise up as the world’s protector. Others are fiercely loyal to Dr. Everett and his vision and have elevated to near God-like status. And some just long for a chance to lead a normal life, with parents that love them, classes to attend and friends of their own choosing.

The group has two main squads of children—one led by Bragg and the other by a young adult named CONOR.

Bragg’s squad is comprised of PATRICK, VALENTINA and WILTON. While we’ll get more into their character bios later, this squad is the main source of antagonism within the Children of Metal. They adhere to Bragg’s militaristic background and objectives (even if they don’t all agree with it) and believe that force is the best way to handle situations.

Conversely, Conor’s squad, comprised of RUBEN, AYANA and LANCE, is the one we will identify most with in season one and follow their leader’s more compassionate and level-headed approach to their goals.

However, they all begin to question everything they’ve been led to believe. Ruben is impulsive and frequently draws the ire of not only his squadmates, but also Dr. Everett and Bragg. Ayana despises Valentina’s faith in religion while Patrick views himself as superior to everyone in the group. Lance longs for the life he had before, while Wilton just wants the chance to go his own way.

With tensions mounting, Dr. Everett struggles to control the group’s members and ultimately will fail to do so, creating an opportunity that they will be exposed to the world and more importantly, CRAFT, who will stop at nothing to destroy them.

Our villains...

CRAFT: operates from the shadows as an Illuminati type organization that serves as the world’s puppet master. They are a new age version of the eugenics movement made popular first in America and later by Nazi Germany. Instead of concluding that one race is superior to another, they believe that only people with superior genetic markers should receive the benefits of technology while “undesirables” are weeded out.

At the organization’s head is ALEXANDER CARMICHAEL, a ruthless and cunning scientist that sees himself as the godhead for human guided evolution.

CRAFT’s influence has seeped into the world’s governments, the health care industry and military all under the guise of being committed to mankind’s survival through the use of technology.

While it’s true that some of their research centers on ideas that would benefit all—such as: food printing, neural regeneration and reusable energy—they also delve into darker territory with sonic mind control, nanobots used to carry genetic plagues into the masses and tracking devices covertly implanted through food and water that decode the human genome. CRAFT then uses the data to decide who is worthy of their techno-fueled utopia.

CRAFT is clever about their pursuits and conceals their true intentions behind humanitarian and philanthropic goals. In fact, they use front organizations to carry out research and tests on unwitting subjects much like the US government did with the MKULTRA program. One such organization centered on helping children in troubled areas of the world and was used to abduct many of the same children that ended up in the Children of Metal.

With such influence and power, CRAFT represents a tremendous adversary for our young heroes and reflects the growing cultural divides we see in our world as the power of the elite grows and everyone else is marginalized and repressed.

The dramatic question...

Will the Children of Metal be able to protect the world from CRAFT? In this world, those that possess technology can control the world and shape it as they see fit.

While the Children of Metal’s intentions are good, they are not perfect and will splinter and fragment over the course of the show as the children rebel against their adult leaders. The children will be tempted by the power of technology using it for evil.

In this way, the role of technology on our show is a lot like the “force” in Star Wars—a power brimming with possibilities but with the ability to be used for the greatest good, or darkest evil.

The show draws on classics from the sci-fi genre: the pulse-pounding action and horror of The Terminator, the symbolism and philosophy of The Matrix, the class struggle of Metropolis, the perils of technology in 2001: A Space Odyssey and the existential cyberpunkness of Blade Runner. It also finds inspiration in video games such as Deus Ex: Human Revolution and Bioshock.