TEN % MAX
Limited Series
A clandestine team of neuroengineers is plotting secretly to use fine-tuned satellite broadcasts of a symphony of microwave frequencies to alter the brain's amygdala in target populations, supposedly to reduce violence and greed – and save humanity from destroying itself.
Running five to ten years ahead of current academic research, TEN % MAX dramatically forecasts a predicament where the good guys decide they must do something really bad in order to avert planetary disaster. They've just perfected the required breakthrough bio-tech and delivery system, they have tenuous presidential support and the guts to pull off their good-guy terrorist intent –
But they start fighting dangerously with each other about which populations to target. And now - who are the bad guys really? Thus the explosive moral and physical conflicts this 3-episode miniseries must resolve. (Based on the novel, this story can also be told in a tight feature-film format.)
INTERNATIONAL GOODGUY TERRORISTS
Ursula Traeger, a remarkable Scandinavian bio-inventor, has perfected a satellite-based microwave broadcast that can reduce or even permanently eliminate violent impulses in the brain. Undetected by government and medical watchdogs, she and her team now have everything in place to manifest their planetary eradication of negative emotions. And look out – in four days, on Easter Sunday, they’re going to act!
Teddy Hagenbach (with high hints of Elon Musk and Richard Branson) has inherited his father's massive communications corporation. He's secretly working with America's president’s chief of staff to green-light Ursula's satellite broadcasts. A powerhouse, he constantly tries to dominate the team with capitalist (and racist) manipulations.
Damek (Ursula’s spiritual master at his remote Black Forest ashram) has funded the illegal human-subject fMRI research –and intends to grab control and decide who gets targeted for non-local treatment.
Jack Hadley, the struggling hero of the series, (whose father invented the technology and then got murdered) is the convoluted conscience of the story. He's torn between two women, not to mention his missing wife. Still, everything seems set to proceed as planned – but then all hell breaks loose.
Ayasha O'Conner, investigative filmmaker, maneuvers her way into the micro-Zap plot, gets intimate with Jack, bangs heads with Teddy - and stirs up the plot to the breaking point, nearly getting herself zapped in the process.
And then there's Ahmad Rah - he's the terrorist who gets zapped in the final test of the TOUCH treatment ... and he becomes a powerful presence in the film because he is indeed transformed! All the way through the film, Ahmad provokes deep conflict and also hope - but do we all want to be like him, losing much of our human emotional punch in the name of eliminating our worst traits?
EASTER SURPRISE
Moving from the Near East to Europe to Washington D.C. and finally to the secret base in coastal California, TEN % MAX reveals from the inside-out how ultimately dangerous such a good-guy terrorist act can suddenly become. During the final days, Jack and Ursula and their tech team get caught up in a convoluted subterfuge of decision-making, power plays, and emotional drama that explodes into a truly jolting climax.
Teddy is a closet racist – he wants to zap everybody except whites with the aggression-reduction treatment. Jack’s Apache lover wants to zap all except indigenous peoples. The President insists that only terrorist leaders and rogue heads of state be zapped. Ursula wants to zap only men - and Jack wants everybody equally treated with a very mild version of the satellite broadcast – or no one at all.
But as Ursula makes her own last-minute changes, her spiritual master Damek suddenly attacks the operation center to force his will on the group and the whole world. This is mature NCIS/style suspense at its very best – believable, scary and fast-paced, but also perplexing and emotionally engrossing. Similar to DON'T LOOK UP but with more ethical and relationship depth, TEN % MAX dramatizes a disaster-transformation scenario that could very possibly happen to us all if we don't collectively get more heads-up.
And yes, beyond all that deep stuff it's also just a great entertaining series! For the detailed Series Proposal
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