THE EYE OF JUPITER

A UNIQUE PROJECT THAT COMBINES A SCIENCE-FICTION STORY WITH ROCK AND POP MUSIC THAT I HAVE CO-WRITTEN WITH MY EX-BANDMATE, JACK CLIMENT.

The recordings of all the songs are at the end of this page after the story. To jump to them click this link: #SONGS/RECORDINGS

Below are a synopsis of the story, the full story and finally, the songs

SYNOPSIS

Aarvil Longshadow is launched into space as the first human to travel outside our solar system. In a state of suspended animation, he has no idea his ship becomes disabled and roams aimlessly through space. A wandering society of shape-shifting servant robots, The Trels, come upon his ship and take Aarvil aboard their craft. Mission aborted, Aarvil wants to return to Earth and the Trels agree to take him there. During their journey, the Trels begin morphing into characters of old Earth movie and television stars they see as they follow the signals to locate Earth. As they reach Alpha Centauri, they learn while Aarvil was gone an evil alien overlord, Envartas, and his legion of troops have conquered Earth, murdered most and enslaved the survivors. Aarvil becomes an unlikely hero as he, JohnR, (a rebel who fought Envartas’ when he first arrived), JohnR’s daughter Dayna, and a small group of Trels attempt to carry out JohnR’s centuries-old plan to defeat Envartas and rid the Universe of him and his reign of terror, saving humanity from extinction in the process.

LOG LINES

If STAR WARS was a musical, it would be THE EYE OF JUPITER

Moulin Rouge in space

If THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW, STAR WARS and MOULIN ROUGE came together it would be called THE EYE OF JUPITER.

Science Fiction meets rock and roll – and the result is out of this world!

HOOK:

In a Star Wars-esque musical, a lone human, a local legend, his daughter and a rag-tag group of shape-shifting robots engage in a battle against a supreme overlord to save the universe. The story told in prose and song makes this a thrill-ride, audiences will love.

THE STORY

(SONGS ARE IN BOLD WHERE THEY APPEAR IN THE STORY)

In Earth Year 3272, the Trailblazer, the first hyper-drive starship capable of reaching other galaxies, was launched. It carried a Spacenaught, Aarvil Longshadow, and an advanced android that Aarvil named Galileo, who was made to look like the old astronomer. Their mission was to test the hyper-drive by warping to our closest solar neighbor, the Alpha Centauri triple star system, to determine if any of the planets circling the suns would be hospitable for human life. [HYPER TIME] [WHAT WILL WE FIND WHEN WE LAND?] [ALPHA CENTAURI]

Aarvil, in suspended animation during the trip, was unaware of it when a meteorite pierced the side of the ship and crushed Galileo, leaving nothing to navigate the ship or wake Aarvil from his hibernation. The impact crippled the ship and caused it to roam aimlessly through space for hundreds of years….with Aarvil in suspended animation.

Eventually, the drifting Trailblazer was sighted by a wandering society of small shape-shifting robots, the Trels who headed their own ship, The Equinox, toward it. [THE TRELS]

The Trels had been servants to the Cleunans, a highly advanced humanoid-like race. When the Cleunans evacuated their planet, as their sun neared its nova point, they set the Trels free and launched them into deep space on the Equinox. 

When the Trels reached and boarded the Trailblazer they awoke Aarvil and transported him to the Trelship. Once aboard the Equinox, they told Aarvil about the Cleunans (who they resembled  having taken on their human-like features but with three eyes, one ear and flatter faces). They also told him that they were called Trels because they were Thinking Robotic Enhanced Lifeforms. Then Aarvil explained to the Trels who humans were and what had happened to him. The Trels, being good robot servants, told Aarvil that they would try to take him back to his mother planet, Earth. 

But they all had a problem: the Trels had no idea where Earth was, and Aarvil had no idea where in the universe they were.

The Trels and Aarvil roamed and searched the universe hoping to find some clue to where Earth was. During this time that they looked for Earth, the Trels and Aarvil bonded.  One Trel shape-shifted into Aarvil’s features and Aarvil was surprised when he saw a smaller semi-robotic version of himself.

And then on one otherwise inauspicious moment a human image appeared on the Equinox’s’ scanners.

It was an early television broadcast from 20^th Century Earth, which had diffused into space. 

The Equinox locked onto its coordinates and began to follow the television beam to its source, using it as an intergalactic homing signal.

Through the time it took to reach Earth, the Trels, who had no individual identities of their own, emulated more and more the humans they saw on the display scanners. As a result the Trels took on the identities and looks of Humphrey Bogart, Lucille Ball, Milton Berle, Donald Duck, John Wayne, Groucho Marx, Tom Cruise, Starsky & Hutch, Julius Caesar, Archie Bunker, Bozo the Clown, Howdy Doody, Lady Gaga, Clint Eastwood, Neil Armstrong, Elvis Presley, and hundreds of other television and movie stars and public figure celebrities; something that was both pleasing and humorous to Aarvil. 

By the time they reached the Alpha Centauri star system, Aarvil’s original destination, they caught up with the latest transmissions from Earth…. and from other sources within the Sol System. From those OmniCasts, the Trels and Aarvil learned that a society of intergalactic savage warrior overlords, the Envartans, led by their Supreme Overlord Envartas, had come to the Sol System and attacked and overran Earth and all humans. 

The Envartans travelled throughout the Universe conquering, murdering and subjugating all sentient beings they encountered, and then left to find newer solar systems to conquer, while leaving behind Sentries to control the beings in the solar systems they had taken over and ruled. Envartas told his legions that his goal was to rule every inhabitable solar system that he came across throughout the Universe and to control all of the useable resources they had.

Aarvil and the Trels saw the Envartans arrive in their Arkship, which they attached to Jupiter with Energy Beams. The Arkship, soon referred to as the planet Envarta by the remaining humans,  became the fourth largest body in the solar system. Unfortunately, this new planetary presence upset the angular balance of the Sol system causing massive changes in weather conditions, positioning, axis tilt and other phenomena on all of Sol’s planets. 

Earth quickly was thrown off its axis and was engulfed by two ice regions that covered everything but a few-mile-wide strip of livable land at the equator. In the process most humans were killed by the cold and advancing ice. 

Those who survived the ice and cold battled the Envartans hoping to defeat them and drive them out of the solar system. That group of insurgents was led by a man named JohnR, who fought hard to defeat the Envartans and Envartas. 

Unsuccessful in their attempts, JohnR and his followers were captured, their families were tortured and killed as symbolic gestures, and JohnR was blinded.  The Envartans then slaughtered all but a few thousand humans, who they then indentured as their subjects.

JohnR managed to escape the Envartans with the assistance of his daughter Dayna and went into hiding. He told his closest allies that he had a plan to defeat Envartas but could not carry it out because he was now blind and did not have a Starship capable of doing what had to be done to carry out the plan.

The Envartans, who brought many of their subjects with them – species they had conquered on other planets in other galaxies – installed them on Earth, Venus and Mars and on moons of Saturn, Neptune, and Uranus. They made each of those  atmospheres Earth-like. The alien Envartan warriors ruled over the remaining Humans who lived on Earth and those planets and moons, and kept them in line for their master, Envartas. 

Over countless generations much of human history was lost, destroyed by the Envartans or buried under the ice. Those humans who survived, and lived in that tropical belt, knew only word-of-mouth stories, or myths as some called them, of what human life had been like on Earth prior to humans being indentured by The Envartans. With humans having previously developed means to have near-immortality, the remaining humans were faced with a long period of servitude and cruelty.

Learning of, and seeing, Envartas’ savagery and strength, the Trels and Aarvil decided not to venture any closer to the Sol system than Alpha Centauri, where they landed on the fourth planet and set up a domed multi-city society.

While they were there, Aarvil studied the transmissions to see if he could find anything useful to use against the Envartans to help the surviving humans. He also scoured through the Trels’ Transpedia, an archive that recorded everything that the Trels encountered and came across, like the transmissions. As Aarvil was looking through the Transpedia files, he learned of JohnR and his plan. In addition, along with Trel Albert Einstein who was monitoring the transmissions for the Trel Council, Aarvil also stumbled upon an Envartan Commander notifying Envartas that they needed to fix an issue with one of their Outer Asteroid Stations that monitored and guarded the edge of the solar system because it lost all communication ability when Pluto eclipsed it from the sun.

One day, Trel Einstein intercepted an alarming transmission that emanated from Envartan Command saying that Envartas would shortly be launching an expedition to Alpha Centauri. He pointed it out to Aarvil and then reported it to the Trel Council, which called a planet-wide meeting. They told all the Trels what Einstein and Aarvil had learned and announced that they must all evacuate Alpha Centauri Three and leave for another galaxy immediately.

Aarvil stood up to the Council and challenged them, saying that instead of leaving they should find a way to go the Sol system and defeat Envartas. He related the information that he had learned about JohnR, who Aarvil believed was still alive on Earth, and that he had a plan of how to destroy Envartas. Aarvil told the Trels that he wanted to find out exactly what the plan was and carry it out. [I BELIEVE IN FREEDOM]

He also told them that he had discovered a way to get through the Envartan Defense Barrier, telling them about that the Envartan Asteroid Station that guarded one edge of the solar system was eclipsed twice a year by the planet Pluto, and when that happened its external communication was cut off for thirty Earth minutes, and it had no communication possibilities. And that event was occurring the next day.

When the Trels and the Council didn’t agree with him and told the Trels to make evacuation preparations [IT DOESN’T STAND A CHANCE] , Aarvil and his two closest Trel friends, Humphrey Bogart and Groucho Marx stole a Trel Starcruiser and set off to go to Earth to find JohnR. [MY EARTH]

Aarvil believed that the Station could be easily overtaken and disabled, and that he and the Trels could stay undetected during the time its communications were off. Aarvil set a warp course to the Envartan Asteroid Station, which they reached just as it was being eclipsed by Pluto.

When the Station’s communications went down its emergency generators turned on, but they weren’t able to power up their VisuScreens or communications modules, just as the Envartan Commander had reported.

Aarvil used this to his advantage as he blasted the Station’s communications and landing ports and permanently disabled them. Then he and the Trels warped toward Earth. [I’M FLYING]

When they reached Earth, they landed in the midst of a celebration – a forced tribute to Envartas. [ENVARTAN ANTHEM] Once in the town, they began their search for JohnR, slowly and carefully asking humans if they knew him or his whereabouts. 

Most of the Humans they met claimed not to have known of JohnR, others told them he was long dead, some believed that the Envartans had taken him prisoner, while others said he had gone insane.[HE’S MAD]

An attractive young woman grabbed Aarvil’s arm and asked him who he and the Trels were and why they wanted to find JohnR. Aarvil quickly related their story to her and told her that he wanted to speak with JohnR about the old plan that JohnR had devised to defeat Envartas. Then he asked the woman if she knew if JohnR was still alive.

“Yes, he is,” she told them, “He’s my father.” I can take you to him, but we must be careful. My name is Dayna.”

Aarvil, Humphry, and Groucho followed the young woman until they reached a house on a side alley. She took them inside, and they met JohnR in a hidden basement. After introductions were made Aarvil told JohnR how they had disabled the Envartan Station and why they had come to Earth. 

JohnR responded to Aarvil, [THAT’S QUITE A STORY YOU TELL] confirming that  his eyes had been blinded by Envartas as punishment for his leading  the Resistance and a rebellion against him. JohnR said that he had never lost his hatred for Envartas or the memory that all humans had been free before the Envartans came. He confirmed that he did once have a plan to defeat Envartas, but that he was never able to carry it out because of his blindness. He told them that he didn’t have the ability or means to do anything about the Envartans and hadn’t for ages.

Aarvil asked what the plan was and if it would still work.

JohnR told Aarvil that the plan would still work. He said that the Eye of Jupiter is a natural opening to the planet’s lower layers. If Aarvil could find enough Zircanium243 and drop it into the Eye it would descend into Jupiter’s liquid nitrogen level and set off a chain reaction that would overheat the energy beams holding the Envartan Arkship in place, and then it would explode and be destroyed.

JohnR told them that his old scientist friend, Jax, a human who pretended to be an Envartan ally, would know where to find a mass of Zircanium243. JohnR said that Jax was working on the Pleasure Moon that circled Saturn and told them to take Dayna with them as she’d be able to get them through the Envartan checkpoints at the Pleasure Moon.

Aarvil, Dayna, Humphrey and Groucho set off for Saturn and when they landed on the Pleasure Moon, they made their way to Jax’s residence. Groucho was dazzled by the barrage of wonders that were on the artificially-created pleasure satellite; Voolians dancing bare, Solar Wind rides, Orgo mind touches, Aqua Haze baths, Krypton waterfalls and Saturn Ring simulations. [COME HAVE A GOOD TIME]

They met Jax at his house, where he told them how he met JohnR, and then revealed that Zircanium243 was a very rare element only found in asteroids. He said that he had determined that a Zircanium243-laden asteroid was coming into the Sol system in the next five Earth days. [JAX, JOHNR & THE PLAN]

Jax told Aarvil that it might be possible to divert the asteroid down Jupiter’s Eye. He added that how to do that was far too complex a problem for him, but the answer could be computed by the Envartan Master Central Control Compubanks, known as the MCC Galcticutor, which they would need to tap into somehow. 

Aarvil contacted JohnR and told him what Jax had told them. JohnR related that only the Envartans knew the codes that would gain access to the MCC Galacticutor. “However,” JohnR told Aarvil, “There’s an Envartan junkyard moon called Robot City where we might find an outdated scrapped KwizL-L unit that was once used by the Envartans to repair and update the MCC units. Maybe we could program it into revealing the information we need.”

JohnR started to get so excited that there was a chance that his long-ago-developed plan could work that he told Aarvil and Dayna that he would meet them at Robot City. He would venture out in disguise and borrow a small spacecraft. From a long-time friend who was also a resistance fighter when Envartas arrived. 

Aarvil, Dayna, Humphry and Groucho boarded Dayna’s starship and flew to Robot City.

As they were approaching the moon, Envartan Command picked up the ship on their Monitors and started evaluating what an unknown, unauthorized ship was doing there. Unable to make a specific determination they dispatched two Envartan SolarCruisers to Robot City to investigate. [ROBOT CITY]

Aarvil and Dayna reached Robot City at the same time as JohnR. All of them were unaware that the Envartans were on their way there too.

Aarvil, Dayna, Groucho and Humphry began the arduous task of sorting through thousands of computers, robots and other pieces of outdated machinery and electronics, until they finally found a KwizL-L that would power up.

Unfortunately, they were unable to get it to reveal any of the information they needed. In desperation, JohnR re-programmed both the KwizL-L unit and Humphrey so that they would “fall in love with each other.” The shock of feeling emotion jarred the KwizL-L’s circuits and it revealed the data about the MCC and the codes to access it. It also told them that the MCC Terminal had been moved to Venus.

Groucho, on lookout duty, spotted the arrival of the Envartan SolarCruisers and alerted everyone. The KwizL-L and Humphrey decided to stay in Robot City to be with each other. 

Dayna’s and JohnR’s ships took off and watched as the SolarCruisers blasted Robot City and blew it up.

Aarvil, incensed at the loss of his friend Humphrey, turned Dayna’s ship on the SolarCruisers and destroyed them both.

They all then flew to the MCC Terminal on Venus. Once at the Terminal, they put in the codes and the MCC began to compute how and when to direct a Stasus Beam at the asteroid to divert it into the proper trajectory to fall into the Eye of Jupiter.

While the MCC was doing its calculations and computations, Envartan Command noted an unscheduled load and activity in the MCC system. They traced the origin to Venus, and just as JohnR was receiving the last of the information, the Envartans identified the Terminal he was using, and had the Central System replay the data it had supplied to him. [MCC TERMINAL]

Aarvil and JohnR decided that JohnR and Groucho should fly back to Earth together, to carry out a new part of the plan – the evacuation of humans from Earth to the safety of Alpha Centauri.  Once JohnR and Groucho landed, they rounded up the few thousand remaining humans and boarded them into a hyper drive ship that had been hidden under the ice and then they all warped to Alpha Centauri.

Aarvil and Dayna flew Dayna’s ship back to Alpha Centauri and found they were very attracted to each other and fell in love during the trip. When they reached Centauri, Aarvil told Dayna that in three days he would warp back to the Sol System to carry out JohnR’s plan and destroy Envartas, but that he wanted to spend all his time with her until then. [TAKE ME AWAY LADY]

Dayna told Aarvil she felt the same way about him, and then related that she was having second thoughts about him going back to the Sol System. She told Aarvil that there was nothing she would like better than to see Envartas destroyed but fighting him had already cost her her mother, and her father was blinded and had to spend his life in hiding., and she didn’t want to lose another person she loved. She urged Aarvil to reconsider his decision to try to destroy Envartas and instead both to leave with the Trels and the rest of the humans and find a new home far away from Envartas. Aarvil told her he felt compelled to rid the universe of Envartas and that no place would be safe from him eventually, and this was something he had to do. [COME WITH ME MY LOVE]

During the time that Aarvil was waiting to leave to divert the asteroid, Envartas was alerted to what the MCC Terminal had revealed about the vulnerability of the Arkship’s beams and ordered two Starfighters to accompany the asteroid when it entered the solar system. He told them to destroy any unauthorized ship they encountered. [HEAR ME COMMAND]

The day before Aarvil was to leave, he and Dayna attended a meeting that the Trels and humans were having to finalize the plans to evacuate the Centauri system. 

Shortly after they left for the gathering, JohnR asked Groucho if he would be his “eyes” and guide him to Aarvil’s house. Groucho asked why they were going there rather than to the meeting and JohnR told Groucho he had “something special to do there.” When Groucho asked what that was, JohnR said, “it makes no matter, just guide me there.” Groucho got indignant and said that if JohnR wanted his help, he’d have to tell him why they were going to Aarvil’s house… or he wouldn’t take him.

Getting frustrated, JohnR said, “I thought you were built to help out. Help me out,” but Groucho responded, “I will serve you and I will assist you, but I will not do so blindly.” Then Groucho thought about what he had just uttered and said, “Oh my. If I had skin like humans, I’m sure it would be turning red. I did not mean to insult you JohnR.”

John R told Groucho that he took no offense at his remark and then told him, “Aarvil was a Spacenaught. Not a fighter. I am concerned for his life. He still has many years to live and to be happy together with my daughter. On the other hand, I am an old sightless man and I am tired of being in hiding. But even more importantly, it is my fight with Envartas, not Aarvil’s, and I am going to go and be the one who destroys Envartas. It is my plan and I am going to be the one to carry it out.”

When Groucho asked what that had to do with going to Aarvil’s house, JohnR told him that he had brought along a vial of sleeping powder when he evacuated the humans from Earth, and he was going to mix it into Aarvil’s Venusian Brine so that when he and Dayna drank it that night, they would both be knocked out and miss the window to encounter the asteroid. “I will go in Aarvil’s place while he is passed out and destroy Envartas myself,” JohnR told Groucho.

“I do not approve of that,” Groucho told JohnR, “but if your mind is set on doing that, I will assist you.” 

Groucho then led JohnR to Aarvil’s house, and after making certain no one was home, they went inside and JohnR spiked the carafe of Brine and mixed the powder in so that it was not visible. They left as quickly as they had entered, leaving no signs that they had been there.

While they were leaving, Groucho noticed the bed in the house and asked JohnR what it was for. JohnR explained that it was for sleeping and a place to make love. Groucho told JohnR, “For the short time that we recharge each day, we sit on the ground and have no need for an appurtenance to hold us up. I prefer our way of rejuvenating to the human method, but…” Groucho then became a bit downcast, “We have nothing that approximates human physical intimacy and what you call sex. From the transmissions we watched during our journey here, it looked like it is a very pleasant thing to do. I wish there was a way we could have that experience.”

JohnR sympathized with Groucho and told him, “Possibly one day you will, but for now, we must go and destroy Envartas or there will be none of us left to find out.”

Later that evening, when Aarvil and Dayna returned to Aarvil’s home from the meeting, Aarvil exclaimed how certain he was that Envartas had to be destroyed. Dayna pleaded with him to stay with her and not risk his life. They continued to debate that while they consumed their dinner and the Venusian Brine. Once they finished the meal, Dayna turned on some romantic music and asked Aarvil if he would dance with her, hoping that that physical contact would help her change his mind about going. 

While they were tightly holding on to each other and swaying to the sounds of a Martian Xylute player, they both became overcome with tiredness. First Dayna, and then Aarvil, sagged to the ground and passed out.

While that was happening, JohnR enlisted Groucho once again, this time to guide him to the starship hovering area. When they arrived Groucho informed JohnR that there was a maneuverable Trel FighterShip docked there that was fully prepared to warp. JohnR thanked Groucho for all he had done for him and told Groucho he needed his help for one last thing – to navigate the ship and do the fighting since he had no sight.

When Groucho said he had no training in combat flying, another Trel, Tom Cruise, who was positioned nearby them spoke up and told JohnR he was the top Trel fighter pilot, saying, “I’m better at flying than Neil Armstrong or anyone else on this planet. What’s the mission?” After JohnR told him, what it was Tom Cruise said he would accompany JohnR, navigate the ship and do the fighting.

JohnR and Tom Cruise warped to meet the asteroid, and when they arrived, they encountered the two Starfighters and destroyed them both.

Upon learning of both the Starfighters demise and also that all the humans had vanished from Earth, Envartas commanded five more Starfighters to intercept the asteroid, and he also ordered that Earth be blown up – which it was. [BLOW IT UP!]

Tom Cruise reported to JohnR that Earth was gone [I CAN’T BE WRONG, I CAN’T BE RIGHT] and also that there were five Envartan fighter ships approaching them. He was able to destroy three of the ships, and then JohnR devised a plan of how to get the two remaining Envartan ships to blow each other up while thinking they were blowing up the Trelship.

While this maneuvering was occurring, the clock was counting down the time to the moment that JohnR had to fire the Status Beam to divert the asteroid down to the eye of Jupiter.

Tom Cruise, following JohnR’s plan, positioned their ship so that they were between the two Envartan starfighters. At the exact moment they turned to blast the Trelship, Tom Cruise put the ship into warp reverse and the Envartan ships fired on each other.

With the clock ticking down, Tom Cruise, who had been injured by one of the Envartan attacks, raced to reposition the Trelship to the Stasus Beam firing location. 

He gave JohnR the honor of firing the Stasus Beam, which squarely hit the asteroid. Its trajectory changed, and it flew directly down the center of Jupiter’s Eye.

Within seconds of the asteroid’s disappearance into the atmosphere of the planet, Envarta’s Energy Beams began to glow red and then quickly overheated, and then the entire Arkship exploded.

With Envartas destroyed, Tom Cruise “dying,” Earth gone and JohnR unable to pilot the ship he abandoned it and floated off into space, crying out that he was going “home” to join Earth in the cosmos.[OPEN UP THE SKIES]

Back on Alpha Centauri, when Aarvil and Dayna awoke, Groucho told them everything that JohnR had done, and related that Tom Cruise’s last transmission described how JohnR had committed suicide. As Dayna grieved for the loss of her father, she and Aarvil joined the Trels and humans in a celebration of the demise of Envartas and the Envartans. 

The Trel Council leaders apologized to Aarvil for doubting him and the plan. They told Aarvil and Dayna that the Trels wanted to remain on the planet to build a new combined society of humans and Trels, “We Trels are designed and built to assist and help other beings, and that is what we will do for you humans – and, possibly one day, we may find a way to integrate human genes and Trel circuits and create a new species that we could call Tremans or Humrels. Ideally those beings would be a combination of Trel logic, helpfulness and changeability with human feelings, appearance, and sensuality.”

Groucho chimed in, smiling, “And we Trels would find out what it feels like to make love. I can’t wait!”

Aarvil and Dayna hugged each other, laughed, and told Groucho, “We hope you do. Love, it’s the best feeling in the world.”

At the end of the celebration, the Trels and Humans unanimously named the planet that was to be the permanent home for all of them, Earth Centauri. [LET’S ALL HAVE A GOOD TIME]

SONGS/RECORDINGS

THE SONGS BELOW ARE IN THE ORDER THEY APPEAR IN THE STORY. THESE ARE UNMIXED DEMOS OF THE SONGS. MOST ARE SUNG BY Jake Howard.

HYPER TIME
Context: Aarvil, the story’s main character, and an android that he named Gallileo are in the first-ever hypertime starship and are starting their journey to Alpha Centauri. To the scientists on Earth they just disappear, but to Aarvil and Gallileo they are blasting through space-time.
Character singing the song: Aarvil & Galileo