Genesis II Old TV Pilot

[Capt Gideon]

Genesis II was a made for TV movie by Gene Roddenberry that was done as a pilot for a possible new series in 1973 (yeah 40 years ago). The premiss of the movie was that a scientist named Dylan Hunt (a name Roddenberry would use again for his main character in the series Andromeda) was testing a new form of suspended animation in the Carisbad Caverns. An earthquake isolates the section of the caves he is in and he is not found for 154 years. He awakens to find that World War III has happened and the world has rebuilt into a very different place. I am sensing some similarities here.

Anyways, there are two key pieces of technology presented in the movie that are quite fun. In a recent episode of America's Book of Secrets one secret that was discuses was that of an underground railroad connecting U.S. military bases. In Genesis II had something very similar, the Sub-Shuttle. This was a Maglev-Vactrain (magnetic levitation rail system vacuum tube train) I did include this in one campaign world of 3rd Edition I ran that I borrowed heavily from the three TV pilot movies that were made (Genesis II, Planet Earth & Strange New World).

The other piece of technology from the movie Genesis II was a slave control weapon called the "Stim". This simple looking baton used "ultra-sonic" frequencies to stimulate either pain or pleasure sensations in who ever is touched. There are 8 intensity settings for each, pain and pleasure. While the Stim was non-lethal, prolonged use of high pain setting on a person with a weak heart could be fatal. Setting 8 of either pain or pleasure was completely incapacitating. Because of the sonic pain induction, there was no adjusting to it like a person can to normal pain. The same is true for the pleasure settings. It really is the ideal slave control weapon. This is the type of tech produced by the Rich-5 (KFS) and is traded to elite slavers with proven records and loyalty. Combined with tranquilizer dart guns it would work well at capturing and controlling new slave stock.

While I would recommend Genesis II, the two follow-on pilots (Planet Earth and Strange New World) were not as good and the last one Gene Roddenberry had nothing to do with.