Cowboy inventor Zephram Cochrane creates a warp drive that will make his original design obsolete, far surpassing every known technology in the galaxy, but it will cost him everything he holds dear.

Summary

Before the NX.

There was the XCV.

Zephram Cochrane, the famous inventor of the warp drive that led to human first contact with the Vulcan race, has been developing the first starship humanity will use to travel the stars. Although he has achieved Warp 2 only a few years after his initial Phoenix test flight, Cochrane believes he can do better, go faster, perhaps even surpass their Vulcan allies in just a few years time.

Mounting pressure from the United Earth Space Probe agency, anxious to begin colonizing other worlds, causes Cochrane to install untested modifications to a ship carrying a friend on a mission of peace. The ship is lost with all hands. In response Zephram pushes the envelope of his influence and technology to it’s limits to create a new type of warp drive capable of covering vast distances in a matter of minutes.

Cochrane, known for being a cowboy, shirks off the advice of Vulcan counselors and human bureaucrats that feel humanity is progressing far too fast. Pushing his team well past their own fears and limits, Cochrane debuts his new interstellar vessel and warp drive system: The X.C.V. or The eXperimental Coaxial Vehicle.

Crewing the vehicle are the friends and loved ones of Cochrane and his team as Zephram has grown too old to fly such a mission himself. With the Vulcans and bureaucrats in tow the XCV sets off on it’s first Coaxial warp test.

After accelerating past the Vulcan’s own maximum of Warp 6 the X.C.V. enters coaxial warp and disappears into the galaxy, but, in an instant, the ship goes missing causing panic to break out.

XCV Promo

The modern interpretation of the X.C.V. These modern versions create their own story saying the ship was an early design that proved to be a technological dead end. To me the design is way too clean for pre-Federation technology.

If producing the movie I would want a rougher looking ship that has elements that are a reminiscent of a cross between the Pheonix and the NX Enterprise.

motion picture

The original appearance of the Matt Jeffries X.C.V. concept in Star Trek: The Motion Picture.

Writer’s Statement

Able Squad was conceptualized nearly two decades ago as a writing exercise with several friends that had come together as a filmmaking group. We took cues from the reimagining of Battlestar Galactica re-writing the original Exo-Squad cartoon from the ground up, turning it inside out along the way. We attempted to produce a writing project in as professional a manner as possible.

We created a writer’s room setting in my office and tried to form the ideas as a collective with myself acting as the showrunner. We would throw out ideas and keep notes on the best ones. I would try and guide the group to hone the story. The group and I hammered out a treatment within a few days. My writing partner and I wrote a first draft to get the ball rolling.

Many years later I took the best of the ideas from our work and completely re-wrote the script from the ground up. In preparation for making this portfolio website I revised the script once more adding some scenes throughout the pilot and punching up the conflict across the board. The pilot was split apart into two, two hour parts rather one three hour movie.

I wrote a complete writer’s bible explaining the world, characters, and future stories. As part of this portfolio development I created a “pitch bible” for the series as a full color briefing for readers that might be interested in the series as a speculative exercise to not only read the essential elements of the world but to glimpse the vision I have in my head for the complete series.

Materials

These are the documents that were created for this project. Hundreds of hours were invested into their creation.

In the past screenwriters and authors would make it a point of pride not to steal another person’s work. However, this new breed of screenwriter has no such honor. Due to the high level of theft that has happened I have removed all materials from the website. If you would like to explore these materials for business reasons please contact me for details from your organization e-mail address.

Screenplay

Pitch Bible

Writer’s Bible

Copyright Information

Story by Paul Pratt & Andrew McAlister and Justin Meadows, Screenplay Written By Paul Pratt

Based On Universal Cartoon Studios animated series “Exo-Squad” Created by Jeff Segal

Image Credits: drigzabrot (For Chronicles of the Void), Sheng Lam (Phasebook Device)

Resolute CGI: http://www.phoenixium.com/

Logo Created by Paul Pratt, Based on Exo-Squad Logo

Exo-Squad is property of NBCUniversal.