Movie Review: The Numbers Station

Premise:  Hardboiled but troubled CIA field agent is assigned to manage a small CIA shortwave radio broadcast station and must pull it together when things go awry.

The Actors: John Cusak, Malin Ackerman and Liam Cunningham (Sir Davos on Game of Thrones).
The Characters (respectively): Emerson Kent, Katherine, Grey.

Katherine is the rather wide-eyed civilian broadcaster who is somewhat in denial about what she does and fantasizes about the missions she is handing out.

Emerson is still shaken from Grey murdering an innocent girl to close the loose ends on a previous assignment (one of the numbers from a station like the one he is now manning).  Grey is promoted and gets him this job as a favor...and also so the agency simply doesn't off his former partner (he knows too much).

Cut to the bunker: They are leaving their 2 day shift for a weekend off and we are introduced to their shift alternates who are basically nothing more than red-shirts.  There is not enough time to develop their characters other than that they are both young though obviously the man is older in this case and through Emerson's eyes we see that they are in a relationship.  Though natural one can see disapproval in Emerson's eyes.

So we get some more of his mental anguish and drinking in a short cut-scene (thank the editor gods for that).  Then moving on he picks her up at the train station as usual.  They arrive at the bunker and see their alternate's transportation is still there...which at this point shouldn't be unmanned.  Then the attack begins and we go through a series of stages including investigation and they find out that even their emergency hardline is compromised.  Eventually our protagonists succeed, and not only are all of the antagonists dead (save one technically) but Emerson reveals that Katherine saved Grey's life.  Grey still wanted to kill her up until this reveal and gives them 10 days to disappear.


Movie Characteristics:

Location: Suffolk England @ WW2 US Army Base - Retrofitted Radio Bunker
Cinematography:  Good use of lighting for the mood and setting.  Dramatic rather than functional.  Adds to the stress of the situation.  The steady rather than shaky cam

Character development:  Emerson basically grows a backbone.  As for whether or not he's developed feelings for Katherine...it could be mostly a father-daughter relationship in his mind but he does care for her.  Grey is nearly a perfect sociopath, but he still values loyalty and since Emerson is loyal (though broken) he rewards that.  He knows how to manipulate and to what extent he can get away with emotional control.  Emerson would have been too much of a problem if he'd refused to let Katherine walk.

Katherine makes the heroine mistake of leaving the secured room at one point to make the broadcasts stopping the assassinations of CIA and other intelligence officials.  She gets a bullet as a reward but lives thanks to Emerson's persistence and timely crashing into a hospital parking lot (he was also shot by the final villain on the way out...jacking his car).

The movie is decent, though the suspense is a bit light.  The shady underbelly of the intelligence world only glimpsed rather than confronted.  But the veteran character's animosity towards his own people begins to show.  The psychologist examining him at the beginning says that "We're not sociopaths".  Obviously she is cajoling him.  A sociopath would have been fine with their activities and the protagonist isn't any longer.  He is detached...but not that distant.  He has a code; grown-ups have had their time and crossing with him is their last mistake.  Kids to him are off-limits or at least should be.  The CIA in this movie obviously feels that not only are domestic black bag operations acceptable but that its ok to murder innocent children to cover up an op's existence.

It is heavy handed but a movie like this has a screen play fit for future TV adaptation.  The Numbers Station has a great premise to build either a limited run mini-series or single season show on...or a longer multi-season (3-5 seasons).

I'd re-imagine it this way:
Post movie consequences - fallout from the destruction of this radio base leads to the upending of a conspiracy internally where a few low level CIA officials have been fired and disappeared...a new radio station opens in a different part of England (where of course our protagonists will be stationed...but for the pilot we have a cold open on a similar incident taking place...setting off another round of assassinations.)

This time Grey bites the dust.   The series will actually follow 2x sets of protagonists each getting an episode or half episode of time.  Some will run concurrently and others will be in serial.  The opening and closing credits will tell another story via a silent movie like method.  Putting together the credits from across a season will tell a story that is its own that could be self-contained or connect events otherwise only alluded to during the regular season.

Moving forward - post cold open and post credits we are introduced to our first new sets of protagonists.  This will be done with a similar psychologist interviewing them after previous assignments that have all taken a toll (for the 2 station chiefs).  For the civilians...like in the movie they will either be college drop-outs or hired straight out of college.  Complete civilians with minimal skills though they may have been to the farm for cursory training as analysts (replete with basic survival skills).

Each shift won't meet until the third episode during shift change.  Episode 2 will follow them on initial move-in and simple assignment broadcasting.  Episode 2 will show the second shift team doing prep-work and at the end of the show it will be a quick scene showing them being followed and chronicled by someone(s).

As the season draws on another station could be shown to be hit in a cold open by unknown people.  However life for our protagonists goes on fairly normal though they may notice being followed or something else.  One shift will be more open and another more coy.  Eventually they will leave messages for each other.  And following that...they will be attacked separately (but will persevere) and then they will be sharing ciphers.

They will work separately on pieces of the puzzle. And only get a peek at the conspiracy.  The conspiracy will take a bigger stage in season 2 as some episodes will focus more on that aspect.  Even here however the full extent won't be revealed with only 3-5 of the episodes having this as central.  The two teams will be growing closer but hiding it from their superiors.  This will keep them safe for the moment though more attempts on their station will be attempted.

Season 3 will kick off with a 2 part 2 hour show.  The first part will be much like the film with a siege of the installation with the second part being the relief but deepening of the conspiracy.  Their superiors will praise them for defending the installation without a compromise like we have seen happen in other places...but its a gambit...the team is split up...new stations for each pair with 3rd and 4th set added.  The 3rd and 4th set are conspirators.  conspiracy fun time!  As each original team watches the news in their off hours they see important people being assassinated world wide including congressmen and at least one important cabinet member.  Things are getting worse.  Season 3 will end with the death of the President...killed by his own secret service detail.

Season 4 kicks off with a presidential funeral, but then cuts back to the more hum-drum life of broadcasting numbers.  The conspiracy teams return and the assassinations stop.  The new President (VP whoever) is in power and things calm down.  Each *protagonist* team begins to put pieces together.  Each antagonist team begins to suspect that part of the jig is up.  Season 4 will concentrate on protagonist teams building allies in their off hours rather than on the numbers.  More action here a-la covert affairs with cross channel-tunnel action in Paris as well as England and Scotland.  Season 4 will end with each protagonist team blowing up their stations and going rogue for season 5..the final season each team with half a cipher...fighting to get to each other.

Season 5:  The cipher if united and used will lay out the final stages for a series of assassinations bringing unwanted people to power.  If the protagonists fail...WW3 will start.  If they succeed the USA will be rocked to the core and perhaps start another revolution.  Scenes of Tea Party protests and Snowden protests will be shown as well as Occupy and WTO protests for stock footage.  Police brutality clips and others will be used as filler.

This season will let the viewers vote on either a failure ending or a success at the end of each episode.  There will be no credits for this season like in past seasons.  Only a quick abbreviated credits black screen at the end.  The ending itself will take the form of a 21 minute credit sequence that is entirely silent.

DVD or special digital download will include the alternate ending. as well as bonus footage...commentary on every episode by each director, the executive producer and at least one star of that episode.  Behind the scenes gag reels and *making of* will be included.  Special options will be the actual dialogue from the silent scenes that was recorded but left out.

Net Runner - The Reality

Many of us nerds have either played or at least heard of the game Net-Runner.  This is part of the Cyberpunk genre of games and literature.  A great deal of this comes from watching the pace of technology accelerate and also combining it with the political perceptions of the late 1970's and early 1980's in a critical and dystopian manner.

The reality is that we do live in a crapsack world governed mainly by well capitalized interests and corrupt government officials acting mostly in cooperation if not outright coordination/collusion.

• LIBOR rate rigging
• FOREX (foreign currency exchange) Rigging
• Gold and Silver (really all metals) market rigging - nevermind the aluminum cartel

That is all just the tip of the iceberg in terms of what a crapsack world we really live in.  We all buy the sausage, but few of us are aware of how it is made and how many dirty hands touch it before it reaches our collective mouths.

On to the actual point of things!

Technology is advancing rapidly though asymmetrically.  Intel is busy pushing the next generation of connectivity alongside Google.  Intel's SD-card sized computer is in the works, though the current generation uses an Atom processor rather than a Quark processor.  This is done mostly for performance reasons, but leaves it bulkier than the original design called for.

 

The above picture is a reference design to show where things are headed soon.  It has wireless connectivity, runs a linux OS, and is a developer board.  This means that it is for the use of others to make applicable to our lives.  Chips like this can be fitted into any number of items from shoes and other apparel to making an extremely efficient distributed computer system embedded in a soldier's body armor, part of a police uniform or even helping you and your friends create a "personal-LAN".

Imagine integrating these connectivity devices with other wearables like google glass and using an encrypted connection and some VPN software having your own private communications system all hands free.

what you have here is the beginnings of the Star Trek Next Generation comm badge at the very least.  It would be able to provide GPS coordinates, link up and have its power augmented/supplemented by other devices, used as part of a personal ID system that replaces credit/debit cards and passports and driver ID's.

this little device could replace all of your miscellaneous identification and payment devices.  You won't need it implanted a la mark of satan..simply having it as part of a wrist watch device would be enough.  Cover it in an OLED screen and you have a functional watch tied to the system clock that updates via the nuclear clock over your now permanent internet connection.

The internet is also about to become free - as satellites are about to be launched in the next few years to broadcast internet connectivity world wide.  At first connection speeds may be slow and latency high.  But over time we will have a dick-tracy video/ radio watch.

The internet of things will quite literally let us perform miracles.

Back on to what it can do for soldiers.

• Provide a local network for communications that is short range and encrypted
• Use other wearable devices to give soldiers enhanced situation awareness (expanded spectral vision)
• Act as an emergency homing beacon in a compact and rugged form factor

Soldiers now with computerized systems on their armor basically have laptops on their backs or equipment that is still bulky.  A small distributed network however can be placed all around the solider's uniform so that even if one part is disabled the rest will function even if slightly degraded.

Police forces can benefit from the same things and so can individuals.  wearable safety devices while out hiking powered not my batteries but the energy of one's own movements.  GPS devices that never fail because they are powered the same way.  No one ever needs to be lost again.  These small units could monitor in real time a person's blood sugar level if they are diabetic giving a real time read-out on your watch of both actual and average over time.  Oxygen levels for people with COPD and a whole host of other conditions can be monitored.

This is only the beginning.