Strong Women, Flying Saucers and Nazis.

In the company of exceptional women, two sisters carry out an unprecedented and dangerous mission, against strange crafts and through enemy lines, all in hopes of uncovering the whereabouts of their father

Centered on the recruitment and development of an elite team of women.

Their mission, to stop the pursuit of a super weapon called “The Rounder”. The Germans plan to build the weapon by reforming and forcing into servitude the principal inventors, a group of scientists and visionaries.

Taking place at a rural English airbase, nearby towns and behind enemy line, the story navigates the bonds that form among this team and their experiences in the male dominated world of the military

 . . . and their ties with a group called “The Freya”.

“Roland Brown?, that guy was a sympathizer.”

Mitty wants to form an elite squadron to track the Freya down. He believes the Nazis will soon have them as well as the technology they’ve developed. He shows slides of recon to back up his case, as well as a theoretical weapon called "The Rounder" , but the military wants nothing to do with it.

"Seems ridiculous"

In their defense, Mitty is a bit eccentric.

“But what if I’m right?”

He wants to form a SQUADRON OF WOMEN to carry out the mission.

"  . . and anyhow, if things go all upsidedown,

no ones going to miss a group of women . . right?"

They reluctantly agree, but think he is a fool.

In the early part of WW2, 100 women are hand picked by Mitty (from mostly the allied countries) to be part of his special unit, connected to the OSS (Office of Strategic Services). Only 20 will make it through basic training. 10 of these women will make up our unique ensemble team of heroes. Each team member brings strength, and a past, to the table.

The 80% of women that will wash out of the program will pay for their own way home. For the small number that make military status, all will pay for their own uniforms. When 2 of the female pilots are killed in a training exercises, no letters will be sent home to their loved ones and no benefit pay will ever arrive.

We soon learn that Roland has gone to Germany to help build super weapons for the Nazis. His designs for a flying saucer craft called “Rundflugzeug”  - “The Rounder” raise interest from the Germans. The craft is rumored to reach speeds of 400 mph. and is expected to end the war for the bad guys once completed. The US is now interested in The Rounder (and the sisters), if only to destroy it.

Back in the drawer an old snapshot catches Dad's eye. He reaches in past the mess and picks up the photo of a beautiful American Indian woman, dressed in feathers, war paint and a buckskin dress. A smile comes to his face.

Dad

"Hello Liddie"

Liddie clears a pillow from the bed, pitching it across the room. It lands on the cheap hotel bureau, smashing the mirror and pushing the radio off the edge. Still plugged in, it swings from the cord and the dim orange light from the tubes dances across the walls to the shindy of music and fading stations. Roland takes the bottle from Liddie’s hand and grabs a timid sip. Liddie pulls it back from his lips, steals the last swig and then shatters the bottle on the far-side wall. Roland shakes his head, smiles, and the two fall onto the bed laughing.

Across the room we watch the old dangling radio slowly spin. We hear Peggy Lee, the tussle of the sheets and the squeak of bedsprings . . . Then another crash, and Liddie’s laugh.

Liddie

(With smiling eyes)

Poor thing, sometimes life’s just hard for no reason at all.

(20) - American (New Jersey) - Beauty Queen

Character Arc : WIP

Backstory:

Rosie lives in her head. Very book smart, but not street wise. Sheltered from the world, she trusts everyone. Sweet and funny, she says the first thing that comes to mind.

Her father owns a radio station, a music store . . . and repair shop. This is how she gets to be so good with radios.  She’s never even driven a car, but she’s sure she can fly a plane.

Talent:

Radio specialist like Hedy Lamarr - Passionate inventor she discovered an ingenious method of preventing the enemy from intercepting messages by making radio signals jump between channels, rather than stay on a single channel.

Flashback:

The

Payback:

The

Strength/Arc:

The

As she pins up her hair –

“Well, I heard the Germans have a secret ray beam, that can mess up all-alls hair from half way around the world, . . .  (in a whisper) those Nazis are pure evil“

(45) - Russian (Svencionys) - Career Soldier from the age of 13

Character Arc : WIP

Worn out from the war and life, Yana is a storyteller.

Backstory:

As a child, with the world falling to pieces around her, her father tells her the strength of women, and his admiration for Yana’s mother.

She tells Lizzy and Nans of the “Night Witches”.

Talent:

The

Flashback:

The father is a drunk who burns the family house down. Her mother is the one to rebuild it.

Payback:

The

Strength/Arc:

The

(22) - British (london)- Factory worker

Character Arc : WIP

Backstory:

The

Talent: Hard drinking  cockney English woman. Tough as nails. No apologies. She's a code breaker.

Flashback:

The

Payback:

The

Strength/Arc:

Street wise  funny as a defence

“You hit like a girl” - Pearl

(25) - US - Farmer - Gautier, Mississippi

Character Arc : WIP

Backstory:

The only daughter, in the middle of 5 brothers, Sophie's family has a long military legacy, but Sophie's expected to wear dresses and focus on marriage and babies. She isn't excited by this idea. She is just as capable as any man. The heavy lifting on the family farm, combined with wrestling and holding her own with 5 brothers has turned her into a powerhouse. But she will never be afforded any of the opportunities that her 4 brothers have. 

Talent:

PHYSICAL STRENGTH. Basically raised like a BOY, without the benefits and opportunities - Sophie can do anything expected of any male soldier.

Flashback:

Payback:

Literally beating down multiple men without weapons with her sheer bodily strength. I think she should be triggered by seeing someone bully a young man that reminds her of her young brother.

Strength/Arc:

Being allowed to use her body and mind and be the active hero, not the passive, thankless woman she's expected to be, and knows she'll become when/if she returns. 

“??????” - Sophie

(18) - Polish (Warsaw) -  Jewish

Character Arc : WIP

Backstory:

As a child of 8 years old, she was deathly sick with Diphtheria along with her twin brother, when the doctors refused her family the vaccine (1930s anti-semetic Poland). Once infected, the pharmacy also turned them away. Alenka, tiny and sick, broke in through a vent and stole the meds. Only able to get enough medicine for one child. They shared the meds but her brother died.

Talent:

This experience turned her into a career criminal by 10. Kind of a Robin Hood meets Artful Dodger, Alenka used her small stature and stealthy moves to steal food, medicine, etc. to help neighbors, and keep her own remaining family afloat. 

Cat like abilities. Uses them to sneak into the base

Flashback:

The treatment of her family, by the doctors - especially to small children. 

Payback:

She is triggered when sees a child in danger OR worse, being tested on... this doctor/pharmacist can show up later as a Nazi "doctor"... and she can use a syringe of a full dose to kill him. :)

Strength/Arc:

Her sense of justice, fearlessness, selflessness - She fights for the underdog, the forgotten, the sick, the children... but she's also never forgiven herself for her twin dying... maybe her arc is to let that go somehow. 

(30) - Polish (Warsaw) – Jewish -  Father was the town’s Pharmacist

Character Arc : Margret will save Sandy's father from the factory

Backstory:

The

Talent:

The

Flashback:

The

Payback:

The

Strength/Arc:

The

(45) - Italian - Upper class

Character Arc : will find love (not just sex and not for money)

Backstory:

Her upper class family bargains her off to the only family that will marry her... she's not the prettiest of her 4 sisters. The fiance is awful, and she's miserable. In a dehumanizing confrontation, her mother tells her straight out that she's ugly and will never do better. It's brutal. These words will ring out to her later, that she's a dog, ungrateful to her family and will die "penniless and untouched". A spinster. 

After this, she decides to run away, but she keeps the engagement ring and pawns it off... since she'll be cut off from the family fortune. 

Talent:

Her initial strength/contribution to the women is money from the ring - she finances something for the women? But maybe she also has knowledge of rich people - places to steal from... or intel only upper class people may have.

Flashback:

Her confrontation with her mother.

Payback:

Her best revenge will be independence and SEX - on her terms... with a hot guy that's into her Italian 'look'. This could be love, but I'm thinking at 24, she only needs to feel the empowerment of being free and feeling wanted. Plus, who doesn't ROOT for THAT to happen? 

(In terms of PAYBACK - should it be directed back at her own family? Or is this enough... that she kind of wins on a personal level... self satisfied and sufficient.)

Strength/Arc:

Self sufficient without her rich family, in the end she is satisfied and confident. She doesn't need the money or a man.

(19) - American (San Jose CA) – Chinese born

Character Arc :

Since men were the only ones who were schooled in China long ago, women were secluded and did not know how to read or write.  There was a secret language invented by women thousands of years ago.  It is called NuShu. Women would write to each other in these codes.   They also could speak to each other in a matching oral language.  The men did not pay attention, or want to learn it….it was a woman thing.  To know this language was a step down in social class.  It would be embarrassing.  This allowed for the women of ancient (all the way up to the early 1800s) China to write, and speak, in a language which was coded from men.  Many women of royal families were fluent in the language. It died out, almost to extinction, in the 1800s.  Women who spoke it, were sometimes seen as “witchlike” or “spirit women”. They uttered language that only goddesses could understand!

After the invasion of Japan, anyone speaking the language, or writing the script, would be jailed, tortured and/or killed.

Backstory:

Could it be that one family in the United States kept the Nushu alive?  Could it be that the father learned it from his mother, grandmother, and old woman from his province? He embedded what he knew into his plans.

Nushu Mothers traditionally gave their daughters, on the third day after their marriage, a collection of NuShu Works….they were called “Nushu Works” (3rd Day Letters) They were usually Songs, Poems, Proverbs, Advice for their daughters “Sworn Sisters”. For Hazel, these were given to her on her 7th birthday, by her father.

He expressed his hopes for his daughter’s life, her happiness, his hope for children, success and future blessings.  The handmade books was leather bound, hand painted ribbons showed family stories, and sorrows.  Nushu women had these stories and symbols embroidered into their clothing and accessories. (Hazel remembered a blue ribbon she uses as a book mark and later wore in her hair).

She never questioned why on earth her father would do this for her; in her mind it was a gift of fatherly love. 

Talent:

Flashback:

The

Payback:

The

Strength/Arc:

Hazel was raised by her father and mother in Alameda, California.  Her parents both born in China emigrated from Europe in 1931 when Hazel was just 8 years old. She was always told that returning to China was not possible, as the Japanese are fighting in their homeland.  Her parents never took her, nor her two older brothers to culturally Chinese things in the United States. She grew up in a white community, going to a mostly white school.  They spoke Chinese in their home, but were never allowed to do so outside the house. Hazels parents told the children that it was so they could grow up as real Americans . . . speaking English.   The older brothers soon forgot how to speak Chinese but Hazel did not have that choice. She learned to write and recognize Chinese writing by the age of 6, her father

The Mission is to  . . . . . Coming soon.

Four years after WW1, a group of scientists created “The Freya. Made up of 50 scientists from around the globe; their mission would be to save the world.

They would gather the most advanced technologies (some capable of mass destruction) and develop them into new ways to better mankind. New powers like atomic energy and radar would make way to faster and more efficient means of transportation. New discoveries in agriculture would bring food to the starving, and advancements in medicine, like x-ray, and cures for polio and cancer would extend life. All of this would come without the distraction of war or political gain. The group of scientists and scholars, born of scientists and scholars, would be able to hide away and control the advancements from a secret lab on top of the world. The site for the lab would be a rocky outcrop that rises above the Obersalzberg near the town of Berchtesgaden.

But in the early 1930s the fear of a second world war already loomed on the horizon and the concepts meant to better the world were certain to fall into the hands of the Nazis, so the Freya slipped into hiding.

After taking control of Austria, Norway, Denmark and Poland, Hitler set his thirst for power on the rest of Europe. Starting with France, Belgium and Netherlands and then towards Great Britain. He looked for every advantage to help win the war for Germany. Rumors of a secret society of scientist’s and their whereabouts made its way across Europe and eventfully to the Fuhrer. He tasked his high command to seek out “The Freya” and bring back all 50 of its members.

For the members who didn’t cooperate, would come death, death to the founders and to their legacy, their sons. So from points around the globe, the original group, now living as Pharmacists, Factory workers, Doctors and Farmers, hide from the world and taught their daughters to carry on. With tiny clues tucked away in scarp books and sewn into the fabric of blankets and dolls, it was up to them to save the world.

They were now the keepers.

A bright green pulse pulls him down, somewhere deep and dark into his subconscious. Confused, he stares at his now bleeding wrists as he falls further down, Liddie and the room fade away. Another pulse jerks his limbs, and through the blinding glare he sees cold metal tables, falling rain and floating grey ash that makes him cry out. Next to him, captives with clinched fists and pointed toes are being branded across their collarbones, while a faceless man in a red rubber apron, tightens their straps. Tables filled with tins of sarin, benzene and ether spill open, next to syringes filled with silver nitrate. More blasts of bright green and the sounds of winding machines and men vomiting and screaming, overwhelm Roland’s senses.