W-03World dossier
I wrote VELIS-03 as a xenobiology expedition dossier, natively in French. It holds four named and coded biomes, orbital views, figures at human scale, and a planetary map that locks the whole system together. The bioluminescence runs turquoise, violet and magenta over a dark world.
W-03 The world
Don’t log this
On the radio the explorer is Expedition One, and Atlas has cleared her to descend. Atlas tells her to log everything. She goes down to the surface alone.
Every world she had sampled before this one was dead. She corrects her own log at entry three: the ground is not warm, it is regulated. Then she lays a gloved hand on a pale trunk and opens the bark with her blade. She makes one cut, at minimum depth.
Amber light rises out of the cut. At entry seven she says she does not have the word. “Atlas, I can feel it, through the glove, I can feel it!” Atlas orders her to leave the specimen. She comes back up holding it: “Don’t log this, Atlas. I’m holding a piece of it. Still warm.”
StorySynopsis
Full plot, including the ending.
The survey
Atlas Enterprise files VELIS-03 as a survey target and maps it before anyone lands. Four biomes are named and coded: the Spore Sheet, NER-SPO-2; the Veyra Littoral, NER-VEY-1; the Orvyn Marsh, NER-ORV-4; the Azrel Cliffs, NER-AZR-3. Each gets a descriptive board, an illustration with a human figure for scale, and a position on the planetary map. The Neridian Hemisphere has its own plate. Everything bioluminesces, in turquoise, violet and magenta over a dark world. The dossier is written in French throughout, and it asks one question in its own title: what if the entire planet worked as a single organism?
Expedition I: Nereis
Atlas clears Expedition One to descend and tells her the surface is inert. Log everything. She goes down alone. Every world she has sampled before this one was dead, and she says so at entry one. At entry three she corrects her own log: the ground is not warm, it is regulated. She lays a gloved hand on a pale trunk and opens the bark with one cut, at minimum depth. Amber light comes out of it. At entry seven she has no word for what she is holding: “Atlas, I can feel it, through the glove, I can feel it.” Atlas orders her to abandon the specimen and return. She returns with it. “Don’t log this, Atlas. I’m holding a piece of it. Still warm.” Atlas asks for the log anyway.
W-03.1The film
Expedition I: Nereis
The world was written before it was filmed. A survey lands on the shallows, finds a forest that answers light with light, and makes one cut it was not supposed to make. It carries a living piece of the world home. The score and the voice are original.
VELIS-03 — Expedition I: Nereis
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VELIS-03 — Teaser
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VELIS-03 — Making Of
W-03.2Keyframes
Fourteen Frames,
Then Motion
Every shot in Nereis begins as a still. Twenty were generated across the film’s eight beats, and fourteen are here. Four went back for a wrong read: a ship that came out a boat, a face that came out male, an instrument that came out a lamp, a ring that closed into a perfect circle. Two later takes on the closing frame were dropped as well, because the figure had grown too large in both.
W-03.3The world
A Planet Filed
As A Case
VELIS-03 is written as an Atlas Enterprise survey dossier: collected data, transmissions, mission boards. The lore is written natively in French. One question runs under all of it: what if the whole planet worked as a single organism?
NER-VEY-1
Le Littoral de Veyra
The expedition lands here, on the shore that answers light with light.
NER-SPO-2
La Nappe de Spor
The spore sheet carries the canopy register, where scale is read against a human figure.
NER-AZR-3
Les Falaises d’Azrel
The cliff belt forms the vertical edge of the Neridian hemisphere.
NER-ORV-4
Le Marais d’Orvyn
The marsh comes with its annotated survey sites.
Each biome carries its own descriptive board and its illustration at human scale, and every one of them is located by code on the planetary map. Cross the map with the boards and the system holds.
W-03.4Boards
The Boards
Ten design boards open the file: the suit, the ship, the fauna, the props. These are the parts a production has to be able to hand to someone else. I set the title card by hand instead of generating it. Behind them sits the survey dossier itself, with its biome sheets, orbital views and planetary map.
