The Colony
A Sci-Fi thriller adaptable for a TV Series or Motion Picture
Created and written by
NY Times best-selling author Steve Alten
& Nick Nunziata, founder of CHUD.com
Logline:
Astronauts sent to colonize Mars return to a post-apocalyptic Earth dominated by giant ants.
From Steve Alten:
Nick Nunziata became a fan of my work after reading DOMAIN. His CHUD.com movie site was a huge success back in the day, and we became friends. Nick was kind enough to have me on as his guest when he had a gig with CNN and that led him to pitch MEG to his producer friends Lloyd Levin and Guillermo Del Toro. This eventually led to New Line Cinema optioning MEG in 2005.
Though things didn’t work out as we had hoped, we’ve remained friends and have worked on several projects together. Nick brings a dark artistic side to my more mainstream fiction which led us to work together on a script for a modern-day Dante’s Inferno called Grim Reaper. We never optioned the script, but I felt the concept would make a good novel and I eventually wrote Grim Reaper: End of Days. Nick’s contributions were acknowledged and added much to the book.
Over the last 15 years we’ve continued to pitch ideas back and forth. The idea for The COLONY came during a brainstorming call back in 2011.
Why giant ants?
First, regular-size ants are amazing. They are organized, have cooperative societies, and have been residing on our planet for over 125 million years. ARMY ANTS are known for their spectacular raids. They form large colonies with specialized queens and reproduce by COLONY FISSION – meaning they split the colony among several queens and go off and expand their numbers rapidly. Queens can produce 4 million eggs in 30 days. ARMY ANTS leave their main colony (the bivouac) at sunrise, sending thousands of WORKERS to scour for food. They can overwhelm larger animals. ARMY ANTS secrete PHEROMONES from a gland in their mouth to mark their trail. If something disturbs the trail or their nest, the ants go berserk, biting and stinging everything! DEAD ARMY ANTS are avoided, interpreted as signs of disease. ARMY ANTS produce a sound from their mandibles that serve as communication. An ant’s life begins as an egg. If fertilized, the ant will be female, if not they will be Male (drones). LARVAE STAGE: food is given by passing on regurgitated food. Metamorphosis in egg leads to birth as an adult. Larvae and pupae are moved around the colony to keep warmth at constant temperatures. ARMY ANTS survive winter by going into a state of dormancy or inactivity. Queens can live 30 years.
Cool, huh? Now imagine millions of ants as large as a Buick. What is scary is that the only reason they don’t grow infinitely larger is their shell which stunts their growth, confining it.
But what if there was a global thermonuclear war and the radioactive fallout dissolved the shell, allowing them to grow larger?
Welcome to the future of Earth… beware The COLONY.
Steve Alten, Ed. D.
NOTE:
1. All dramatic rights to The COLONY are available. You can reach Steve Alten by email at MEG82159@aol.com
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Enjoyable read. Maybe the survivalist should just find one or both of his kids?
I love a good creature feature, and this hits all the high notes. The hot air balloon-ex-machina save was unexpected which I always like, I am not sure sure how I feel about Jackson finding his family at the end. I was ok with him being a crazy loner survivalist, maybe using the map to go check out the other survival camps on the search for his family or using the ant lure to get more ant colonies to fight to try and do his part for humanities survival. I really enjoyed Quentin because he was so back and forth about supporting his dad vs helping Isabelle and the others get out. Realizing that to be a good leader he can’t support his dad but he can’t have his fathers approval if he leaves or allows others to leave. I would like to make a small suggestion, near the beginning when the two men are dropped into the “live food” pit there are several rats and a stallion who was bucking in fear but had also lost a front leg, I have horses and its an interesting visual but not very realistic. It would be much more likely that the horse would be either standing there shaking and sweating and possibly screaming, or laying on the ground completely mentally shut down. Overall I really enjoyed the read and cant wait for the next one!
Thanks!
**NO SPOILERS***
Now that’s my kind of story! I read the whole thing in one sitting! Love the ending!