Mercury

Mercury logo illustrated by Christopher Dotson

Mercury: A Broadcast of Hope tells the story of a small group of resident and a growing number of recurring characters living in a small radio station during the zombie apocalypse. Their mission is to communicate with fellow survivors via a daily broadcast (distributed here via podcast, but the story will retain the conceit that it is an actual terrestrial broadcast) that brings them thoughts, musings, stories, practical survival tips, and other messages that are intended to keep up the general morale and enable listeners to survive whatever hardships they may be encountering. Including zombies.

Mercury: A Broadcast of Hope was created by David Benedict and developed with assistance from Diana Lancaster, Nicole Isaac, and a whole host of supportive friends and collaborators.

Theme and General Structure of Episodes

The overall theme of the series is hope. This will be explored in more detail in the writer's bible, but contributors to the series should feel as though they can write about whatever they want as long as it adheres to the series rules and finishes with at least a somewhat hopeful feeling at the conclusion of an episode or arc. It was the creator's vision that most episodes would be monologues or semi-monologues where, after a brief introduction which could be a monologue or a short dialogue that the episode would be dominated by a single character, potentially coming back to a dialogue-driven conclusion. This would most often feature one of the resident or recurring characters, but one-off characters just passing through are also acceptable. These episodes would be theme-driven and could feature subjects such as how characters feel, memories from their past that apply to their current situation, ways they are using to cope with their current situation, and how they are relating to each other.

Writers should also feel free, however, to write dialogue-driven episodes that are more plot-driven. These would take the form of short mini-plays or potentially arcs. Care should be taken when writing an episode with multiple active characters so as to not introduce events that do not fit into the continuity or are contradictory of past episodes. It is also advisable to remember that the characters have to live with each other and that everyone is mostly trustworthy. This isn't a soap opera with lots of intrigue and backstabbing. These kinds of episodes are great for presenting practical survival techniques to the listeners.

Lastly, to best adhere to the theme, the zombies should be viewed as a metaphor for any hardship that the characters (or the writers themselves) may be struggling with. This will allow writers to better communicate the concepts of hope and survival by shifting their perspective from the immediate physical danger that zombies traditionally represent and focusing instead on the ongoing situation. Examples of concepts that the zombies could be standing in for include, but are not limited to, depression, addiction, and domestic abuse.

Setting

The setting of Mercury is based loosely on an actual coastal town in the New England area, but should be kept mostly vague for the purposes of the writing. Citing specific landmarks should be avoided.

Characters

Due to the small size of the station, there is a limit to the number of permanent resident characters. That limit is set at five, but to begin the series will have only three so as to allow for easy expansion. Once the limit of five is met no new resident characters may be introduced without finding a way to remove another resident character within the rules outlined below.

The most challenging part of a writing collaboration this large will be character continuity and consistency. Whenever a significant event happens to a character or is described as part of their past, it must be entered here for other writers to reference to avoid inconsistency.

Writers Bible

To maintain character consistency and some level of continuity, the world has a number of rules that must be followed. Episodes that do not adhere to these guidelines must demonstrate an excellent reason for violating them or else will be sent back to the author with notes for revision. Please read this section, along with the section on characters very carefully and check back often for potential changes as the world may evolve as the series progresses.

Episode Ideas, Prompts, and Arcs

This section will contain a series of prompts and ideas to help writers focus an episode. The overall theme of the show is, of course, hope, but writers can talk about hope from the perspective of several other topics. There will also be multi-episode arcs suggested.

Origin of the name

The name Mercury came to the creators after a few meetings. Originally the series was to be focused on the lighthouse and how its beacon would shine light and hope on survivors, just as it signaled hope and salvation for ships lost at sea. All those names were taken, however, and to avoid confusion the series creators looked elsewhere, eventually settling on Mercury.

There are many reasons why Mercury is a fitting name for this podcast, presented here in summary:

• Mercury was the messenger of the gods in Roman mythology. In addition to this obvious tie-in to a radio broadcast, Mercury was also the patron god of travelers and luck and guided souls to the underworld.
• Mercury the element is sometimes known as quicksilver due to its liquid nature at room temperature. It is metaphorical for the ephemeral nature of life, but it also has a practical tie-in to the series because the Fresnel lenses of old lighthouses used to float and rotate in a bath of mercury which acted like a bearing.
• Mercury the planet has a unique orbit and rotation in the solar system, corresponding to our unique publication schedule. There are few daily podcasts and there are even fewer fictional daily podcasts.
• Perhaps most importantly, Mercury Theatre on the Air. This is the program that ran the infamous "War of the Worlds" broadcast. While the stories of that broadcast's ability to incite panic may be apocryphal, it is still part of the lore and stands in contrast to Mercury: A Broadcast of Hope's mission to bring a purposefully positive message.
• Mercury is referenced in a number of literary works in all of the above incarnations, including poetry (which Mercury was also the patron god of), that can be explored.

Distribution

Distribution will be as a part of Atlanta Radio Theatre Company's podcasting infrastructure. The podcast will be updated daily, but to preserve the conceit of a terrestrial broadcast, archives will not be kept as a matter of course. Early episodes will be left online ("on a broadcast loop") for a week or two, but eventually fuel concerns will force them to make that duration shorter and shorter until, finally, episodes will only be available on the day they are released and will be replaced by the new episode the next day. The eventual stable configuration will have seven to ten episodes permanently available to get new listeners up to speed followed by a fourth-wall breaking episode that explains the structure. All further episodes beyond that will require Patreon support to hear after their initial daily run.

The exception will be for Patreon subscribers who will have access to the entire back catalog.

Audio Examples

Episode 01 - Pilot

Demo episode This will eventually become episode 2, but at the time of recording that had not been set. This was recorded in a classroom and is merely a demonstration of the format and expected character interaction.

Evolution of the Series

Due to the large number of collaborators and contributors to this project, this writers guide will change regularly. As the characters reveal more about themselves, those details will be added to their profiles. As more is revealed about their daily habits and routines, those will be added as well. Plus, while there is no overarching plotline to the story, periodically there may be changes made to the world and its rules by the creative team to keep things fresh and give the writers new situations to work with. What we're saying is...check back often, especially before you write an episode, to make sure something isn't different than it was yesterday. Once the series launches things will stabilize.

As of today, 2017-02-16, this guide is robust, but still incomplete. The to-do list for the creative team is below.

To-do

• Complete all introductory episodes
  • Setting the situation for the listener
  • Introducing all the resident and recurring characters
  • Establishing the norms and conventions of the series (opening, tagline, etc)
  • Introducing the name of the series into the situation in an organic way
• Posting those episodes here as part of the writers guide
• Establishing a sustainable system for keeping a substantial backlog of episodes to prevent gaps in publication