The Dragon Whip Lunar Adventures
Hell-bent on revenge, a woman must assume her murdered brother’s vigilante identity to save their Moon colony from the violent oppression of a power-hungry outlaw.
02 The world
The moon is colonized, but far from stable. Far out on the frontier of lunar settlements, Ohadi Crater rages in conflict.
Shrewd entrepreneurs, hard-working regolith miners, get-rich-quick hucksters, and radical idealists drawn to the dangerous frontier rub elbows, and shed blood. This is a world that isn’t just harsh. It is deadly.
Against this roiling backdrop, the Dragon Whip lurks deep in the dark shadows of craters: a vigilante fighting for Democracy in a black and white desert, far from home.
The characters and conflicts born in the mythology of the Wild West are reimagined on the Moon in the not too distant future. Our heroes ride robotic horses. Hyperloop vac-trains are the targets of outlaw gangs. High-speed runaway moon rovers plummet over steep crater edges.
The fine surface dust known as regolith, element Helium-3, and Anorthite deposits are the new Gold Rush. This is the lawless frontier of the near future.
REGOLITH takes the classic Republic Serial, Zorro’s Black Whip, and modernizes it for today’s binge-watching. With the usual narrow escapes, rides to the rescue, fisticuffs and explosions, this space western takes the classic and turns it up to 11.
A new take on a simple plot: a rattled young woman is thrust into the role of her brother’s avenger while taking up his pledge to protect the citizens from corrupt outlaws. But now in 1/6th Earth gravity!
03 Story elements
The attack
The first news of the attack came just before 10:30 Lunar Standard Time. Here in the remote outpost of Ohadi Crater, all eyes are fixed on the Lunar Internet Press feeds.
In the midst of this chaos, Lian Ziyi’s journalist mind is running fast. Has anyone been killed? What other critical infrastructure will be attacked? Why did her brother Grigory warn her to stay away today?
The mantle
The law-abiding colonists of Ohadi Crater favor an election to decide whether their territory should become part of the Earth government. Sinister outlaws, opposed to the coming of law and order, have begun a reign of terror.
Upon discovering Grigory’s murder, Lian Ziyi assumes her brother’s vigilante Dragon Whip identity to avenge his death and save their Moon colony.
Why isn’t her brother answering her calls?
04 Characters
The correspondent
The reluctant vigilante
A smart, headstrong and capable young journalist, hell-bent to avenge her brother’s murder.
Stealth mech
Lian Ziyi’s new secret identity
A prototype robotic stealth scout-mech, built for speed on the airless wasteland of the Moon, with a wushu chain whip for a tail.
The voice of the people
The Lunarian baron
A Lunarian transportation magnate who finds her company under daily attack by the outlaws.
The martial law
The banker
A powerful young banker who asks her richest clients to form a posse and restore order to Ohadi Crater.
The old guard
The law
The heart and soul of Ohadi Crater: scholarly, easily approachable, everyone’s surrogate grandfather.
The land surveyor
The stranger
No one seems to have any idea who he is, or what he’s doing in Ohadi Crater.
05 Episodes
Lian Ziyi takes over the Lunar Internet Press after her brother’s death.
Viktor leaps from the crashing rover just as it overturns.
In the blast-endangered vault, Lian discovers that it has its own airlock.
A flash of chain whip takes out the legs of the Luneq robot horse.
The rover crashes off the walls of the crevasse, disappearing into the blackness.
Lian’s seven-segment chain whip lashes the gun from the outlaw’s hand.
Word spreads of the vast Helium-3 strike, and the lunar schooners roll in.
The outlaws capture Viktor and imprison him in a remote hideout.
Hammond suspects, by the size of the helmet, that Lian is the Dragon Whip.
Lian and Viktor escape the avalanche through a hole in the wall of the mining rig.
Viktor plans a trap to catch the outlaw gang leader.
The outlaw kingpin will now bear a scar from her whip on the right hand.
To be continued…
06 World building
Pressurized habitats under 3D printed regolith walls.
Narrow escapes, rides to the rescue, fisticuffs and explosions, at one-sixth of Earth’s gravity.
The Luneq: the robot horse of the lunar frontier.
Work, travel and daily routine on the surface.
