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Lesson 10
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PETER FELIZ: TRUST/BETRAYAL
WHAT I LEARNED TODAY: Sorry to not finish the assignment but I am having problems keeping the formatting from turning into a mess
ASSIGNMENT
Create trust / distrust relationships between your characters and add them to your Thriller Map.
1. Make a list of the main characters.
Hero: Lucky Lunes
Villain: Jorge Villarreal
Red Herring Character: Cuichi Valenzuela
Trusted, but shouldn’t be: Cuichi Valenzuela, Migrant restaurant customer, American Consulate
Isn’t trusted, but should be: Santos C. Vega Jr and his sister, Jorge Villarreal
2. With each character, ask these questions:
A. What is their basic state — trustable or not trustable?
LUCKY: Trusted but shouldn’t be.
JORGE V: Not trustable but predictable.
CUICHI: Not trustable.
MIGRANT RESTAURANT CUSTOMER, AMERICAN CONSULATE: Not trustable.
SANTOS C VEGA JR & HIS SISTER (RESTAURANT OWNERS): Trustable
B. How might they really be trustable, but appear not trustable OR be not trustable, but appear trustable?
LUCKY: Wronged hero type but blindly vindictive. CUICHI VALENZUELA: Plays up his humble roots to scam and cheat anyone and for absolutely no reason.
JORGE V: Ruthless politician Who secretly has moral lines he won’t cross unless he really has to
C. What circumstances might cause them to switch from one to the other?
LUCKY: Cuichi bankrupted Lucky’s mother and made Lucky look like an accomplice
CUICHI: Though he’s a sociopathic conman, he treasures his image of himself as a misunderstood dogooder.
JORGE VILLARREAL:Corrupt politician but he has a strong sense of gratitude.
MIGRANT CUSTOMER: Receives Lucky out of loyalty to Cuichi.
SANTOS C VEGA JR & HIS SISTER: Eternally grateful to Lucky until he puts them in grave danger
3. With each character relationship, brainstorm how trust or distrust might show up between them.
Hero / Villain: LUCKY/VILLARREAL There are no henchmen visible in Villarreal’s Beach house lair. They both
Hero / Red Herring Character: Because they have a life long relationship, Lucky is able to predict Cuichi’s actions. Still Cuichi surprises with unpredictable moves. Cuichi assumes Lucky to be the altruistic dupe
CUICHI Though reluctant concludes Lucky must be disposed of
Hero / Trusted, but shouldn’t be: Lucky appears to be wounded hero, ultimately wields cold blooded revenge on Cuichi.
MIGRANT RESTAURANT CUSTOMER: Offers sound advice on jail visit/strands Lucky when needed most
Hero / Isn’t trusted, but should be: SANTOS JR & SISTER: Lucky thinks they are hiding info from him. They are reluctant to endanger themselves. But they do.
4. Create a sequence for each trust/distrust relationship (like I did with Three Days of The Condor) and then add that to your map.
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Subject line: (Your name’s) Trust Relationships
What I learned doing this assignment is…?”
The more I work on this, the more I realize how much more work remains. While I understand about the deadlines, when the course is finished, I will need more time than given during course to work on improving the map. Looking at the overall structure, I’ll need to place a greater focus on developing Act ll.
Create trust / distrust relationships between your characters and add them to your Thriller Map.
1. Make a list of the main characters.
Hero: Jennifer Andrews
Villain: Scott Miller
Red Herring Character: Everett Dixon
Trusted, but shouldn’t be: Frank Walters & Robert Williams
Isn’t trusted, but should be:2. With each character, ask these questions:
What is their basic state — trustable or not trustable? <div>
Jennifer – Trustable
Scott – Not trustable
Frank Walters – Not trustable
Robert Williams – Not trustable
Jorge Robertson – Trustable
Jeff Peters – Trustable
James Simmons – Trustable
How might they really be trustable, but appear not trustable OR be not trustable, but appear trustable?
Frank Walters – appears trustable but is driven by pressure to find a group
Robert Williams – appears trustable – sponsored and mentored her at the HRT but backstabs her with Walters
James Simmons – appears not trustable as Fargo PD Chief but when presented the evidence, completely backs his detectives and allows them extraordinary leeway.
What circumstances might cause them to switch from one to the other?
Political pressure
True belief that one man could not possible continue the scope and frequency of attacks.3. With each character relationship, brainstorm how trust or distrust might show up between them.
Hero / Villain: Jennifer comes to distrust all of the presented evidence of a large terrorist group. She believes that Scott is doing his best to present a false front to lead the Federal LEAs away from him. </div><div>
Hero / Red Herring Character: Wounded during the Sioux Falls safe house take down, Jennifer does not believe the story of a Lakota as part of the terrorist attacks but has no evidence.
Hero / Trusted, but shouldn’t be: Jennifer trusts her mentor Robert Williams who listened to the her (and Jorge & Jeff’s) presentation and evidence, seems to agree but then argues a larger terrorist group to Walters.
Hero / Isn’t trusted, but should be:
4. Create a sequence for each trust/distrust relationship (like I did with Three Days of The Condor) and then add that to your map.
Andrews/Williams
Trust: Williams has known Andrews for years from being her commanding officer in the Army to encouraging her to apply to the FBI and then sponsoring her for selection into the FBI’s HRT, finally letting her create an Advanced Force Operations (AFO) cell within the HRT. </div><div>
Distrust: Andrews presents the findings from the Fargo PD detectives, Williams seems to agree but when discourages Walters from agreeing.
Distrust: Williams places pressure on Andrews to put aside the singleton theory and put emphasizes her AFO duties.Trust: Williams visits her and the other HRT operatives in the Sioux Falls hospital where she presents her theory that the safe house was used to decoy the investigation. Williams again agrees with her and states he’ll look into it.
Distrust: Williams folds under political pressure and threatens her suspension.
Andrews/Walters
Trust: Andrews is encouraged to present directly to the Assistant Director in charge of the investigation. Walters. He agrees that the evidence appears to indicate something different than a standard foreign or domestic terror group. </div><div>
Distrust: Walters receives pressure from the US Senators and three Representatives from ND that he find the terrorist group.
Trust: Andrews out of the hospital, brings further evidence to Walters that the perpetrator must have extensive US military and special operations experience.
Distrust: Walters has Andrews suspended for failure to follow orders and insubordination.
5. Give us the new version of your Thriller Map.
ACT I
Opening Image (0% – 1%)
Life Threatening Event 1 – Three police cars have a suspect trapped inside the house of a judge. The suspect fires on the cars disabling all of them. As the police get ready to breach the house, the Fargo courthouse explodes along with several business in downtown Fargo, ND.
Mystery 1 – Who is the person shooting the police?
Mystery 2 – Why have the buildings exploded?
Villain’s Plan 1 – The real reason for the attacks in ND and the killing of lawyers is more complicated.
Setup (1% – 10%)
Villain’s Plan 2 – Make the ND attacks the worse terrorist event in US history to have multiple Federal and State law enforcement agencies interact.
Life Threatening Event 2 – The courthouse and many other buildings are contaminated with Mustard gas/powder. In addition, the power structure for the city has been taken down with the substations contaminated with Mustard. This has resulted in hundreds of injuries of first responders and power company workers.
Villain’s Plan 2 – Distraction of the Federal LEAs through ruthless attacks and use of Mustard to injure and kill, increase pressure for a quick solution.
Life Threatening Event 3 – Fargo PD Detectives Jeff Peters and Jorge Robertson get video of the perpetrator’s escape from the uniformed officers. Using the video, they find a house where the perp may be located. When the detectives investigate with SWAT backup, they discover what appear to be improvised explosive devices protecting the property and back off for the explosive ordinance disposal (EOD) team.
Life Threatening Event 4 – Before the Fargo PD EOD team arrives, planes carrying the Critical Incident Response Group (CIRG) from the FBI and including members of DHS, ATF, US Marshall Service, and DoD investigators (includes members of Delta’s WMD squadron). This also brings Special Agent Jennifer Andrews part the FBI’s Hostage Rescue Team (HRT) advanced force who will prepare the ‘environment’ for the HRT squadron.
Mystery 3 – Why did the attackers use Mustard in their attacks? How did they manufacture Mustard?
Mystery 4 – How did the terrorists place the Mustard in containers camouflaged as power transformers?
Catalyst (10%)
Life Threatening Event 5 – The perp’s house in Fargo has IEDs which will spread Mustard over more than a city block and the EUDs are sophisticated with anti-tamper devices which make the task of the EOD teams extremely risky.
Villain’s Plan 3 – Further distraction through attacks on Bismarck and Grand Rapids.
Mystery 5 – With the collection of data on the attacks, the Bismarck and Grand Rapid attacks have no surveillance video showing a perp, only the Fargo attacks show a perp. As Jeff and Jorge refine the Fargo homicide data, they find several deaths outside of the city of civilians who are not lawyers or judges. Why were they killed?
Debate (10% – 20%)
Life Threatening Event 6 – Jeff and Jorge take their findings about the odd group of civilian deaths to the FBI Assistant Director in charge of the CIRG and the Joint Terrorist Task Force (JTTF), Frank Walters but Director Walters does not agree and still believes these are anomalies.
Life Threatening Event 7 – Jennifer hears about the anomalous civilian deaths, she seeks out Jeff and Jorge to find out more. When her HRT supervisory agent, Robert Williams, hears of this, he orders her to stop this line of inquiry and focus on developing the ‘battlespace’ for the HRT follow on forces. Jennifer does her job but also works with Jeff and Jorge including allowing access to multiple Federal databases.
Trust: Williams has known Andrews for years from being her commanding officer in the Army to encouraging her to apply to the FBI and then sponsoring her for selection into the FBI’s HRT, finally letting her create an Advanced Force Operations (AFO) cell within the HRT.
Distrust: Andrews presents the findings from the Fargo PD detectives, Williams seems to agree but when discourages Walters from agreeing.
Villain’s Plan 4 – Start of the attacks on the Midwest power infrastructure to increase pressure.
Direction: Terrorist group successfully attacks inside the US.
Twist: This may be a single individual out for revenge, using the killing of hundreds and maiming thousands to mask his vengeance.
Mystery 6 – The civilians killed are all part of the same family group or were members of a jury pool more than 15 years ago. Why were they killed? Does this have to do with a trial more than 15 years ago?
Trust: Andrews is encouraged to present directly to the Assistant Director in charge of the investigation. Walters. He agrees that the evidence appears to indicate something different than a standard foreign or domestic terror group.
Distrust: Walters receives pressure from the US Senators and three Representatives from ND that he find the terrorist group.
Distrust: Williams places pressure on Andrews to put aside the singleton theory and put emphasizes her AFO duties.
ACT II
Break into Act II (20%)
Life Threatening Event 8 – Frank Walters and Robert Williams receive direct pressure from the ND representatives and senators to find the terrorist group. They see Jennifer’s focus on a possible single perp as a threat and threaten dismissal or disgrace to Jennifer if she does not stop.
Villain’s Plan 5 – The safe house in Sioux Falls includes a chemical lab in the basement and SCUBA diving air generators to fill and mix gases.
Mystery 7 – The perp’s house in Fargo is destroyed through explosives and seeded with Mustard but using Site Sensitive Exploitation (SSE) procedures developed by the DoD SOF, the HRT finds evidence of a ‘safe house’ in Sioux Falls, SD where the Mustard was manufactured. Included in this SSE are indications of a terrorist group made up of Native Americans, ISIS, and possibly other groups working to tear down the US government.
Direction: Possible single perpetrator out for revenge.
Twist: The SSE recovered from the safe house proves to the FBI, DHS, and ATF this is a larger terrorist group.
B story (22%)
Life Threatening Event 9 – Jennifer travels to Sioux Falls as part of the reconnaissance advanced team to place surveillance on the house with a focus on what the HRT will need to know for their assault. As part of the assault, she is slightly injured but two members are killed and five members are hospitalized.
Trust: Williams visits her and the other HRT operatives in the Sioux Falls hospital where she presents her theory that the safe house was used to decoy the investigation. Williams again agrees with her and states he’ll look into it.
Mystery 8 – Who is the Lakota, Everett Dixon, whose remains are found in the Sioux Falls safe house?
Mystery 9 – The SSE found in Sioux Falls leads the CIRG/JTTF to a same house in the Midwest.
Villain’s Plan 6 – The use of fake cell towers leased by ‘Acme Mobile Access, LLD’ which is owned through multiple shell companies that eventually lead to an account in Lichtenstein.
Villain’s Plan 7 – The use of stolen military weapons for the attacks using the cell towers.
Direction: Military weapons indicate a sophisticated terrorist group.
Twist: Retrieved serial numbers from sites show all weapons were from DoD Armory robberies but more than five years ago.
Life Threatening Event 10 – Prior to the assault on the Sioux Falls house, attacks begin on the power infrastructure in the Midwest by using cell towers with high powered military weapons, 50 caliber machine-guns, 81mm Mortars, and recoilless rifles. These take out the critical substations with very high and extremely high power transformers.
Direction: FBI Assistant Director in charge of the investigation sees merit in the revenge motive.
Twist: The increased scope and scale of the attacks make a singleton perpetrator impossible.
Trust: Andrews out of the hospital, brings further evidence to Walters that the perpetrator must have extensive US military and special operations experience
Villain’s Plan 8 – The use of cloud, advanced automation techniques, and artificial intelligence to pace the attacks as well as surveil the locations. The use of AI allows only necessary surveillance to alert Scott.
Mystery 10 – How can the terrorist strike dozens of power sites simultaneously?
Life Threatening Event 11 – Jennifer is sent to examine a ‘false’ cell phone tower with a small team of HRT operatives. When they arrive, they are under surveillance and when they arrive, the team and their vehicles are taken under fire by a 50 caliber machine-gun.
Mystery 11 – Do all of the false cell towers have terrorist surveillance?
Fun and Games (20% – 50%)
Life Threatening Event 12 – Jeff and Jorge bring more evidence to Jennifer that the attack on ND is simple revenge and not a more sophisticated terrorist group. Convinced, she goes directly to Frank Walters who listens but the pressure from executive and legislature branches who need these escalating attacks to be part of ISIS and not a single man bent on revenge. He threatens her with immediate dismissal and being black listing to prevent her from ever working in law enforcement.
Trust: Andrews believes the evidence and information the Fargo PD detectives have gathered.
Direction: Federal law enforcement focuses on identifying the terrorist group through SSE and taking down the identified safe houses.
Twist: The body parts recovered of Dixon in Sioux Falls have ice crystals, he had been frozen before the HRT took down the house and the IED nearly vaporized him.
Mystery 12 – Who is Scott Miller?
Villain’s Plan 9 – Scott uses general aviation assets through multiple IDs for untracked movement around the country. He hires an actor ‘look alike’ for the ND attack timeframe. He kills the actor to remove the link.
Mystery 13 – Scott Miller has an alibi for the time of the attack in ND, he is working in Atlanta.
Midpoint (50%)
Life Threatening Event 13 – Jeff, Jorge, and Jennifer begin investigating Scott Miller but other than a generic US Army record in SOF and retirement as a CW4, they have very few details. They do find that he is a highly successful computer network engineer over the last 20 years. As they dig, Jorge is killed with Jeff and Jennifer both wounded – but Scott has an alibi for the time of their attack.
Direction: The search by Jeff, Jorge, and Jennifer has been dangerous but impersonal.
Twist: They are under surveillance and considered a threat by the perp.
Villain’s Plan 10 – Scott created the initial war chest through attacks on drug houses in the Southeast region. He identified the houses through his county Deputy Sheriff’s access.
Villain’s Plan 11 – Scott increases the war chest by attacks on armored cars carrying diamonds and large amounts of cash from gambling.
Mystery 14 – If Scott Miller is the perp, how has he gotten the funding and weapons for an operation of this scope?
Mystery 15 – Could this all have been planned and put into place over the last 15 years without anyone realizing it?.
Bad Guys Close In (50% – 70%)
Distrust: Walters has Andrews suspended for failure to follow orders and insubordination.
Life Threatening Event 14 – Jennifer is placed on suspension while in the hospital. She takes her findings to the DoD and Delta operatives on the CIDG/JTTF.
Mystery 15 – DoD agents find Scott’s ‘201 file’ heavily redacted and of not much more use than what Jennifer has already discovered.
Mystery 16 – The Delta operatives discover more since Scott had been in 1st SFOD-D for 12 years before going to the Intelligence Support Activity (ISA) for another 10 years. They reach out to the ISA to see if they can be ‘read on’ to some of the projects and activities. The query reaches up the ranks to the commanders of the units talking.
All is Lost (75%)
Distrust: Williams and Walters under political pressure to find a foreign terrorist group which the US can attack, work to disgrace Andrews within the FBI.
Life Threatening Event 15 – Frank Walters finds out that Jennifer has given the DoD and SOF operatives sensitive FBI information, he lets her know that her career at the FBI is now at an end.
Villain’s Plan 16 – Increase the number of attacks and pressure on law enforcement agencies.
Mystery 17 – With Scott under surveillance, the attacks in the Midwest, South, and Southeast continue and even increase in their pace and scope. More than a quarter of the nation is having brown outs or even black outs. More than 100 courthouses have been blown up to the point of being razed. How can Scott continue doing this with the level of surveillance on him?
Villain’s Plan 17 – Distraction by getting the FBI and DHS focus on other safe houses he’s allowed them to discover.
Mystery 18 – The other safe houses discovered have a mixture of Native Americans, Arabs, Black, and Hispanics with indications of their complicity in the terrorist attacks.
Direction: Discovery of the terrorist network of safe houses.
Twist: The body parts recovered have ice crystals like Dixon. All were frozen before the explosive dismemberment.
Mystery 19 – Even as the safe houses are rolled up, the attacks on the infrastructure continue.
Dark Night of the Soul (75% – 80%)
Mystery 20 – The commanders of Delta and the Activity place the full resources of multiple teams on Scott to figure out if he is the perp of the worst terrorist attack in US history. Scott was a plank owner for the AFO G Squadron and an expert in singleton intelligence operations which he perfected at the Activity. If he is the perp, they will have him killed.
Life Threatening Event 20 – Jennifer is confronted by operators from Delta’s F Squadron warning her off, hinting that they will take care of their own.
Life Threatening Event 21 – When Jennifer does not drop it, she is abducted a block from Scott’s home, taken to an unknown location with a black hood over her head and hands cuffed behind her back.
ACT III
Break into Act III (80%)
Mystery 21 – Does the DoD or Delta have evidence that Scott is the perp?
Life Threatening Event 22 – Released, Jennifer manages to get through surveillance to confront Scott at his home and question him.
Finale (80% – 99%)
Life Threatening Event 23 – Jennifer is picked back up when she leaves Scott’s house. Rather than threatening her, a DIA operative offers her an opportunity to switch from the FBI over to either the DIA or NSA with an increase in pay grade.
Mystery 22 – While Scott appears to be safe, he prepares to leave for South America. Why does he leave and why are the attacks continuing?
Villain’s Plan 18 – Finish and escape to live another day.
Mystery 23 – Scott leaves for Brazil.
Final Image (99% – 100%)
Scott is assassinated in Ireland (or Sao Paulo, Brazil?) by an IC contractor who once worked for Scott at the Intelligence Support Activity while Jennifer watches from a concealed position.
Direction: Jennifer has dedicated 10 years to the FBI and plans on it as a career.
Twist: She resigns from the FBI, hired at the DIA then volunteers for the Activity.
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Leslie’s Trust Betrayal
What I learned in this assignment is the need for this level in the story. I need more brainstorming cetainly but I have also noticed more of these techniques in the films I watch. I have been trying to put the names of the emotion “trust” and “betrayal” to the actions.
1. Characters:
V = villain (Not trustable)
Aide = slavish attendant to villain (Not trustable)
Aide might appear as a red herring (still not trustable)
Henchmen are mercenary thugs working for V (also not trustable)
PM = hero (trustable and has a big secret)
Police, embassy personnel, hotel personnel, (trustable but PM is at odds with them)
the dead friend’s family, should be trustable to the hero but blame the hero for what happens so are not trustable.
Embassy and Police (trustable)
2. How character seems trustable but then isn’t
V and aide offer help to PM (hero) to have a drink, trust, then drug him.
A random woman paid to give a note and payment to hotel to throw off authorities (trust) but then takes the money leaving only the note (not trustworthy).
PM wakes to find a lap top and phone (trust) but both are rigged with bad info.
Staff at V’s home seem to help but don’t (are more indifferent than trustworthy and not speaking English appear less trustworthy. They just don’t care)
V and Aide save PM from dogs even though they were the ones who lossed the dogs and so appear trusting only to betray PM again.
Aide tries to get PM to trust him in order to get away from V but then betrays their whereabouts to henchmen.
PM – switches identies and leaves us wondering if he is trustworthy or not.
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