Theodicy Full Synopsis (spoiler alert)
Synopsis of Theodicy
Prologue: Jennifer’s Choice Begins
A female ghost, Jennifer, sits in a bathroom when two interrogators arrive to ask her identity. She tells them she doesn’t know or want to know. They reply that she must force herself to recall the tragic events leading to her death if she hopes to free herself from this afterlife prison. She receives a red book, and recognizes her name in the inscription: “To Jennifer: I’m sorry I failed you. Don’t blame yourself. Please come to us. Love always, Nicole.” Jennifer’s begins reading the book as her interrogators leave.
1: Carl’s Choice Begins
Carl, one of the two main antagonists in the story, gets evicted from Anthony’s apartment and rescues an attractive woman from an oncoming train at a subway station.
After much confusion, the woman introduces herself as Helen Miller, the wife of Congressman Jonathan Miller. Helen seduces Carl back to her hotel room, and Carl accepts her invitation to a Caribbean cruise, where she behaves like a different person, rejecting sex as sinful and picking mean-spirited religious quarrels with strangers.
Helen claims her husband wants to kill her to avoid a divorce, and mentions the man’s home alarm code and the hidden gun in his closet. To prevent Carl from leaving her, Helen promises to take her psychiatric medications and agrees not to discuss religion again.
Weeks later, Helen mentions religion again, and Carl taunts her by inviting demons to control his life. After she goes missing, Helen calls Carl, claiming the politician hired someone to attack her. Carl confronts the man at gunpoint to discover he’s actually Helen’s father.
Carl escapes then returns to the man’s home to catch the father and daughter in an act of incest. He murders both in bed and follows voices in his head to Senator Walker. Carl delivers a mysterious object to the senator, who tells him it’s a bioweapon, and claims Carl is predestined to lead a revolution against the Creator of the Universe.
As the senator leaves for work, Carl yells at the God of Abraham for ignoring his prayers and vows revenge.
2: Nicole’s Choice Begins
The story’s main protagonists, Nicole, sits with her sister, Jennifer, at the Lincoln Memorial, discussing Nicole’s job working for Senator Walker. Jennifer introduces Nicole to the second main antagonist, Alexsei, who asks Nicole on a lunch date.
The two sisters agree to walk with Alexsei to Lafayette Park, but they quickly leave him after he predicts a massive terrorist attack. On the train ride home, Nicole learns her sister is secretly dating their mutual friend, Father Stephen Keller, a Roman Catholic priest.
Alexsei drops in on Nicole at work to warn that her boss, Senator Walker, is part of a Satanic terrorist group. He begs her to stop the madman from killing himself. During a bizarre telephone press conference the senator calls to calls to rant about the end of the world, Nicole manages to deflect the senator’s gun on the first shot but a second self-inflicted gunshot kills the man.
Alexsei greets Nicole outside and shows her advanced nano-technology, claiming a hidden enemy has used it to create delusions of supernatural voices to brainwash her former boss, Carl and others so they become suicidal religious extremists intent on speeding the final judgment with a weapon of mass destruction.
Nicole agrees to try to stop Carl and protect Jennifer. After Alexsei vanishes before her eyes, she worries she’s going insane. Back in Louisiana, Nicole calls Jennifer, who says she doesn’t remember Alexsei.
3: Chris’s Choice Begins
Jennifer’s neighbor and jilted would-be suitor, Chris, encounters Carl in a public park and tries to resist an invitation to join his cult movement. Later, Chris uses electronic eavesdropping equipment to record Jennifer’s phone call with the priest and her secret lover, Stephen. In a jealous rage, Chris prays to “whatever’s listening” for revenge against the priest for secretly dating Jennifer. After making a pact with malicious voices, Chris kills a stranger on the roadside in self-defense and disposes of the body in the river.
4: Stephen’s Choice Begins
Jennifer asks Stephen to commit to marrying her, even if Rome won’t give its blessing.
Later, Stephen, Nicole and Chris watch Carl threaten the sheriff’s daughter, Mary, in church before they fail to stop Carl’s public suicide.
Stephen resists Chris’ secret attempt to entrap him in a sex scandal with a prostitute posing as someone in need of psychological counseling.
5: Nicole
Nicole is taken captive while stopping Chris from following Carl’s voice’s commands to hurt the sheriff’s daughter in a warehouse.
6: Stephen
Stephen fails to stop the sheriff’s wife’s suicide after she comes to his home in distress and speaks of demons.
7: Chris
Someone appearing to be Carl attacks Chris in the park. Recovering at Jennifer’s home, Chris confronts her about her secret affair with Stephen. Chris begs the malicious voices not to hurt Jennifer, and he complies with Carl’s voice’s command to hide incriminating photos in Stephen’s home to frame the priest.
Chris verbally abuses an old woman in the church then threatens Stephen in the church confessional.
8: Stephen
That night, with great reluctance, Stephen agrees to meet Chris in a restaurant, hoping to talk him out of suicidal threats. After Chris causes a scene, Stephen goes to Jennifer to tell her they need time apart to discern what God wants for them. Stephen hears malicious voices and sees stigmata wounds on his body before seeking advice from his friend, Father Kevin Rogers.
Stephen tells Kevin all his worries and agrees to confess to his superior Bishop Warner. After telling the bishop, Stephen returns to Jennifer to break up. Stephen returns to the bishop to express worry about being involuntarily drugged by Chris. The bishop orders Stephen to leave for a silent retreat, and not to worry about Chris.
9: Chris
Chris breaks into Jennifer’s home to fix his spy cameras. Once inside, the malicious voices paralyze him. When Jennifer returns home, Chris apologizes and becomes overwhelmed by Jennifer’s mercy. Hearing footsteps coming up the steps, Chris tries to warn Jennifer before Carl subdues them with sleeping gas.
When Chris wakes up, Carl threatens to have his thugs continue torturing Jennifer to death unless Chris kills himself to frame Stephen for assisted suicide. On the way to Stephen, Chris wrecks his car and hides in the yard of the old woman he verbally abused in the church. After reconciling with the woman, Chris leaves a large check for the sheriff’s daughter’s college education along with another check to purchase the old woman’s car.
Chris decides to resist the malicious voices by destroying the incriminating photos he planted in Stephen’s home.
10: Stephen
Stephen encounters Chris while praying for forgiveness at the retreat house, where Chris mentions Jennifer’s abduction and forces him to write encrypted text at gunpoint. Stephen refuses to ask for death before Chris kills himself.
Malicious voices taunt Stephen before a deputy and sheriff question him in a jail cell and confront him with evidence tying him to the double murder of Chris and Jennifer.
11: Nicole
Holding onto life, Nicole has a dream of Jennifer warning her about Alexsei’s cruel intentions. Nicole declares that she wants to continue living for revenge against Alexsei.
12: Stephen
Stephen meets Alexsei, who poses as a lawyer but appears not to be human and warns of humanity’s destruction unless Stephen complies. Stephen rejects Alexsei’s request that he plead guilty to crimes he didn’t commit. After Stephen rejects Alexsei as a lawyer during arraignment, the judge calls for Stephen’s mental health evaluation. On the way back to jail, officials detour Stephen into the bathroom, where Carl confronts him and drowns him in a toilet.
13: Nicole
Nicole awakens with a cyborg body along with a copy of the encrypted text Chris forced Stephen to clear the priest’s name. Alexsei reveals that a bioweapon has killed all humans, but he soon introduces Nicole to the clones of Jennifer and the sheriff’s daughter she fought Chris to save. Nicole agrees to take a pledge against “magical” or “religious” thinking,” which her new extraterrestrial masters claim can only lead to sectarian violence. In exchange, Alexsei promises Homo Sapiens will live with the benefit of unprecedented life-extending and life-enhancing technology.
Nicole becomes more disillusioned when she learns that the clones seem like their originals but they only recall the altered records of individual human lives found in the official video logs.
Stephen’s clone asks Nicole to appeal to the authorities who arrested his friend for behavior that came too close to worship. Nicole dreams she speaks with the ghost of the original Stephen who tells her to listen to her conscience.
Nicole begs the space station’s chief scientist to retrieve the original Jennifer through time travel then she rejects the scientist’s counter offer to replace Jennifer’s clone with a new and improved one with desired memories.
Alexsei appears on Nicole’s computer monitor to give her a pep talk about all she has accomplished for humanity. Nicole yells at Alexsei before apologizing.
Nicole visits the apartment of Jennifer and Stephen’s clones for dinner and pretends not to notice when she observes Stephen’s clone with hidden explosives and possible plans for revolt.
Nicole hides in her closet, speaking into her handheld computer and trying to broadcast comments about the limited power of science over death. She hears a noise before Alexsei confronts her. Alexsei warns her disobedience will cause the extinction of human life. She refuses to remain his pawn and his face turns hideous before welcoming her to Hell.
Nicole finds herself in complete darkness before recovering her original body and crawling past Carl as he preaches to the crowd. She encounters Chris in a hallway of windows with scenes of atrocities, and he advises her to look past the horrors and hope for union with God. They approach a white light and Nicole pauses to thank him for his final efforts to help Stephen and the sheriff’s daughter. Chris expresses fears he might be beyond salvation. Grabbing Chris’s hand, she forces him over the edge of a cliff and they plummet into the light.
14: Jennifer
Jennifer’s ghost finishes reading and blames herself for failing to prevent all that happened to her friends and family. Alexsei appears with a hideous face to tell her he did it all to spend eternity with her in hell. She prays for forgiveness as she leaves the room and ignores Alexsei's threats that God will send her back to him for more pain. Rejecting Alexsei’s lies, Jennifer steps to the light in hopes of eternal joy with her loving Creator.
Prologue: Jennifer’s Choice Begins
A female ghost, Jennifer, sits in a bathroom when two interrogators arrive to ask her identity. She tells them she doesn’t know or want to know. They reply that she must force herself to recall the tragic events leading to her death if she hopes to free herself from this afterlife prison. She receives a red book, and recognizes her name in the inscription: “To Jennifer: I’m sorry I failed you. Don’t blame yourself. Please come to us. Love always, Nicole.” Jennifer’s begins reading the book as her interrogators leave.
1: Carl’s Choice Begins
Carl, one of the two main antagonists in the story, gets evicted from Anthony’s apartment and rescues an attractive woman from an oncoming train at a subway station.
After much confusion, the woman introduces herself as Helen Miller, the wife of Congressman Jonathan Miller. Helen seduces Carl back to her hotel room, and Carl accepts her invitation to a Caribbean cruise, where she behaves like a different person, rejecting sex as sinful and picking mean-spirited religious quarrels with strangers.
Helen claims her husband wants to kill her to avoid a divorce, and mentions the man’s home alarm code and the hidden gun in his closet. To prevent Carl from leaving her, Helen promises to take her psychiatric medications and agrees not to discuss religion again.
Weeks later, Helen mentions religion again, and Carl taunts her by inviting demons to control his life. After she goes missing, Helen calls Carl, claiming the politician hired someone to attack her. Carl confronts the man at gunpoint to discover he’s actually Helen’s father.
Carl escapes then returns to the man’s home to catch the father and daughter in an act of incest. He murders both in bed and follows voices in his head to Senator Walker. Carl delivers a mysterious object to the senator, who tells him it’s a bioweapon, and claims Carl is predestined to lead a revolution against the Creator of the Universe.
As the senator leaves for work, Carl yells at the God of Abraham for ignoring his prayers and vows revenge.
2: Nicole’s Choice Begins
The story’s main protagonists, Nicole, sits with her sister, Jennifer, at the Lincoln Memorial, discussing Nicole’s job working for Senator Walker. Jennifer introduces Nicole to the second main antagonist, Alexsei, who asks Nicole on a lunch date.
The two sisters agree to walk with Alexsei to Lafayette Park, but they quickly leave him after he predicts a massive terrorist attack. On the train ride home, Nicole learns her sister is secretly dating their mutual friend, Father Stephen Keller, a Roman Catholic priest.
Alexsei drops in on Nicole at work to warn that her boss, Senator Walker, is part of a Satanic terrorist group. He begs her to stop the madman from killing himself. During a bizarre telephone press conference the senator calls to calls to rant about the end of the world, Nicole manages to deflect the senator’s gun on the first shot but a second self-inflicted gunshot kills the man.
Alexsei greets Nicole outside and shows her advanced nano-technology, claiming a hidden enemy has used it to create delusions of supernatural voices to brainwash her former boss, Carl and others so they become suicidal religious extremists intent on speeding the final judgment with a weapon of mass destruction.
Nicole agrees to try to stop Carl and protect Jennifer. After Alexsei vanishes before her eyes, she worries she’s going insane. Back in Louisiana, Nicole calls Jennifer, who says she doesn’t remember Alexsei.
3: Chris’s Choice Begins
Jennifer’s neighbor and jilted would-be suitor, Chris, encounters Carl in a public park and tries to resist an invitation to join his cult movement. Later, Chris uses electronic eavesdropping equipment to record Jennifer’s phone call with the priest and her secret lover, Stephen. In a jealous rage, Chris prays to “whatever’s listening” for revenge against the priest for secretly dating Jennifer. After making a pact with malicious voices, Chris kills a stranger on the roadside in self-defense and disposes of the body in the river.
4: Stephen’s Choice Begins
Jennifer asks Stephen to commit to marrying her, even if Rome won’t give its blessing.
Later, Stephen, Nicole and Chris watch Carl threaten the sheriff’s daughter, Mary, in church before they fail to stop Carl’s public suicide.
Stephen resists Chris’ secret attempt to entrap him in a sex scandal with a prostitute posing as someone in need of psychological counseling.
5: Nicole
Nicole is taken captive while stopping Chris from following Carl’s voice’s commands to hurt the sheriff’s daughter in a warehouse.
6: Stephen
Stephen fails to stop the sheriff’s wife’s suicide after she comes to his home in distress and speaks of demons.
7: Chris
Someone appearing to be Carl attacks Chris in the park. Recovering at Jennifer’s home, Chris confronts her about her secret affair with Stephen. Chris begs the malicious voices not to hurt Jennifer, and he complies with Carl’s voice’s command to hide incriminating photos in Stephen’s home to frame the priest.
Chris verbally abuses an old woman in the church then threatens Stephen in the church confessional.
8: Stephen
That night, with great reluctance, Stephen agrees to meet Chris in a restaurant, hoping to talk him out of suicidal threats. After Chris causes a scene, Stephen goes to Jennifer to tell her they need time apart to discern what God wants for them. Stephen hears malicious voices and sees stigmata wounds on his body before seeking advice from his friend, Father Kevin Rogers.
Stephen tells Kevin all his worries and agrees to confess to his superior Bishop Warner. After telling the bishop, Stephen returns to Jennifer to break up. Stephen returns to the bishop to express worry about being involuntarily drugged by Chris. The bishop orders Stephen to leave for a silent retreat, and not to worry about Chris.
9: Chris
Chris breaks into Jennifer’s home to fix his spy cameras. Once inside, the malicious voices paralyze him. When Jennifer returns home, Chris apologizes and becomes overwhelmed by Jennifer’s mercy. Hearing footsteps coming up the steps, Chris tries to warn Jennifer before Carl subdues them with sleeping gas.
When Chris wakes up, Carl threatens to have his thugs continue torturing Jennifer to death unless Chris kills himself to frame Stephen for assisted suicide. On the way to Stephen, Chris wrecks his car and hides in the yard of the old woman he verbally abused in the church. After reconciling with the woman, Chris leaves a large check for the sheriff’s daughter’s college education along with another check to purchase the old woman’s car.
Chris decides to resist the malicious voices by destroying the incriminating photos he planted in Stephen’s home.
10: Stephen
Stephen encounters Chris while praying for forgiveness at the retreat house, where Chris mentions Jennifer’s abduction and forces him to write encrypted text at gunpoint. Stephen refuses to ask for death before Chris kills himself.
Malicious voices taunt Stephen before a deputy and sheriff question him in a jail cell and confront him with evidence tying him to the double murder of Chris and Jennifer.
11: Nicole
Holding onto life, Nicole has a dream of Jennifer warning her about Alexsei’s cruel intentions. Nicole declares that she wants to continue living for revenge against Alexsei.
12: Stephen
Stephen meets Alexsei, who poses as a lawyer but appears not to be human and warns of humanity’s destruction unless Stephen complies. Stephen rejects Alexsei’s request that he plead guilty to crimes he didn’t commit. After Stephen rejects Alexsei as a lawyer during arraignment, the judge calls for Stephen’s mental health evaluation. On the way back to jail, officials detour Stephen into the bathroom, where Carl confronts him and drowns him in a toilet.
13: Nicole
Nicole awakens with a cyborg body along with a copy of the encrypted text Chris forced Stephen to clear the priest’s name. Alexsei reveals that a bioweapon has killed all humans, but he soon introduces Nicole to the clones of Jennifer and the sheriff’s daughter she fought Chris to save. Nicole agrees to take a pledge against “magical” or “religious” thinking,” which her new extraterrestrial masters claim can only lead to sectarian violence. In exchange, Alexsei promises Homo Sapiens will live with the benefit of unprecedented life-extending and life-enhancing technology.
Nicole becomes more disillusioned when she learns that the clones seem like their originals but they only recall the altered records of individual human lives found in the official video logs.
Stephen’s clone asks Nicole to appeal to the authorities who arrested his friend for behavior that came too close to worship. Nicole dreams she speaks with the ghost of the original Stephen who tells her to listen to her conscience.
Nicole begs the space station’s chief scientist to retrieve the original Jennifer through time travel then she rejects the scientist’s counter offer to replace Jennifer’s clone with a new and improved one with desired memories.
Alexsei appears on Nicole’s computer monitor to give her a pep talk about all she has accomplished for humanity. Nicole yells at Alexsei before apologizing.
Nicole visits the apartment of Jennifer and Stephen’s clones for dinner and pretends not to notice when she observes Stephen’s clone with hidden explosives and possible plans for revolt.
Nicole hides in her closet, speaking into her handheld computer and trying to broadcast comments about the limited power of science over death. She hears a noise before Alexsei confronts her. Alexsei warns her disobedience will cause the extinction of human life. She refuses to remain his pawn and his face turns hideous before welcoming her to Hell.
Nicole finds herself in complete darkness before recovering her original body and crawling past Carl as he preaches to the crowd. She encounters Chris in a hallway of windows with scenes of atrocities, and he advises her to look past the horrors and hope for union with God. They approach a white light and Nicole pauses to thank him for his final efforts to help Stephen and the sheriff’s daughter. Chris expresses fears he might be beyond salvation. Grabbing Chris’s hand, she forces him over the edge of a cliff and they plummet into the light.
14: Jennifer
Jennifer’s ghost finishes reading and blames herself for failing to prevent all that happened to her friends and family. Alexsei appears with a hideous face to tell her he did it all to spend eternity with her in hell. She prays for forgiveness as she leaves the room and ignores Alexsei's threats that God will send her back to him for more pain. Rejecting Alexsei’s lies, Jennifer steps to the light in hopes of eternal joy with her loving Creator.
posted by mft1234 at 3:36 AM
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