Bleedback

Dangerous AI are locked within a virtual world. Now they've found a way out and blacklisted robotics expert Andrei is humanity's last hope.

Six-part sci-fi, action, thriller set in the year 2065.

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The Story
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Bleedback refers to the phenomena of virtual or fantasy worlds bleeding back into the real world.

In Bleedback the government has created a top secret virtual world to securely incubate and test artificial intelligence. The containment system has been breached and the AI are leaking out into the real world, infecting consumer devices, drones, robots and even people. Blacklisted robotics expert Andrei and his sidekick Birdie, a spy bot he cracked, are thrown into the chaos that ensues. Ultimately they will become humanities last hope at survival.

The World

The Plot

It’s New York, 2065. Both our dependence on and fear of technology has reached a critical moment. People are playing, fighting, shagging in virtual worlds, robots have become so advanced they might eliminate us. And then comes Bleedback … when activity in the virtual world seeps into the real world with sometimes terrifying consequences. Our central character Andrei, suffers the power of Bleedback firsthand.

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Andrei

The story follows Andrei, brilliant enough to captain any robotics lab but whose criminal record has barred him -- on pain of serious prison time -- from ever again wielding his gift. So he's forced to work underground as a Breaker, a specialized hacker able to crack the most sophisticated government mandated robot restraints.

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The Underworld

A bike mechanic by day, Andrei moonlights at The Beast, New York’s hottest nightclub, where every desire can be fulfilled ... for a price. What free time Andrei has is spent keeping his daughter Angela out of the Global Revolutionary Movement (GRM) and on the right Life Path. Andrei’s comfortable life is turned upside down when a love bot he cracks goes haywire at The Beast. A shadowy military group snatches his daughter and he is hurled into the dark recesses of the global Robo slave trade.

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The Guardians

The series will follow our protagonist Andrei as he is left with no choice but to help the Guardians, a shadowy government agency inspired by real life organizations like JSOP and the NSA. They use super intelligent AI that is banned by the RobAI Protocol to help them track down threats before they strike. PROPHET, the Guardians’ chief tactical threat elimination system, is using Andrei as a pawn to prevent a deadly new weapon from falling into the wrong hands.

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The World

The world we have created in Bleedback mirrors the real world today in many ways. In our world,  "safeguards " are forced on the robotics industry to "protect" the public from fantastic and threatening new developments in technology. Meanwhile, government agencies work above the law and use this same advanced AI, illegal to everyone else, to control and spy on their populations. At the same time, criminal organizations hunt and exploit the many and massively profitable opportunities made possible by these prohibition-like laws. The result? A surveillance-society-turned-powder-keg rife with paranoia and suspicion where swirling social unrest threatens to topple a global regime willing to use everything in its means to cling to power.

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The Team
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Scott Nihill
Creator / Co-Writer

Game designer & comic book writer at Embreate, director of the Webbie Award nominated documentary Flub and Utter (via the NFB), instigated a series of docs on artists via Artist Bloc, and blogs his favorite recipes via NihillistChef.com

@scottnihill

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Riley Adams
Editor / Co-Writer

A TV, film and game writer who excels at constructing character-centric journeys. He’s worked on the CBS/CTV hit Flashpoint, and on Warner Bros’ next big budget console game, Mad Max.

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Jeremy Mohler
Colorist / Letterer

Has worked for Marvel and most currently, the Mortal Instruments: City of Bones comic adaptation for The Th3rd World Studios.

jeremymohler.com

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Adam Moore
Penciler / Inker

A cartoonist whose work has appeared in magazines such as Wired and Cereal:Geek, and in comic books published by Image, Dynamite, and Dark Horse.

laemeur.com