With the help of a team of father-daughter scientists and a sentient alien computer, an NSA Analyst races to save the planet from a power-mad Russian bent on destroying the world and creating a new world order.

SYNOPSIS:

Revised Synopsis

ACT ONE

Two UFOs Crash during an electrical storm in Roswell, New Mexico in 1947. A young boy, Henry Summers, witnesses the crash and while visiting the crash site with his parents, finds one ship destroyed and the other intact. Several dead bodies are scattered around the site. The remains appear to be those of small children, but soon turn out to the crew members of the crashed alien ships.

Many years later NSA analyst Nick Reynolds heads a government task force whose job it is to stop cyber-attacks against the United States. Recent attacks have targeted the nation’s infrastructure and are traced back to China.

It soon becomes evident that Nicks team lacks the defensive tools needed to stop the entirely new form of technologically superior cyber-attacks, nor is there time to develop new defensive measures. While informing his boss, General George Caprella, of this, Nick is told of a special project that might offer some hope, a project run out of Area 51 in Groom Lake, Nevada, by a father/daughter team of scientists made up of Henry and Kate Summers.

Nick travels to the base, where he learns that they’ve recovered a computer from an alien spacecraft that crashed in New Mexico in 1947. Despite initially viewing it as a waste of his valuable time, outgunned as he is by the cyber-attackers Nick decides to give it a shot. He works with the scientists to try to activate the alien device that Kate has nicknamed, Ignis.

When the Indian Lake nuclear power plant in New York experiences a cyber-attack and there is a meltdown, 100,000 people are killed, pushing the world to the brink to the brink of nuclear war. Nick races to discover who’s behind the attacks, and to find a way to stop them.

The relationship between Nick and scientist Kate Summers gets off to a very tumultuous start, with Kate verbally abusing Nick time and time again. As time progresses, however, the two resolve their differences and eventually, become intimate. Together they find a way to activate Ignis and discover a headset which might enable them to interface with Ignis.

ACT TWO

Kate tells Nick she’s planning to test the helmet the following morning, in spite of the risks associated with wearing a neural interface designed for an alien physiology. Once everyone has left, Nick retrieves the helmet so he can test the interface himself, unwilling to risk losing Kate, but willing to risk his own life if it offers him a chance to stop the attacks.

Upon placing the helmet on his head Nick immediately finds himself in a virtual world, a world in which all he has to do is think of something, and Ignis makes it happen. Hacking China’s most secure computer systems requires nothing more than Nick to focus on it, and it happens. He emerges excited and thrilled.

Nick rushes back to Washington the following day to address Congress, hoping to delay what he perceives to be a premature declaration of war against China. While in Washington, he is told that a Russian man named Nikolai Chervanko, a former KGB officer, is behind the attacks, not China.

At this point though they could not stand one another in the beginning, Nick and Kate’s antagonistic relationship morphs into sone of respect and warmth, and later into romance.

Meanwhile, someone hacks into the Allen Telescope Array in Northern California takes temporary control of the array. A signal is then transmitted by the array into deep space. We see that Ignis is highly active with lights flashing constantly when then hacks occur, suggesting it is Ignis who has hacked the Allen Telescope Array and sent the signal. The characters, however, are unaware Ignis is involved with the hack.

Nick uses the helmet a second time to interface with Ignis and discovers he can use Ignis to access computer systems all over the world via the Internet. Romance between Nick and Kate continues to blossom. Tensions between the US and China escalate.

Midpoint

With proof that Ignis can stop the attacks and with authorization from the president, Cyber Command invokes the Ignis Protocol. Nick is given permission to interface with Ignis in order to enter Ignis’ virtual world to access and protect a very long list of servers, and to find the source of the attacks and destroy it. After protecting vital systems and removing the viruses planted on them, Nick uses Ignis to locate and destroy Chervanko’s Cyber Warfare system, ARES.

Soon after Nick destroy ARES, Chervanko’s base is assaulted by FSB. Chervanko narrowly escapes. When Nick comes out of VR, he learns he’s been inside with Ignis for two days, has no memory of what occurred while he was in with Ignis, and no one has an explanation as to why he was in so long. Still, things are looking up for Nick and the world. Chervanko has been stopped and is on the run, tensions between the United States and China have begun to de-escalate, and the threat of war diminished. With ARES destroyed the threat is seemingly over.

Reaching out to former KGB contacts. Chervanko sneaks out of Russia and travels to the United States. He is angry, vengeful, and determined to discover how he’d been defeated and, if possible, to complete his mission. Chervanko learns the device used to stop the attack is at Area 51. He successfully penetrates the base, disguised as scientist/contractor Joseph Colins. Once there he encounters Nick, Kate, and Henry. He is soon discovered, but not before learning about Ignis, and what it can do.

With ARES destroyed, Chervanko decides to use Ignis to launch missiles from the United States and China at each other, in effect achieving the same results he would have with ARES.

ACT THREE

While Chervanko holds a knife to Kate’s throat, Nick’s memories of his time with Ignis inside cyberspace suddenly come flooding back all at once. He remembers that he learned that Ignis is actually a living, sentient alien computer and is confident Ignis will never go along with Chervanko’s genocidal plan but instead, will likely put a stop to him. Nick freely shares with Chervanko how to interface with Ignis, seeing it as his only option for keeping everyone alive.

Chervanko then has Henry tie-up Nick and Kate, but when Henry attempts to call for help Chervanko kills him. With Kate and Nick still tied-up and Henry dying from the stab wound, Chervanko puts on the helmet and enters Ignis’ virtual world. Chervanko never regains consciousness, however, even after the helmet is removed. Ignis seems to have done something to Chervanko that left him in a vegetative state.

Following Henry’s funeral, Ignis contacts Nick by phone, asking Nick to interface with him one last time. Ignis informs Nick that his people are coming for him and that he is going home. Ignis had used the radio telescope array to phone home.

Nick goes to the lab, puts the helmet back on, and meets with Ignis, who appears in the form of Henry Summers. Ignis informs Nick that he’s left Nick a parting gift during their two days together, telling Nick only that he will know what it is when the time comes. The two then say goodbye, and soon after an alien spacecraft makes a dramatic entrance, appearing over the building they are in at the base, and Ignis vanishes.

.Soon afterwards Nick is astonished to discover that not only has Kate found a way to power the recovered alien spacecraft, Prometheus, but he discovers what it Ignis left for him. Nick is now able to read and understand the alien language. With power restored to the ship, he can access the ship’s online databases, and gains access to everything they need to completely reverse-engineer the alien technology. This sets up for the next two films in the series, Frontiers and New Beginnings.

The last scene, which appears after the end credits, is of Nick rushing through a hospital to the room where Kate has just given birth to their son, Henry Ignis Reynolds, the protagonist in the next film in the series, Frontiers.