(previously: Mixtape of the Found Decade)
Novas is a cyberpunk rock opera built entirely out of mostly 1980s music (primarily New Wave but including punk, disco, progressive rock, New Age, folk, and pop… and dipping into other decades as and when necessary). I don’t know why it exists. It’s a ridiculous thing to do except that it’s maybe not been done before (except for that Abba musical and that Beatles circus). And it’s only possible because of Youtube, it probably won’t survive because of Youtube, and it exists in a liminal space somewhere between ‘you can’t’ and ‘you really shouldn’t’.
It’s an example of hypermedia, I guess, or what could be done with hypermedia if we had a proper hypermedia platform and not just ‘platforms’. An aesthetic of radical remix. Does that make it punk enough, or is it too cyber? Or is it just the right amount of cyber?
It just sort of came out of my subconscious, because most of this music is what I heard in the 1980s as a kid, and it always seemed like there must be some kind of backstory to all these strange people dressing like scientists and singing about nuclear war, space, and living inside computers. When I rediscovered this music in the mid-2010s, somehow the suspicion grew on me that I could write a story out of all these found components. And so this is that story, for that kid in the 1980s.
If you’ve been following but haven’t quite been keeping up, maybe start here.
The Novas series is something that grew organically, in multiple “programs”, and I think is probably best listened to in that order, because the story starts simple and then gets more complicated.
But! The Programs are designed to be modular, so you can listen in multiple orders. You can play through either in “story time” sequence, or “release time” within each Program, and it should work.
Program Zero: Novas 0 (the Overture) (1982)
Program One: Novas 1 (1982)
Program Two: Novas 2 (1984)
Program Three: Novas 3 (1986)
Overture and core storyline. Start here.
Program Four:
Novas 4.1 (1980), 4.2 (1982), 4.3 (1981 dream sequence), 4.4 (1982 dream sequence)
Incidental music from the Simulation: two real states, two dreamstates. But which are which?
Program Five:
Novas 5.1 (1986), 5.2 (1984), 5.3 (1980), 5.4 (1981), 5.5 (1987)
A whole new take on the story, really. Prequels, interquels and a sequel, focusing on Susan’s plan to free Jack in Novas 3, their relationship during Novas 2, the backstory that brought them each separately into SYSTEM and how they nearly escaped it before Novas 1. Finally, what happened to them both after Novas 3.
Program Six:
Novas 6 (an alternate 1999)
Jack and Susan travel to a parallel timeline where SKYWATCH did not exist
Program Eleven/I :
Novas 0.1 (1980), 0.2 (1980 dream sequence), 0.3 (1981), 0.4 (1982), 0.5 (1982), 0.6 (1982 dream sequence)
Stories imagined as a “TV series” filling out the backstory of Novas 5.3 and 5.4, expanding Jack and Susan’s multiple lives as amnesiac agents inside SYSTEM.
Program Eleven/II:
Novas 0.01 (1978), 0.02 (1979), 1.1 (1983), 2.2 (1985), 3.3 (1987)
Stories imagined as a “TV series” bridging the gaps between the main trilogy events outside of SYSTEM, and a pair of prequels about Susan’s early life.
Program Twelve:
Novas 2.7 (1986), 2.8 (1986), 2.9 (1986), 3.4 (1987), 3.9 (1989), 6.6 (1957-80, 1999′), 6.7 (2000)
Stories imagined as a “TV series expansion” of Novas 5.1 and 5.5, focusing on Susan’s confrontation with Jack on the Satellite, and their actions after Novas 3.
Oh, and one thing before you start: Sometimes the Youtube embedded video thingy on a web page just randomly refuses to play all the songs (because some videos are rights-cleared for full-screen viewing, but not for embedding). Clicking the link above the embedded video will let you see them all, assuming they’re not deleted or blocked in your country.)
1957-1960
(Before Susan’s birth: some events of 0.01 A Blaze Of Stars and 6.6 To Spend The Night In Zion)
1978
0.01 A Blaze Of Stars
SKYWATCH, a secret research program, has successfully created human clones spliced with extraterrestrial DNA found on very early space probes. Susan, one of these gifted children, grows up in a bubble of privilege surrounded by technology at the Center for Scientific Progress. When she discovers her origins and destiny as part of a weapons program for use in a potential nuclear war, she and other “Novas” escape in 1978 to the urban underground.
1979
0.02 A Case Of Goodbye
Susan and the Novas try to build new lives as underground musicians while being hunted by both SKYWATCH and a sinister defense company, Astradyne Orbital. In a climactic confrontation in England, SKYWATCH planes are unable to stop a UFO from abducting Susan, while Astradyne moves to take over SKYWATCH and the Center in pursuit of its own goals of world domination.
1980
5.3 The Wire Full Of Light [MOVIE]
Some months later, Susan finds herself on the run, suffering from memory loss and with her music career in ruins. Jack, a former SKYWATCH agent, is drawn into a complex power play as Astradyne sabotages a competing aerospace company, Arcadium. Susan is captured by Astradyne and recruited into SYSTEM, a computer-mind-interface AI which will control her memories and make her a pliable corporate Agent. Jack is blackmailed and recruited by Astradyne as an Operator, with supervisory access to SYSTEM.
0.1 The Clouds Run Parallel
Jack and Susan are sent by SYSTEM on a mission to the Soviet Union to weaponise Susan’s musical skills in an experiment on social dynamics. Jack tries to win Susan’s trust but due to their different levels of SYSTEM access she becomes suspicious of him.
4.1 Machines
Jack as an Operator begins to fall in love with cyborg agent Susan and wishes he could free her. Despite SYSTEM’s mind control, Susan begins to recall some of her formerly blocked UFO experience. Meanwhile, the legacy SKYWATCH AI is actively working to subvert SYSTEM and help Susan awaken.
1981
0.2 The Earth Forever Turning
Susan’s UFO visions within SYSTEM continue. She pictures the human race’s progress into space, from her memories of the Apollo 11 moon landing to a vision of future contact with extraterrestrial life.
0.3 The Second Hand Unwinds
Jack becomes increasingly frustrated with his inability to connect with Susan, whose memory is erased and reprogrammed with a new personality by Astradyne’s SYSTEM after each mission. He makes the drastic decision to abandon his Operator privileges and enter SYSTEM as an Agent. This will mean he will lose both his memory and the ability to distinguish simulation from reality. But he thinks the risk is worth it, for Susan.
4.3 Movies
Jack and Susan dream inside SYSTEM.
5.4 In The Land Of Angels [MOVIE]
Susan and Jack are now both reprogrammable cyborg Agents of SYSTEM, whose reality is occasionally a VR simulation. They both begin to feel that something is wrong with their world, and then each separately stumble on a way to transcend the Simulation: Susan using meditation and Jack using music. Briefly escaping SYSTEM’s control, they discover the old SKYWATCH AI which has been continuing its original searching for extra-terrestrial life, and communicating with Susan. Susan and Jack both recall their identities, and Susan remembers that she designed much of SKYWATCH’s code. But they quarrel with each other, and SYSTEM recaptures them and wipes their memory.
1982
0.4 The Light Catches You
Susan and Jack, back in SYSTEM’s control, are advancing their music careers with Astradyne’s full corporate backing. Jack enjoys their new, rich, popular and unreal life but Susan increasingly feels that something is terribly wrong. Meanwhile SKYWATCH keeps throwing them into a simulation of nuclear war in an attempt to gain their attention.
0.5 The Wonders Of Today
Despite SYSTEM’s multiple memory wipes, Jack still has not entirely forgotten Susan, nor she him. Their search for each other leads them around the globe, until with SKYWATCH’s help they finally meet and start a relationship for the first time as equals.
4.2 Ghosts
Susan and Jack live through multiple iterations of SYSTEM’s simulated nuclear war.
0.0 Tomorrow [OVERTURE]
A day in the life of Susan and Jack, two young New Wave musicians in 1982, who are standing on the verge of a shattering revelation about the nature of their world.
1.0 Radiant Energy [FIRST CORE MOVIE]
Susan and Jack experience a devastating global nuclear war but find that reality breaks open and reveals itself as a simulation controlled by two competing artificial intelligences, SYSTEM and SKYWATCH. SKYWATCH helps them escape, but at the cost of destroying itself. SYSTEM’s Simulation cascades into snow as it restarts and Susan and Jack both awake. They find themselves in a research lab of giant defense company Astradyne Orbital, and are able to escape and free the other trapped research subjects, named Novas.
4.4 Stars
Jack and Susan dream outside SYSTEM.
1983
1.1 A Silence Over Cities
A year after escaping SYSTEM, Susan and Jack are on the run from Astradyne but the bleakness of the real world casts a shadow on their relationship. Jack is determined to uncover Astradyne’s real goals and makes the dangerous decision to hack remotely into SYSTEM. He discovers a neo-fascist network at the heart of SYSTEM’s schemes and makes the decision to infiltrate that network at street level. Susan, unwilling to follow him, rejoins the other Novas in returning to underground music.
1984
2.0 Solid State Revolution [SECOND CORE MOVIE]
Two years after escaping from Astradyne, Susan and Jack are struggling in their relationship and each separately waging a secret war against the Company’s AI SYSTEM. But even outside the Simulation, SYSTEM’s reach is powerful, controlling a vast media empire powered by high technology. Worse, Jack seems to have been compromised by SYSTEM, while Susan fears that the Novas’ revolution has also been subverted. Betrayed to SYSTEM by Jack as the revolution finally breaks out, Susan has to break out of a detention cell while Jack has to break his programming. To avert a disastrous war, Jack lets the Company recapture him, while Susan vanishes from the underground scene.
5.2 Alleys That We Run Through [MOVIE]
During the act break of 2.0, Susan and Jack are carrying on a tentative secret relationship to preserve his cover as a double agent of SYSTEM. They reconcile fully as riots break out in Los Angeles after a fire at a concert. Astradyne and the Novas’s plans both explode into action as Susan’s visions of space return.
1985
2.2 A Billion Candles Burning
Susan is contacted by Jack through her neural implant, learning that he has been taken to Astradyne’s satellite headquarters and is being wired into SYSTEM’s core as a human processing element to complete its final conquest of Earth. She forms a desperate plan to smuggle herself aboard a Company shuttle in a bid to free him.
1986
2.7 In Tapes We Leave Behind
Susan in orbit approaches the Satellite, and begins to establish a comms link with Jack. Meanwhile the Revolution and the Company both come to a crisis point.
5.1 Up To An Ivory Tower [MOVIE]
Susan links herself into Jack’s SYSTEM cyberspace and fights through multiple levels of dreamscapes drawn from film noir and their complicated past to reawaken their relationship and free his mind.
2.8 The Door Is Open Wide
Susan burned through Jack’s ICE but the battle has exhausted her. They fall back together into the Simulation, while SYSTEM tries to reconfigure.
2.9 So Sudden And So Ageless
Susan is awake on the Satellite as SYSTEM hunts for her in realspace. To break into Jack’s cryo chamber, she makes a decision which she knows could cost her life.
3.0 Harmony Of The Spheres [THIRD CORE MOVIE]
The alien asteroid detected long ago by SKYWATCH is now on collision course for Earth. On the Astradyne satellite, Susan frees Jack from SYSTEM and they fight one final battle with automated security. They discover that SYSTEM has now taken over all of Astradyne’s executives and the entire company is AI-controlled. They steal a Company spacecraft and pursued by the last remnants of SYSTEM, set out to intercept the alien asteroid before it destroys Earth. On reaching the asteroid, it recognises Susan’s DNA and awakens, sending a massive telepathic wave towards Earth. Their craft malfunctions, but Susan completes her mutation into an energy being.
1987
5.5 This Song Sends Love Through [MOVIE]
In the chaos after SYSTEM’s fall, a grieving Jack, in cold sleep, and an unknown alien presence both return to Earth, sparking a worldwide UFO panic. Jack is terrified by the alien until it reveals itself to him as Susan in her new energy-being form. He remains in contact with her as the Novas use the power of rock music to establish a portal to the alien Probe and save the world.
3.3 A Trail Of Desire
During the act break of 5.5, Susan communicates with Jack as he slowly starts to realise that she is not dead but has become an immortal energy being. And is still very much in love with him.
3.4 A Million Grains Of Sand
During the act break of 5.5, Jack comes to terms with his new relationship with Susan while together they search for an Artifact related to the Probe which will enable the Final Concert.
3.9 He Bring In The Morning
Following the Final Concert, Jack activates the Artifact.
1999′
6.0 The Leaves Which Tremble At Dawn [MOVIE]
Susan and Jack, now energy beings roaming the multiverse, travel to an alternate Earth where Susan’s father never worked for SKYWATCH.
6.6 To Spend The Night In Zion
Susan helps her father escape death in 1980 by travelling to the alternate 1999.
2000
6.7 A New Home In The Sun
Jack and Susan reencounter the Probe.
2020
0.6 The Day After Tomorrow [END CREDITS]
The Earth, forever turning.