Gecko On-Sight

In a world similar to our own, the use of Synthetic Intelligences or S.I.s (synthetic conscious minds that can learn, imagine and feel, and swap out their Cores into different bodies) has been planet-wide for over 200 years. Despite this, their lives, hopes and futures are constrained by outdated, discriminatory practices that typecast them based on standardized aptitude tests, leaving them somewhere between pets and children in the eyes of the law, allowed existence but limited freedom and respect.

This script follows an S.I. known as Liz-217, or Liz, whose initial poor performance denies her a worthwhile existence, but upon her release by a sympathetic test evaluator, finds her way to an abandoned neighborhood populated by other S.I.s like her. Years of training and new experiences later, she returns to her old neighborhood to find it marked for redevelopment, with only a handful of her old neighbors still living there. So, to preserve the memories of the place she's called home for so much of her life, she sets out to earn enough to save the neighborhood before it's sold off.

Whilst there have been stories and films about 'saving the old neighborhood from developers', it's much, much rarer to have this done through the eyes of a non-biological protagonist. The setting and concept is one that I feel has enormous potential, as it expands the possible stories that can be told with a 'caste system' of robots, filling in the roles historically occupied by servants, migrant workers and low-income communities.

Aside from that, this is also a sports/martial arts story, and seeing the possibilities for the technologies and history of this setting to give new life to existing sports such as Obstacle Course Racing and one-on-one MMA bouts, gives unique and engaging set pieces.