RCVR

Science fiction

Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...

series created for the internet by producer-director David van Eyssen which offers an explanation for the exponential growth in science and technology since the late 19th century. The series was also produced by Tavin Marin Titus through production company Science To Fiction. The original story on which RCVR was based was written by van Eyssen. Brian Horiuchi and van Eyssen wrote the first season of RCVR as a team.

The series premiered on Machinima

Machinima

Machinima is the use of real-time 3D computer graphics rendering engines to create a cinematic production. Most often, video games are used to generate the computer animation...

on September 21, 2011 and met with critical acclaim and a user "like" rating of 96%. The show generated 2.6 million views in 14 days and approximately 6 million views by October 2011. The first season of RCVR is made up of 6 episodes each which are 6-9 minutes in duration. Cumulatively, the first season had a run-time of more than 46 minutes.

Alternate Reality Gaming

Accompanying the premiere of the series was the launch of a corresponding blog "ProjectRCVR" and a ProjectRCVR Twitter account linking the user to supplemental videos and commentary that formed part of an ARG (Alternate Reality Game

Alternate reality game

An alternate reality game is an interactive narrative that uses the real world as a platform, often involving multiple media and game elements, to tell a story that may be affected by participants' ideas or actions....

) which challenged users to access a password-protected website (http://www.sigma-agency.org) containing the truth about human-alien encounters. At the conclusion of each episode, users were invited to "Discover The Truth" by subscribing to RCVR's Twitter account.

Story

RCVR follows SIGMA agents Luke Weber, played by South-African born actor Daniel Bonjour, and Sandy Bergson played by Catherine Kresge, as they investigate and attempt to cover up extraterrestrial encounters in 1973. The agents are also "RCVR hunters", tasked with tracking down individuals who possess valuable information channeled to them by extraterrestrial life-forms. In the series, these contactees are known as "receivers" or "RCVRs" (SIGMA's notation). But beyond the many technological advances that are used by corporations and governments for personal profit, RCVRs also carry fragments of a deeper knowledge -- information suggesting that life can be extended indefinitely, that energy can be created without a fuel source and that time-travel is possible. Possession of this information makes RCVRs a powerful but dangerous commodity.

Sponsorship

Motorola Mobility

Motorola Mobility Holdings, Inc. , formerly the Mobile Devices division of Motorola Inc. until January 2011, is a communications corporation headquartered in Libertyville, Illinois, a Chicago suburb. Motorola's networks division pioneered the flip phone with the StarTAC in the mid-1990s...

sponsored the first season of RCVR. The company's products and logo were integrated at key points in the series: In Episode 1 the Xoom tablet appears on a motel television; in Episode 3, models of the Xoom tablet, StarTAC phone and an oversized microprocessor are examined by Weber during his interview of a suspected contactee; in Episode 4, Sandy Bergson uses a prototype version of the DynaTAC phone which would not be commercially available until a decade later, in 1983; in Episode 5, the undercarriage of the alien mothership displays the Motorola "M" as it descends.

Simultaneously, the editor of "ProjectRCVR", Alvin Peters, announced that he had uncovered a relationship between Motorola

Motorola

Motorola, Inc. was an American multinational telecommunications company based in Schaumburg, Illinois, which was eventually divided into two independent public companies, Motorola Mobility and Motorola Solutions on January 4, 2011, after losing $4.3 billion from 2007 to 2009...

and SIGMA. Users that obtained five sets of usernames and passcodes to enter SIGMA's official website shared Peters' discoveries. In the process of accessing hidden levels of SIGMA, users would also learn the truth about six UFO-related mysteries that have been the subject of controversy: Area 51
Area 51
Area 51 is a military base, and a remote detachment of Edwards Air Force Base. It is located in the southern portion of Nevada in the western United States, 83 miles north-northwest of downtown Las Vegas. Situated at its center, on the southern shore of Groom Lake, is a large military airfield...

, Roswell
Roswell
Roswell may mean:Places in the United States of America:* Roswell, Georgia, a suburb of Atlanta** Roswell High School , a school in the city of Roswell, Georgia* Roswell, New Mexico, known for the purported 1947 UFO incident...

, Majestic 12
Majestic 12
Majestic 12 is the alleged code name of a secret committee of scientists, military leaders, and government officials, supposedly formed in 1947 by an executive order of U.S. President Harry S. Truman...

, NASA
NASA
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is the agency of the United States government that is responsible for the nation's civilian space program and for aeronautics and aerospace research...

, Kenneth Arnold
Kenneth Arnold
Kenneth A. Arnold was an American aviator and businessman. He is best-known for making what is generally considered the first widely reported unidentified flying object sighting in the United States, after claiming to have seen nine unusual objects flying in a chain near Mount Rainier, Washington...

and The Arkansas Incident (on which Season 1 is based). Alien-styled augmented reality devices that influenced the manufacture of Motorola technology since 1973, Google-maps references of sightings, and classified archive video and articles interactively extended the RCVR mythology.

Episodes

"Little Green Men" first aired September 21, 2011
"Birdfall" first aired September 30, 2011
"Dry Weather" first aired September 30, 2011
"Mission Failure" first aired October 10, 2011
"DCVR" first aired October 12, 2011
"The Chosen" first aired October 19, 2011

External links

RCVR Series http://www.youtube.com/show?p=i8jB6B3ZJbM&tracker=show_av
ProjectRCVR http://www.projectrcvr.com/
SIGMA http://www.sigma-agency.org/
They Walk Among Us http://theywalk-amongus.co.uk
IMDB http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2057790/

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