Ascension

In the year 1963, the fear caused by the potential  destruction of the planet by nuclear weapons   caused the American government to start a project  called "Ascension". This consisted of a massive,   self-sustaining spaceship carrying six hundred  volunteers all the way to Centauri Proxima, where   they must colonize a new planet. This trip would  last 100 years. It is now 2014, and the project   is still kept secret from the general population.  It's very common for journalists to harass Harris,   the son of the founder of the Ascension, to  ask him about the rumors behind the project,   but Harris always replies the ship was never  launched. His father Abraham is still alive,   but a stroke has sent him to live permanently  in a nursing home, and Harris has taken over the   project. The Ascension is doing well and  is now filled with two more generations,   but it's also been divided by class. The affluent  families have the best job and live luxuriously on   the upper deck, while the poor have servant jobs  and can only stay on the lower deck. For the 51st   anniversary, the ship is throwing a huge party to  celebrate they're crossing the point of no return.   Lorelei stops by the lower deck to visit Stokes,  who hands her a mysterious package. Afterward,   Lorelei joins the party, where she finds her  sister Emily hanging out with executive officer   Gault. Emily is married, but she's having an  affair with Gault. Just to be annoying, Lorelei   kisses Gault before leaving for the swimming  pool. Christa notices Lorelei isn't at the   party and goes looking for her, only to find her  dead. Sometime later, Gault, Emily's husband Duke,   and Captain William are called to look at the  body. Doctor Juliet says it looks like Lorelei   got hit on the head, but Gault notices rope marks  on her wrists and suspects foul play. William   doesn't want panic on the ship, so he asks Gault  to investigate in secret. Meanwhile Christa has   gone through a state of shock because of what she  saw and she's been admitted to the medical bay and   given a sedative. Suddenly Christa begins shaking  in the bed, saying that "they're watching" and   that "the Globus sees all", prompting Juliet  to put her to sleep. Somewhere in the ship,   a mysterious figure paints the words "no future"  on the wall. Later, Gault checks the security   cameras and finds out the beach is a blind  spot. There's also no proof of anyone entering   or leaving the area on the corridor cameras,  which doesn't explain how Lorelei got there   in the first place. Emily comes by to tell Gault  that Lorelei had been seeing a guy named James in   secret because he's from the lower deck. The night  of the murder Lorelei had been with him and Emily   tried to ask her to stop seeing him, but she had  to stay silent when Lorelei threaten to tell Duke   about the affair. When the results of the autopsy  are ready, Juliet takes them to the captain,   explaining Lorelei had gotten frisky with someone  before her death. There's also a puncture wound   in the roof of her mouth made by a small but  powerful bullet, confirming this wasn't an   accident. William now is worried because there  shouldn't be guns aboard the ship, and he shares   this information with Gault, who agrees to send a  report to Earth. Next, Gault goes to the library   to check out some books about solving mysteries.  Librarian Ophelia tells him the last thing Lorelei   checked out was a tape about Year 31 when the fire  that killed her parents happened, but she returned   the box without the tape. Sometime later, Juliet  is called to check on Christa again because she   was found lying down and not willing to talk to  anyone. However as soon as Christa sees Juliet,   she tells how much she likes her necklace. The  conversation touches on the subject of their trip,   but Christa mentions there's no life out there and  that they should go back to Earth to avoid death.   Meanwhile Gault's men have finally found James.  He admits he saw Lorelei the day of the party,   but that was much earlier, and they had an  argument because Lorelei didn't want to go   to the party with him. James didn't see her  again and definitely didn't get busy with her   either. Afterward, Gault goes to ask Christa if  she knew anything. Christa thinks Lorelei went to   the beach because she was afraid of someone, but  not James, who was nice to her. Christa also knows   that Lorelei claimed to know "the truth". When  Gault asks her about what she said to Juliet,   Christa says she feels like she just knows  things. Afterward, Gault visits James and lets   him go because his alibi has been confirmed.  Then he uses the security cameras to discover   he's going to the beach. Gault joins him there for  more questions, but James claims to know nothing   about the library tape. When Gault expresses his  doubts about Lorelei having died on the beach,   they discover a secret passage that explains  how she arrived without the camera seeing her.   Meanwhile Christa goes to the star deck to yell  at the sky "stop watching us, I'm not afraid of   you". On Earth, Harris receives the news about the  murder. His assistant Carrillo think they should   tell the director, but Harris refuses because he  doesn't want his father's project to be tarnished.   Gault and Duke go down the secret passage and  find the letters NF painted on the wall plus a   notebook disguised as a poem book. Following the  bloodstains on the floor, they also find the place   where Lorelei was murdered. They take the notebook  to William, who confirms these notes are maps for   the nav-computer and water filtration systems,  which broke down weeks ago; this confirms it was   sabotage. William gives them permission to search  the ship. When the guards start searching the   lower deck, Stokes opposes the raid and calls his  men to start a fight. The encounter's interrupted   when an alert announces the ship is approaching  a massive radiation storm and everyone must stay   to their pods until it passes. The blast shields  that are supposed to protect the ship are jammed,   so Gault goes looking for an electrician from the  lower decks to fix it. James takes advantage of   the chaos to ask Nora to go with him to the beach  because Lorelei told him she hid something there,   and he doesn't trust the officers anymore.  Together they pulled some pipes underwater and   find the tape Lorelei left there inside a jar.  Juliet gives Christa some medicine to prevent   a panic attack and leaves her necklace to make  her feel protected. After some struggle with a   short circuit, the electrician manages to fix the  shields, and he takes this moment of privacy to   tell Gault that he saw Stokes give Lorelei a gun  on the day of the party. Everyone runs to their   radiation pods to wait for the ship to go through  the storm, but Christa sees a person in a hazmat   suit enter her room and take away the necklace.  Moments later, the storm is left behind and   life returns to normal. William hears about the  electrician's story and allows the guards to raid   Stokes' working place. They find the gun inside a  bucket, and Stokes swears he's being set up, but   he still gets arrested. During the interrogation,  Stokes admits he did give Lorelei the gun,   but that's it. He's sure she wasn't afraid of  anyone, in fact, he thinks someone else was afraid   of her. The guards are sure Stokes is guilty and  decide he'll be exiled. Now that the murderer   has been caught, they decide to hold a funeral  for Lorelei, during which her coffin is thrown   into space. Christa approaches Gault to give  him an army medal that she found in her cabin,   explaining Loreli left it there and that it had  been a gift from her boyfriend. Meanwhile the door   to Stokes' cell mysteriously opens on its own,  so he takes the chance to escape and retrieve   the gun. Back on Earth, Harris is confronted by  director Warren, who has learned about the gun and   is furious that Harris tried to hide it from her.  She reminds him that she can shut down the project   at any time, but their conversation is suddenly  interrupted by another emergency. On the ship,   Gault confronts William about the medal, because  he knows this belongs to whoever is the current   ship captain. William admits he had an affair with  Lorelei, but he didn't kill her. At that moment,   Stokes shows up holding Nora hostage. He insists  he was set up, and that someone had been in his   working room during the storm because he saw  a footprint that wasn't there before. Suddenly   the airlock opens on its own, so Gault takes  advantage of the distraction to tackle Stokes   while William takes Nora into another room.  Gault and Stokes are fighting over the gun,   but as the airlock opens wider, Gault opts  to hold onto the wall while Stokes is sucked   into space. After lots of falling, Stokes is  shocked to land on an inflated mattress, where   a bunch of people put him to sleep and take him  away. Warren is watching from afar with Harris,   who promises he has everything under control. It  turns out Ascension is a simulation, and the ship   is kept inside a building to study how viable is  to do this mission for real. Nobody in the ship   knows the truth, they all think they're in space  thanks to the star screens on the windows and the   random space incidents Harris causes with machines  to keep up the illusion. Stokes is put through a   bunch of tests, then he's locked up like a crazy  man. Sometime later, Warren sends Samantha,   a security consultant that will keep an eye on  things because she doesn't think Stokes did it   and there's a murderer on the loose. Meanwhile one  of the many generator rooms, a mysterious person   sets up a bomb and writes "no future" on the wall.  Moments later the bomb explodes near the Terra   Lab. Some workers get hurt, but thankfully there  are no casualties. Harris and Samantha see the   explosion from outside and have to step back when  the ship vents the flame. Gault, William, and Duke   find the "no future" graffiti and decide to tell  everyone the explosion was an accident. Samantha   tries to talk to Stokes, but he attacks her  and refuses to answer any questions after she's   rescued by the guards. Later Samantha meets with  Warren to tell her Harris is saying the explosion   is an accident, but she can tell he's lying. She  also thinks there's more going on here than a   sociological experiment. Warren confirms she sent  Samantha because she wants her to discover the   truth behind the experiment and investigating the  murder is just a convenient excuse. Gault keeps   on investigating because he also thinks Stokes is  innocent. He goes to see Dwight, the man in charge   of the generators, to ask him about the explosion.  Dwight panics because he thinks he'll be arrested,   thus he hits Gault and runs away. Moments later,  William and Duke visit Gault at the infirmary to   inform him they can't find Dwight anywhere. They  also discovered there's another generator missing,   so there may be another bomb coming. At the  same time, Christa tells Ophelia that she's   scared because something bad is coming. Sometime  later, Gault informs William that he did research   and discovered that the fire in Year 31 had also  been a generator bomb and not an accident. Dwight   hadn't been born then, so he thinks there may be  a whole team of saboteurs that have been around   for a while and Loreley discovered them, that's  why she was killed. William insists Stokes killed   Lorelei and orders Gault to concentrate on finding  Dwight. Then James approaches Gault to hand him   the tape Lorelei hid in the water and tell him  that Dwight is on deck 23, where the old explosion   happened. Meanwhile the mysterious person is seen  setting up another bomb. Gault goes to check deck   23 and causes Harris to panic because that area  is so damaged that he may hear noises coming from   outside. Until Gault is gone, the whole team must  keep absolute silence. Gault finds a toy rocket on   the floor that brings back painful memories of  his childhood because his parents died on deck   23's explosion just like Lorelei's. As Gault goes  further inside, Harris comes closer to the ship   and accidentally makes some noise. Gault hits the  wall to check if the noise was just an echo and he   begins remembering looking in here when he was a  kid. His mother found him and protected him from   the explosion when it happened. A little deeper  into the room, Gault finds the bomb and Dwight,   who pushes him away from it as he activates it.  It turns out Stokes was Dwight's father, and   now Dwight wants revenge for his death. Outside,  Harris asks everyone to evacuate, not caring to   save Gault because the project is more important.  Gault jumps on Dwight to fight him and after some   struggle, he retrieves the remote and turns off  the bomb. Dwight's oxygen tank breaks in the   fight, so when Gault runs outside and decompresses  the room, Dwight dies. Later, Samantha finds a   conspiracy website that shows several scientists  that were involved in the project went missing or   died in the 60s, and she decides to get in contact  with the webmaster. That night Christa dreams of   Juliet's necklace while Harris arrives home and  gifts the necklace to his wife, confirming he's   got a contact inside the ship. Some days later,  the crew gets ready to get their annual shots.   When Christa's turn comes, she doesn't want to get  it and begins panicking, yelling those things are   poison. Ophelia takes the shot first to show her  it's fine, but a second later, she begins having a   seizure. Samantha wonders what's going on, but  Harris promises Ophelia just had an allergic   reaction to the shot meant for Christa because  each shot is custom-made. Later at the infirmary,   Christa tells Juliet and Gault that it's her  fault Ophelia is sick. She had been scared of   the shots because she had seen a guy putting  something in the bottles and Ophelia offered   to keep her company. She saw all this in a dream  and swears the man that tampered with the shots is   the same one she saw with Lorelei in the tunnels,  which also came true. Christa is sure this man is   still on the ship. Meanwhile, Harris is watching  the footage of Christa's panic and is amazed   by her vitals because they haven't had someone  with those genetic markers since '83 when a guy   received the wrong shot. That man's immune system  began attacking itself because he didn't receive   his shot, and now Harris is worried Christa will  go through the same thing. They put the content   of the shots in Christa's milk, but she can tell  they're trying to trick her and she spills the   milk on the floor while looking directly at  the camera. Meanwhile Samantha meets with Eva,   the person in charge of the conspiracy website.  She shows proof of the seventy scientists that   disappears and adds that the project used  Kennedy’s advanced education initiative to   kidnap children and use their parents for the  project. Eva spoke with one of her parents,   who has been looking for her daughter for fifty  years and believed the key to everything was   Abraham. Juliet checks all the shot compounds but  doesn't find any signs of tampering. Christa's   having some time alone on the beach when she is  suddenly approached by a man that wants to give   her the shot by force. This is the guy that works  for Harris from the inside, and when Christa tries   to run away, Harris shuts down all the doors.  The mysterious man finds Christa in the lab   and when he reaches for her, he gets his arm hurt  on a lab tool. Christ struggles against his hold   and her anger causes her to telepathically make  the lightbulb explode, giving her the chance to   escape. Harris isn't shocked to see the girl has  powers because this is what Abraham predicted.   Later, Christa bumps into Gault and tells him the  bloodstains on her clothes are from her attacker.   Juliet uses this blood sample to compare it with  her database, but it'll take a while. She's also   worried about Christa's white blood-cell count,  but the girl refuses to take the shot. Gault goes   to see Christa and convinces her to take the shot,  so later she's visited by Juliet's husband Robert.   Seeing the man makes Christa not want the shot  anymore, and when Robert asks what things Christa   saw, she begins mentioning events she shouldn't  know, like 9/11, the war in the Middle East,   and Kennedy's assassination. She also realizes  that Robert is the man she saw with Lorelei in   the tunnels. Robert immediately gives her the  injection to put her to sleep then turns to   the camera, wondering what to do now the secret  is out. Harris isn't worried though because the   next day Christa doesn't remember anything. Robert  informs Gault that the blood on Christa's dress   belongs to Juliet's lab assistant. The guards  go to arrest him but when they enter the room,   they discover the guy ended things for himself.  There's a gash on his arm that confirms Christa's   story. Harris tells Samantha this one clearly  isn't murder but she isn't convinced, then she   begins mentioning lots of clues she's been finding  while looking at the ship's footage. She thinks   Stokes had been right when he said the gun had  been planted and that Harris has a right-hand man   on the ship that killed this guy to make him  look guilty. But Harris continues to deny it   all. Gault informs William that they searched the  assistant's room and asked around, but the found   no clues related to the saboteurs. The current  theory is that he felt guilty for giving Ophelia   the wrong shot, but it's too convenient. A few  days later, the crew throws a party to announce   that because of the recent deaths, three lucky  couples will be allowed to have babies to keep   up the ship's population. Meanwhile Christa wakes  up in the middle of the night because she hears   the sound of a woman giggling. She follows the  noise down a corridor and finds Lorelei's ghost,   who crashes the party right before the big screen  begins showing a recording of her affair with   William. The ghost tells Christa to look away,  but the girl just begins screaming in fear.   Harris checks the footage and is happy to see  Christa reacted before the video started playing,   meaning her powers are getting stronger. This  is the morphic resonance that Abraham predicted   would appear in three generations, and Christa is  the catalyst - the project's real goal has always   been to make a person develop such powers. The  next day, Juliet takes Christa to the lab to run   some tests, and Christa explains she sometimes has  this feeling of holding back the ocean. Meanwhile   Samantha approaches Carrillo to get him to explain  the ship's marriage system. It turns out the   crew can't choose who to marry, the computer  chooses according to genetics to guarantee a   healthy population. It is also the computer that  chooses who will have babies. To avoid unwanted   pregnancies, they give the crew an implant, but  some of them remove it by force. Those unwanted   babies are called "unclaimed" and sent to the  lower deck, this was the case with Stokes' son   Dwight. While Carrillo talks, Samantha steals his  cardkey. Their conversation is interrupted by the   arrival of Warren, who has read Samantha's report  and isn't happy. In the meantime, a nurse brings   Stokes his pills, and Stokes finally feels strong  enough to knock him out. While Warren and Harris   argue, Samantha takes the chance to sneak around  and visit Stokes, who knocks her out too. Moments   later, Samantha wakes up to find herself tied in  the locker room. Stokes is grabbing some clothes   and a blade to make Samantha take him to see the  captain, because he still thinks he's on the ship.   Samantha guides Stokes to the hangar and tells him  the truth, causing him to have a mental breakdown.   Then Samantha drags Stokes away as men from  Warren's organization arrive to arrest Harris and   Warren takes over the leadership of the project.  Gault checks on Christa, who is still being   put through a bunch of tests. He also takes the  chance to ask Robert about the naughty recording,   and by checking the systems, Robert confirms  it was William's code that uploaded the video,   which doesn't make sense. Meanwhile Christa keeps  hearing a voice calling her name. Emily's one of   the women chosen to have a baby and gets her  implant removed. Duke talks about their future   together and wants to be sure Emily loves him,  because he's seen how she and Gault look at each   other. Emily's silence confirms the affair, and a  furious Duke goes to confront Gault. Christa sees   Lorelei's again and follows her out of the lab  into the beach, where she finds Duke and Gault in   a fight. Wanting to stop them, she unconsciously  releases her powers and electrocutes Duke. Not   knowing how to stop, she loses control  and sends a current throughout the ship,   shutting it down. The electricity also hits  Warren and her men, killing a few of them.   Warren thinks this was planned by Harris, but he  quickly explains nothing in this building is that   powerful. This has been Christa's power, the next  step in human evolution. Intrigued by the concept,   Warren asks her men to let Harris go. Meanwhile  outside, Stokes finds a memorial with all the   people that died on the ship and loses his mind  when he sees his son's name. Samantha explains she   freed him because she wants him to help her bring  down the project. Suddenly a guard finds them and   tries to arrest them, but Samantha and Stokes work  together to knock him out before escaping in a   car. They discover Samantha is bleeding, so they  stop at a store for supplies. Stokes asks for the   strongest medicine and hurts an employee to get it  without a prescription. Then they hide in a motel   to take care of Samantha's wound. Christa finds  Gault unconscious too and makes him wake up before   disappearing. Then Gault sees Duke come closer  before he falls unconscious again, only to wake up   later in the medical bay. Because of the lack of  power, there's chaos everywhere, since they think   they're lost in space. It turns out that Abraham  hardwired the star lights into the ship’s nuclear   reactor so the illusion isn't broken even during  a power outrage. Warren asks Harris to make it a   priority to fix the power to have eyes on the ship  again, and Harris decides to tap into the nuclear   reactor too. In the meantime, William coordinates  a ship-wide damage survey. James looks at a tv   screen and notices some weird images appearing on  them; he tries to tell Robert about it but he just   blames it on system trouble to throw him off the  clue. After James leaves, Robert cuts the wires to   stop getting broadcasts from the outside world.  This is also noticed by Harris, who announces   there's a problem: the signal jammers aren't  hardwired to the ship. They were added years   later when the world became digital, this means  the illusion may be broken soon. Harris will have   to access the jammers directly and Warren tells  him to take Carrillo, who is actually working for   her. Samantha meets with Eva to ask for her  help to leave the country and tell the world   about Ascension. They go back to the motel and Eva  meets Stokes, showing her sympathy for the hard   life he had on the lower deck. While Stokes goes  to pick up their things, Samantha points out she   never told Eva about the lower deck, meaning she  worked for Harris all along. The website was done   on purpose to make any clues look like a crazy  conspiracy theory. To keep her from talking, Eva   shoots Samantha and then goes after Stokes, but  he escaped through the bathroom window. The ship's   medical bay is getting full of people suffering  from hypercapnia, caused by the air-quality system   malfunctioning. Since all the repairmen are busy  working with the generators, William and Gault   go to the lower deck to try to fix the carbon  dioxide scrubbers, but unfortunately they can't   be repaired. Harris has realized the same thing  about the scrubbers and Warren is worried Christa   will die, so she sends one of her henchmen to take  her out of the ship. William and Gault refuse to   give up and decide to grab the lithium dioxide to  spread it around the ship through the vents, this   helps everyone get better. However Gault suddenly  begins seeing Lorelei because he's also developing   resonance and he follows her out. Robert  looks for Christa and finds her at the beach,   where she explains Lorelie told her everything  is fake and that she'll be taken off the ship.   She can sense they're coming now, so she runs  away and waits by a door. Robert goes after her   and confirms he killed Lorelei when she learned  the truth, but he also wants Christa to come with   him because he doesn't want her to become a lab  rat. At that moment Warren's henchman shows up   and easily knocks out Robert when he tries to get  in the way. Then the henchman grabs Christa but   before he can take her away, Loreli brings Gault  here and he attacks the henchman. As the two men   fight, a scared Christa releases all her power  and causes both guys to disappear. All images   are lost on the security cameras and when Warren  walks through the bridge to check what's going on,   Harris pushes her off to kill her. Meanwhile Gault  appears to have teleported to an unknown planet.