Beacon 23 is one of the many lights on the periphery of the known galaxy that guide space travelers through the numerous hazards there. The wreckage and remnants of sad ships that fell victim to natural disasters or crashed are scattered all around it.
We pan in on Stephan James, a black guy who appears to be disturbed by the approach of a ship that hastily fastened a rope to the blast doors of the lighthouse. They appear to be pirates.
He asks an AI projection named Harmony and a lady named Lena Headey, who are on a different level of the lighthouse. The two argue over what to do, but it’s too late to talk.
Preview
The Crest is a data hauler spacecraft that is traveling quickly into the sector illuminated by Beacon 23 while carrying eight people and almost five years’ worth of supplies for distant colonies. Regretfully, the ship’s navigation appears to be malfunctioning, and there is a great deal of dark matter in the way.
They attempt to be hailed by the beacon keeper, the man we saw in the opening sequence, who informs them that they are not authorized to cross the sector. But his communications are just not getting through.
A gravitational light on the beacon alerts approaching ships. Nevertheless, Crest and its crew are unable to hear the beacon keeper, even when he activates the light (signaling danger and no passage).
After strapping on his spacesuit, the keeper approaches the point where the light beams into space in an attempt to stop it and activate the red light for danger by turning a wrench on the gears. He arrives too late, and the ship smashes into a dark matter cluster, destroying it entirely.
The computer pings him when he returns to his monitors, alerting him that one of the sleeping passengers’ lifeboats has escaped the devastation. It’s drifting in space, but its oxygen is leaking, and its time is running short. He chooses to launch a rescue effort. Before the person inside runs out of breath, he has roughly seven minutes left.
After successfully retrieving the sleeper, he wakes up, and Aster emerges. She suffers from the shock of awakening from cryosleep, but he reassures her as best she can.
He gives her a medical patch that enters her system and contains some sedatives. He gives her the rundown on what happened: her ship crashed; he thinks the beacon went off, but he managed to save her.
Later on, Aster discloses that she was actually traveling to Beacon 23 and that Mission Control had dispatched her to investigate Solomon’s claims of minerals and potential mining sites outside of the city. The problem is that she refers to him as Solomon Smythe, the official keeper of the beacon.
He did not tell her that. But when she demands access to the material samples, the reports, and the data, he becomes combative and protective.
They close the day on a tight note, with him promising her they’ll discuss it when he submits the Crest crash report and determines what’s been going wrong. Aster fingers one of the kitchen knives covertly as she takes her luggage.
Aster orders her AI Harmony to try to access or hack into the beacon’s database as she opens her backpack and pulls out a device shaped like a conch.
Solomon approaches the beacon projection tower and climbs up upon the gravity waves it projects, becoming slightly high while he meditates on a framed picture of an old lighthouse surrounded by crashing waves as Aster explores the ship.
Aster’s manner makes it seem that she is concealing something, and it is evident that she works for a higher authority.
The story eventually reaches a tipping point when it is revealed that Solomon Smythe abandoned the beacon in order to collect samples of rare minerals. Additionally, we discover later on, when Aster is snooping around the video, that the man is not Solomon Smythe, the official beacon keeper.
Release Date and Where To Watch
Beacon 23 Episode 1 will be released on Sunday, November 12, 2023, at 8:00 p.m. Eastern Time, United States. Each episode lasts around one hour. The release times in different countries are:
- Pacific Time (PT): Sunday, 12, 2023, at 5:00 PM PT
- Mountain Time (MT): Sunday, 12, 2023, at 6:00 PM MT
- Central Time (CT): Sunday, 12, 2023, at 7:00 PM CT
- British Summer Time (BST): Monday, 13, 2023, at 1:00 AM BST
- Central European Summer Time (CEST): Monday, November 13, 2023, at 2:00 AM CEST
Beacon 23 Episode 1 will air on MGM+.
