Die Gstettensaga: The Rise of Echsenfriedl

In a near-future world where the two last global powers are a tech-driven giant and a rising nation, the early 21st century sparks the escalating conflict known as the Google Wars. As decades pass, radioactive dust settles on once-bitter battlegrounds and a new order begins to take shape from the ashen landscape. The story follows two stubborn minds who navigate this altered world.

Fratt Aigner, Lukas Tagwerker, a seedy journalist, teams up with Alalia Grundschober, Sophia Grabner, a bright, idealistic technician, and they operate out of Mega City Schwechat—the sprawling urban center perched near the remnants of the Alps. Their path is mapped out by Thurnher von Pjölk, Martin Auer, the once-powerful publisher who invented the printing press for a monopoly-leaning newspaper empire. He senses a new wave of tech-savvy do-it-yourself nerds threatening his control and tasks the pair with a dangerous assignment: travel into Niederpröll to conduct a tele-o-vision interview with Echsenfriedl, a mythical genius who commands a devoted following among the nerds.

Equipped with a ramshackle broadcasting vehicle—a wheelbarrow packed with recording gear—Alalia and Fratt set out to live-broadcast their interview. Fratt is wary of leaving the safety of Mega City, while Alalia sees this mission as a golden chance to discover Echsenfriedl and to push her technological agenda for social change. Their journey begins with tension and peril as they reach the border, where the Postal Service, defending the remnants of civilization, confiscates their equipment and dispatches them into despair. Their situation worsens when they are captured by a group of barbarians—descendants of farmers who practice a cargo-cult culture built on relics of office supplies, bureaucracy, and faded memories of European Union agricultural grants. With grit, Alalia and Fratt fight their way free, narrowly escaping a grim fate as ritual sacrifices.

Wandering the post-nuclear wastelands, the duo discovers a mining colony and seeks shelter in an apparently abandoned underground complex. There they encounter Philine-Codec Comtesse de Cybersdorf, an elderly woman who once married Thurnher von Pjölk but lost a leg after a violent rift with him. She hints that Echsenfriedl, not Pjölk, was the true inventor behind the era’s great innovations and that Pjölk merely performed the public-facing role. Her revelation is cut short when cannibalizing undead miners storm the room, forcing a brutal escape and the loss of crucial confidences.

Their journey leads them to Heinz Rand of Raiká, a bearded libertarian drag queen who presides over a ragtag cadre of free-market enthusiasts trading old-world electronics for more old-world electronics. Alalia sees in Heinz a source of the equipment the Postal Service took from them, and she helps his group get their gear working again. In gratitude, Heinz provides a path to Echsenfriedl and offers his daughter Ayn as a guide to the final destination.

Guided by Ayn, Alalia and Fratt reach their target and prepare for the live broadcast. They reconnect with Pjölk, who eagerly orders the transmission to begin, only to retreat to his desk to craft a sensational headline for the next issue of his tabloid. He later laments his supposed role in the deaths of early adopters and proclaims that tele-o-vision should be banned. Unaware of the danger, the pair push forward, descending into Echsenfriedl’s lair with Ayn leading the way.

Inside, the encounter takes a mythic turn: Echsenfriedl reveals himself as a basilisk, and Ayn is turned to stone in a stunning turn of events. From hiding, Echsenfriedl recounts a life shaped by a complicated relationship with the Comtesse and explains that his supposed rival, Pjölk, aimed to murder early adopters with a single broadcast of Echsenfriedl’s petrifying eyes. The nerds listening in react with a mix of horror and anger, launching a backlash against Pjölk’s regime from his own office.

In the aftermath, Echsenfriedl hires Alalia and Fratt to help him build a new media empire that centers on his extraordinary technologies. The film culminates with Alalia and Fratt broadcasting live as a lynch mob of book-burning nerds—devoted followers of Echsenfriedl’s New World Order of technological dominance—unites behind a radical future.

The story weaves a surreal, satirical fairy-tale of information, power, and rebellion, exploring how technology, media, and dreamers clash and sometimes fuse in a world sculpted by past wars and future ambitions.