I like to concoct concepts for science fiction movies and do nothing with them. Lately my favorite concept involves aliens who are having a sort of sporting contest that involves humanity, unbeknownst to us. Somehow the competing teams of aliens can see our world through our eyes when they want to, and can influence our actions by ramping up or down on our desires. They can't control our specific actions, just our general propensities, making us, for example, hungrier or hornier or lazier than normal whenever that would be a strategic advantage in the game.

There would be some rules of the game, such as only one alien can influence one human at a time, and maybe an alien team can influence no more than five people per game. So most people would not be under the direct influence of the aliens at any given moment. They would be random elements of the game.

The plot of the movie would involve a brain surgeon who discovers the control mechanism in all of our brains. It would be organic in nature, but sending and receiving some sort of control signal that hadn't ever been discovered before. The brain surgeon would be trying to unravel the mystery and detach humanity from the game while at the same time the aliens are having their Superbowl equivalent match that might result in WWIII.

The aliens live many light years from Earth, having visited only once several billion years ago to influence evolution in a way that would turn us into their living chess pieces. They didn't mind waiting billions of years because they have been doing the same game-making process since the beginning of time and there is always a new world somewhere coming online. They like to think ahead. They are immortal, so having game pieces that can die allows them to experience the preciousness of life vicariously.

In the end, the brain surgeon discovers that humans have a synergistic arrangement with the aliens that helps us just as much as it helps them. If we were not part of their game, our lives would be dull and meaningless. So he decides to keep it to himself. The aliens reward him for his silence by filling whatever hole he had in his personality up until that point. For example, they might give him the capacity to feel love.

In the final minute we discover that even the brain surgeon's search for the truth of the game had been part of the game.