An idea for a short scifi movie.

Background music is Protogalaxy by Martin Stürtzer.

The protagonist is hacking through a jungle, using a machete to cut their way through the dense vines and undergrowth. The jungle is dense and dark, with rays of light breaking through the tree foliage above. They are making their way to what is known as "the temple of the ancestors". It is said that in the old times the ancestors would gather there to worship their gods.

Eventually they get to the temple, after a few animal encounters with snakes and giant flightless birds. The side of the temple is a huge concrete expanse which seems to go on forever. The protagonist follows the endless wall. Presumably this wall surrounded the inner temple, guarding it from hostile intruders. After an hour of slow hacking through undergrowth the protagonist is still following the wall.

And then they find the entrance to the temple. A giant sign over the entrance, partly covered by moss, reads "ASINGTON DATA CENTER". Vines hang down over the huge entrance and most of the windows are missing or broken. The protagonist enters and looks around. There are chairs and desks, toppled and partly overgrown with weeds, and double doorways to other rooms. After moving through several such rooms the temple opens out into what appears to be a giant hall of worship. It's darker here and so the protagonist pauses to light a torch. By flickering torchlight, blocks of computers can be seen standing in rows as far as the eye can see. There is a scuffle and suddenly an elk comes galloping out of the darkness down one of the corridors of computers. The protagonist swerves aside to let it pass.

Examining the rows and rows of computers, they appear to have been looted by temple raiders in the distant past. Someone was trying to get something out of them in a hurry. But what? In some cases with wires hanging out the computers appear disemboweled, as if ritually sacrificed.

According to the stories, the people who built this temple lived thousands of years ago. It is said that they were a great civilization, with many achievements and powerful gods, but vanished for reasons unknown. Hardly anything is known of their language. It's said that their sacred texts were held inside the computers, and when the computers were no longer used all of the texts were gone. Perhaps the texts were what the temple raiders were looking for.

While wandering through the temple, the protagonist encounters another explorer. They are a landscape photographer with a large frame camera on a wooden tripod. They are documenting the elaborate network of pipes along the temple walls and ceiling. The pipes are partly covered by ivy creepers and green algae slime. The roof overhead has mostly crumbled and fallen long ago, letting beams of light through from above and casting the pipes into stark relief. Small tropical birds occasionally perch on the pipes and sing hauntingly beautiful songs which echo through the ruins. Chemical photographs are one of the few technologies of the ancestors which survived after their computers stopped. With the pipes now exposed to the elements, the photographer is making a record of this place before it is entirely consumed by the jungle, so that people in future may see what the ancestors saw. It's presumed that this elaborate and obviously purposeful configuration of pipes must have represented something important to the ancestors. Something not yet understood.

Stairs lead down to an underground level of the temple. Its inner sanctum. It is said that this is the place where the ancestors sun god lived. By torchlight, the protagonist finds a giant nuclear reactor, largely intact. Desks full of dials and switches with unreadable inscriptions must have been used to operate it. Tools such as spanners, screwdrivers and electrical meters are strewn on the floor, as if whoever was worshiping here dropped them and left in a panic. The protagonist finds some large circuit breakers on a wall. They pull them to the "on" position.

The nuclear reactor begins to hum. The sun god has reawakened...