What is a premise?

A really helpful and clear Wikepedia entry on the "Premise"

"The premise of a film or screenplay is the fundamental concept that drives the plot.
A good premise can usually be expressed very simply, and many films can be identified simply from a short sentence describing the premise. For example:
A lonely boy is befriended by an alien;
A small town is terrorized by a shark;
A small boy sees dead people.
The uniqueness or compelling nature of a film story's premise is often a key element in selling it, especially during the initial pitch. However, truly original, compelling premises are fiendishly difficult to come up with, and may take a writer many months of thinking and reading.
Unfortunately, most premises are either derivative (Die Hard in space), contrived (two black guys must dress up as white girls) or simply dull (A man has an extremely boring job). However a compelling premise is absolutely no guarantee of a film or screenplay's quality, nor is a derivative or lacklustre premise the kiss of death.
A story which has an easily understood, compelling premise is said to be high-concept, whereas one whose premise is not easy to describe, or relatively small-scale or mundane, is said to be low-concept. A low-concept story is highly execution-dependent because the commercial viability of the project will depend largely on the quality of the creative endeavors of those involved, whereas a high-concept story may still pull in audiences even if the script is flawed, the acting wooden and the direction directionless.
It is a common misconception that high-concept movies are necessarily expensive or effects driven. One of the most successful low-budget independent British films of recent years, The Full Monty (1997), had an almost perfect high-concept premise: a group of male steel workers decide to become strippers. There is no doubt that the simplicity, originality and compelling nature of the premise (which was perfectly captured in the film's publicity posters) played a major role in the film's commercial success."

This is the kind of dialouge we need to be having at this stage of the collaboration. Norma and I had a long conversation about our little project. We concluded that really good stories can be boiled down to one sentence and in that sentence deliver intamacy, emotional overtones and provoke the reader. Afterwards, I visited Wikipedia and found the above entry.

Brian you finally stated what NS is about in a way that I can feel. Lets keep this going. Lets develop Brian's statement(s) into a clear and compelling premise statements similar to examples cited above. Below are snippets of things Brian has stated that I think we need to synthesize into a premise statement that really grabs the gonads. I have other premise concepts but will post in different threads.

Brian: "science fiction version of Robinson Crusoe but with two castaways and a more post-modern sensibility."

Brian: "what it means to be human, how easily we can be seduced even by good intentions into betraying ourselves, and what there is about humanity that is so precious anyway."

Brian: "man must chose between visions of revenge for a murdered child and maintaining a grip upon that which makes him a man."

Brian: "the impact of a radically different reality on what it means to be human."