Set in a projected 1940, Algol depicts a world transformed by the sudden arrival of an alien entity from the star system of the same name. This visitor provides a simple coal miner, Robert Herne, with the blueprints for a "Bio-Werk" (Bio-Plant)—a machine capable of harnessing stellar radiation to provide infinite, free energy. Over the ensuing twenty years, this technology renders traditional coal mining obsolete and centralizes the world’s entire industrial capacity under Herne’s singular control, effectively creating a global energy autocracy.

The film focuses on the socio-economic disruption caused by this energy transition. While the technology promises to liberate the working class from the "saturnine darkness" of the mines, it instead facilitates a stark class divide. Earth's political landscape is redefined by the "Bios-werke" monopoly, which wraps "power cables around the globe," making all nations economically dependent on a single corporate entity. This reflects early 20th-century anxieties regarding resource scarcity and the potential for new technologies to mirror the exploitative structures of the coal and steel industries they replace.

Predictively, the film bears a striking resemblance to the real-world ambitions of Nikola Tesla, specifically his Wardenclyffe Tower project aimed at wireless, global energy distribution. While the "free energy" machine remains a fictional trope, the film accurately anticipated how monopolistic control over energy infrastructure would become the primary lever of 20th-century geopolitical power. It further suggests a world where labor is no longer defined by physical extraction but by participation in a centralized, high-tech industrial machine, a theme later refined in 1927's Metropolis.