Space 1999!!!

[Steve Roby]

Brian Johnson would have contributed to that, as someone who worked on 2001 and 1999. People who grew up after Star Wars may not realize just how influential 2001 was for a few years. Star Trek - The Motion Picture came after Star Wars, but it clearly has a lot of 2001 influence.

 

[Daddy Todd]

Brian Johnson would have contributed to that, as someone who worked on 2001 and 1999. People who grew up after Star Wars may not realize just how influential 2001 was for a few years. Star Trek - The Motion Picture came after Star Wars, but it clearly has a lot of 2001 influence.

I always felt like TMP was heavily influenced by Space:1999. To such a degree that, when my contemporaries were referring to it as “The Motionless Picture,” I thought it should’ve been called “Space 1999: The Motion Picture”.

 

[Steve Roby]

Yeah, it does have some of that vibe in a number of ways, doesn't it?

 

[DarrenTR1970]

For some reason last night I got to thinking, 'Why does a quasi-civilian organization have Eagles that are equipped with lasers, as well as tanks and personal laser rifles? What is there to attack Moon base Alpha. At that point in the series, the only known planet that might have life on it was Meta.'

Then it occurred to me, these are leftover plot points from when the series was still being conceived as Season Two of UFO; when the action would take place entirely on the Moon and the aliens were stepping up their attempts at invasion/colonization.

That setting would require a base that could defend itself.

It would have been interesting to see a base completely unarmed, and subsequent attempts to cobble together some sort of defense against attacks. Of course, that would a have required a storyline and episodes being produced and aired in order showing the gradual build up of defenses.

 

[Marc]

For some reason last night I got to thinking, 'Why does a quasi-civilian organization have Eagles that are equipped with lasers, as well as tanks and personal laser rifles? What is there to attack Moon base Alpha. At that point in the series, the only known planet that might have life on it was Meta.'

Then it occurred to me, these are leftover plot points from when the series was still being conceived as Season Two of UFO; when the action would take place entirely on the Moon and the aliens were stepping up their attempts at invasion/colonization.

That setting would require a base that could defend itself.

It would have been interesting to see a base completely unarmed, and subsequent attempts to cobble together some sort of defense against attacks. Of course, that would a have required a storyline and episodes being produced and aired in order showing the gradual build up of defenses.

But we also don't know what the political situation was like on Earth. There could have been a cold war scenario and not all countries were involved with the international Space Commission and the operation of Alpha.

I don't think all the Eagles were fitted with lasers though and the lasers were probably fitted with other issues in mind (an asteroid heading towards the moon - send an eagle and blow it to dust).

the hand guns and laser rifles - that pretty much human nature.

Don't recall any tanks though.

 

[DarrenTR1970]

The tanks were seen in the episode 'The Infernal Machine' and mentioned in another episode.

As for the political situation - we see in first episode that Koeing's predecessor Gorski was Russian and that Moonbase Alpha has multinational personal; so the international situation must be stable.

According to the notes and continuity laid out in the website 'The Catacombs' from information from the scripts and episodes - Moonbase Alpha began construction/expansion in 1986, Moonbase (Beta?) was destroyed by the destruction of the Voyager 2 space probe on the launch pad in 1985 and there was a brief war in 1987 as well.

Edit to add - Having read the opening paragraph of the series Bible provides some insight to the situation in 1999.

It says that some years back the existence of hostile life outside the solar system was discovered. Moonbase Alpha was built as the first line of defense against alien attack.

So, that goes some way towards explaining the weaponry.

 

[Noname Given]

For some reason last night I got to thinking, 'Why does a quasi-civilian organization have Eagles that are equipped with lasers, as well as tanks and personal laser rifles? What is there to attack Moon base Alpha. At that point in the series, the only known planet that might have life on it was Meta.'

Then it occurred to me, these are leftover plot points from when the series was still being conceived as Season Two of UFO; when the action would take place entirely on the Moon and the aliens were stepping up their attempts at invasion/colonization.

That setting would require a base that could defend itself.

It would have been interesting to see a base completely unarmed, and subsequent attempts to cobble together some sort of defense against attacks. Of course, that would a have required a storyline and episodes being produced and aired in order showing the gradual build up of defenses.

Eagles were the civillian spacecraft of Space: 1999. Hawks were the military version:

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[Marc]

Edit to add - Having read the opening paragraph of the series Bible provides some insight to the situation in 1999.

It says that some years back the existence of hostile life outside the solar system was discovered. Moonbase Alpha was built as the first line of defense against alien attack.

So, that goes some way towards explaining the weaponry.

Guess that would harken back to UFO which had first contact with in the late 70s with SHADO being up and running by 1980 and S2 of UFO becoming Space:1999.

But was that life supposed to be on Meta or elsehwere?

 

[diankra]

I saw the first episode a few months back
Wasnt too impressed with it. Maybe I will give it a rewatch. Only two seasons and I hear the second season was awful. Even the actors hated it...

Season two is pretty dreadful. Season one is a third awful, a third OK, and a third brilliant.

 

[diankra]

For some reason last night I got to thinking, 'Why does a quasi-civilian organization have Eagles that are equipped with lasers, as well as tanks and personal laser rifles? What is there to attack Moon base Alpha. At that point in the series, the only known planet that might have life on it was Meta.'

Then it occurred to me, these are leftover plot points from when the series was still being conceived as Season Two of UFO; when the action would take place entirely on the Moon and the aliens were stepping up their attempts at invasion/colonization.

That setting would require a base that could defend itself.

It would have been interesting to see a base completely unarmed, and subsequent attempts to cobble together some sort of defense against attacks. Of course, that would a have required a storyline and episodes being produced and aired in order showing the gradual build up of defenses.

In the same vein, if things were produced and run in order, Black Sun might have ended with something like this...
VICTOR: The forcefield, John!
KOENIG: Didn't save us in the end...
VICTOR: But I can miniaturise it. Fit it into an Eagle...
KOENIG: A heat shield? So we can take the Eagles into an atmosphere?

 

[diankra]

The tanks were seen in the episode 'The Infernal Machine' and mentioned in another episode.

As for the political situation - we see in first episode that Koeing's predecessor Gorski was Russian and that Moonbase Alpha has multinational personal; so the international situation must be stable.

According to the notes and continuity laid out in the website 'The Catacombs' from information from the scripts and episodes - Moonbase Alpha began construction/expansion in 1986, Moonbase (Beta?) was destroyed by the destruction of the Voyager 2 space probe on the launch pad in 1985 and there was a brief war in 1987 as well.

Edit to add - Having read the opening paragraph of the series Bible provides some insight to the situation in 1999.

It says that some years back the existence of hostile life outside the solar system was discovered. Moonbase Alpha was built as the first line of defense against alien attack.

So, that goes some way towards explaining the weaponry.

In Rules of Luton, I think, Koenig mentions that his wife died in the last World War. Possibly in a draft script or a cut scene.

 

[DarrenTR1970]

In case anyone here is interested, the official Gerry Anderson webpage has pre-orders up for the official Moonbase Alpha Technical Manual out later this year.

 

[LaxScrutiny]

In case anyone here is interested, the official Gerry Anderson webpage has pre-orders up for the official Moonbase Alpha Technical Manual out later this year.

I just might. I have vague memories of watching TOS first run, but I was so young it's really vague. All the Irwin Allen shows were part of that too, but that's for another thread.

I knew I loved Trek and watched the reruns endlessly. When UFO and Space 1999 were broadcast it was amazing for me. TOS had its faults too. Re-watching now leaves me remembering all the cool things that kept me tuned in every week.

 

[Haggis and tatties]

The BR release of Space 1999 is glorious visually, a treat for the eyes, and you would think it was made last week it looks so fresh.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

In Rules of Luton, I think, Koenig mentions that his wife died in the last World War. Possibly in a draft script or a cut scene.

That's right, it was part of the episode.

MAYA:
"What about you, Commander? Did you have any brothers?"
((he shakes his head))
"Sisters? Mother, father? You had nobody?"

KOENIG:
"I had a wife."

MAYA:
"Had?"

KOENIG:
"Weren't there any wars on Psychon?"

MAYA:
"No. Unlike your planet we were all of one race, one religion, one government. Our planet was so rich in resources that there was no separation of classes."

KOENIG:
"In nineteen eighty seven all the hatreds on Earth between races, classes and religions, all came to a head. The war was global and awful. It was finally the war to end all wars because the survivors realised that..if there was another one it would be the..the end of humanity."

MAYA:
"You mean people killed people just because they were different from each other?"
((he nods))
"That's disgusting."

Meanwhile Invisible climbs the slope.
KOENIG:
"The one virtue of that war, if war can have a virtue, is that prejudice was wiped out. People realised if..they were going to survive they would have to...work together, accept each other for what they were. So we began to create a brand new, wonderful civilization."
((pause))
"But it was too late for my wife. She was a casualty of that war."
((beat))

MAYA:
"What was she like?"
((beat))

KOENIG:
"She was like....Helena."​

https://catacombs.space1999.net/main/tscript/z32trol.html
https://catacombs.space1999.net/main/epguide/t31trol.html

 

[Steve Roby]

In case anyone here is interested, the official Gerry Anderson webpage has pre-orders up for the official Moonbase Alpha Technical Manual out later this year.

I've ordered that and Space: 1999: The Vault by Chris Bentley.

Anyone else read any of the Powys Media Space: 1999 novels? They've been going for about twenty years. It's a very small press putting out novels licenced by the IP owner. They've published several types of books: original novels set during and after the show; reprints of the novelizations from the 1970s; reprints of the original tie-in novels from the 1970s; and nonfiction companion books.

What's pretty near unique about them is that they've developed their own canon, their own take on things like the Mysterious Unknown Force, and their reprints of the 1970s books are rewritten to be consistent with that story arc, even if it means overwriting things we saw on TV. They made an early effort to draw some familiar names to the line, like David McIntee, John Kenneth Muir (author of nonfiction books on Space: 1999, Blake's 7, and Doctor Who back around the 1990s), and Brian Ball, who wrote one of the 1970s novelizations, but most have been written by a guy who was a friend of the original publisher and more or less took over running the show, writing most of the later books that explain the big mysteries and set up an ending for the series. Some of the books are pretty good, but the arc and the answers to the big questions are... well, I'm no writer or publisher, but it seems to me a Mysterious Unknown Force is a lot less interesting when it's a Prosaic Known Force.

The books are also expensive, being print on demand books that probably sell in the hundreds of copies but have to pay licencing fees. The reprints of the old 1970s episode adaptations are available as two oversized hardcovers. I paid a hundred bucks for one probably ten years ago, and the other one has been recently put on sale for a perfectly reasonable US$260, including postage to Canada. I'll pass on that. I have all the originals. A mass market paperback-sized book is around $20-$30.

One thing they're doing that may be worthwhile for fans who've missed out: EC Tubb's rare 1970s novel Earthfall is being reprinted without Powys arc revisions. As far as I know it was never distributed in North America back in the day, and I didn't know it existed until maybe twenty years ago, and it took a year or two to find a copy from an online seller. It was reprinted a few years later but was only available to members of the official Gerry Anderson Fan Club (or people who knew a member) and went quickly out of print again. This is a complete rethink of Space: 1999, taking off from Breakaway then pretty much ignoring the rest of the series entirely to tell its own story. It's a pretty good read.

 

[Marc]

This is a complete rethink of Space: 1999, taking off from Breakaway then pretty much ignoring the rest of the series entirely to tell its own story. It's a pretty good read.

There's also the adaption beings being done by Big Finish in conjunction with Anderson Entertainment (now in the hands of Jamie Anderson). So far they've done an adaption of Break Away and a 3 CD set which was a mixture of original stories and adaptions (in this case Death's Other Dominion) and a second set has been commissions and it will include Earthbound.

some of the characters are bit different (Helena is a tad abrasive but I found them a good listen.

Guess it all depends on how the sales for how many box sets they do but I wonder which other eps they could adapter for audio.

 

[LaxScrutiny]

One thing they're doing that may be worthwhile for fans who've missed out: EC Tubb's rare 1970s novel Earthfall is being reprinted without Powys arc revisions.

I read E. C. Tubbs' "Dumarest" novels back then as they came out in paperback and loved the series. It's funny, I was just remembering them a couple of days ago. I had no idea he wrote Space 1999 books. I'll try to check it out.

BTW Steve, the Sens are punishing the Leafs as I write.

 

[Steve Roby]

You can get two of Tubb's Space: 1999 novels cheap as Kindle ebooks, but revised to change names and terminology so they're generic SF rather than Space: 1999. I think Alien Seed became Child of Space and Rogue Planet became Destroyer of Worlds. Or you can get used 1970s copies of Alien Seed and Rogue Planet pretty cheap, or get the Powys versions. Earthfall, the one that creates its own canon, is the only relatively rare one.

As for the Big FInish audios, I have them but haven't listened to all of them.

(I was at a pub for an hour or so just now, but it's so unseasonably nice we were all out on the patio instead of inside watching the game.)

 

[DarrenTR1970]

That's right, it was part of the episode.

MAYA:
"What about you, Commander? Did you have any brothers?"
((he shakes his head))
"Sisters? Mother, father? You had nobody?"

KOENIG:
"I had a wife."

MAYA:
"Had?"

KOENIG:
"Weren't there any wars on Psychon?"

MAYA:
"No. Unlike your planet we were all of one race, one religion, one government. Our planet was so rich in resources that there was no separation of classes."

KOENIG:
"In nineteen eighty seven all the hatreds on Earth between races, classes and religions, all came to a head. The war was global and awful. It was finally the war to end all wars because the survivors realised that..if there was another one it would be the..the end of humanity."

MAYA:
"You mean people killed people just because they were different from each other?"
((he nods))
"That's disgusting."

Meanwhile Invisible climbs the slope.
KOENIG:
"The one virtue of that war, if war can have a virtue, is that prejudice was wiped out. People realised if..they were going to survive they would have to...work together, accept each other for what they were. So we began to create a brand new, wonderful civilization."
((pause))
"But it was too late for my wife. She was a casualty of that war."
((beat))

MAYA:
"What was she like?"
((beat))

KOENIG:
"She was like....Helena."​

https://catacombs.space1999.net/main/tscript/z32trol.html
https://catacombs.space1999.net/main/epguide/t31trol.html

While I don't think Koeing was lying about there being a global war, I wonder if the death of his wife in the conflict has clouded his memory of how devastating it really was.

To go from a global conflict in 1987 to a fully functioning moon base in twelve years is a remarkable recovery considering what must have a considerable loss of life and damage to the infrastructure and environment.

Even if season two is a 'soft reboot' after season one and it ignores the Voyager probes launched in 1985 (Voyager's Return), the Uranus expedition of 1986 (Deaths Other Dominion) and the Ultra Probe of 1996 (Dragons Domain); the second season has an extra-solar mission in 1996 (Brian the Brain), which features four Swifts and a mothership.

That's nine years after a supposedly devastating conflict.