Thread: Helping Jace define Space 2099

Originally Posted by Spongebob

If you want to throw the moon off and send it on its way then blow up the Earth. 1999 Scientist discover a huge asteroid / comet that is going to hit the Earth in 2099. Earth build Alpha on the moon as a safe haven from the planet killer. Only problem is the impact does more damage than expected and the Earth goes Kaboom, knock the moon out of orbit and does loads of damage to the base. This whole concept would allow the writers many avenues for compulsive drama. If the show is picked up for X season then a full arc of how they survive can be constructed. It does not have to travel fast or far and can be littered with sci-fi while the people fight to survive. As a grand ending they can travel in time and end up back on earth in say the 19th Century or they find a new world and settle down.

This is the same basic idea as Lars von Trier's Melancholia. When planning Space:1999, Gerry Anderson also briefly considered blowing up the Earth rather than ejecting the Moon from the solar system but American TV executives felt it would upset TV viewers too much.

A near encounter with a "rogue planet" from deep space -- which is what we are talking about here -- is extremely unlikely (you'd have to wait hundreds of billions of years for this to occur) but there is no scientific reason why it could not happen. And if it's a massive planet, it may well eject the Moon from our solar system before it destroys Earth. The real problem (as I discuss here) is the Moon will not reach another star system within a human lifetime. Without wormholes or space warps (i.e. faster than light travel), you are stuck in our solar system for all intents and purposes. Alpha would then be mankind's last surviving outpost (presumably the doomed nations of Earth would invest enormous resources in completing the facility before all life is destroyed). The surviving Alphans would then have to find ways of colonizing what's left of our solar system. They would all be refugees and not necessarily scientists/astronauts ... the characters might resemble those of the new Battlestar Galactica show and much of the drama would focus on how they ended up on Moonbase and how they cope and get along after witnessing the destruction of Earth.

It's an interesting idea that offers some intriguing possibilities, but it does represent a rather radical departure from the original series. The main advantage of your idea, as I see it, is it provides a good explanation why the Moonbase was built and how it was ejected from Earth orbit... However, I would still bring in the Mysterious Unseen Force and wormholes/space warps following the destruction of Earth. To me a series restricted to our solar system represents too radical a departure from the Space:1999 format.

MARCU$

I'm more strongly of the following opinion now then when I first signed on.

I would like the setting of Space 2099 to be both in our own solar system and also in interstellar space.

A "split screen" series has strong advantages. All of Space becomes your canvass, so please don't rule out one or the other settings. Please use both. And by all means DON'T destroy the Earth in the process. Sure, go ahead and damage it a bit, that will be interesting, but leave it intact enough that mankind survives both on Earth and on Alpha.

Please have your regular Space 1999 characters and new characters based in the Solar System after the moon leaves the earth.

If the moon will not travel in space then the series wull have nothing to do with space 1999, It would nor be even a reimagining . It will be a totally different series, I'm not interested in that.

It's going to be hard to reimagine '1999 having a travelling moon, but it could be done.

For a start, if the moon is thrown into deep space to visit other planets, it necessarily has to be travelling at close to c - though through the miracle of relativistic time dilation, subjective time will pass as normal - so it may take thousands of years to get to the next planet, but locally, it may only take months or years. The difficulty then is slowing down enough to spend a couple of days/weeks around the stop-off point.

The wormhole resolves this problem, but the wormhole generator must be located on the moon. The only problem with wormholes is that a wormhole needs an endpoint created at the destination so that the ends join up.

A MUF could resolve this issue, but the problems with MUFs is that they are just too farfetched, and the story will degenerate into an understanding of the MUF, and less about the interaction of the characters and any encounters that they'd have. Personally, if I was dropped into a bucket of shit, I'd spend all my time trying to work out how to get out of it.

Something has to be imagined that isn't a MUF, but uses the concepts of either FTL, travel at close to c or wormhole transition, but also maintains consistency with the laws of the universe.

In 'Pushing Ice', Reynolds used the concept of 'Galactic Zookeepers', or 'The Lonely Race Looking For Technologically Advanced Friends Over Deep Time', leaving 'lures' which captured a space-faring species and transported them to a central location. These lures were effectively all drive system, and took them to a staging post at close to c, which then flung them at (possibly) c to the 'galactic zoo'.

So... there is the potential 'alien artefact of unknown use and purpose' that could be 'discovered' on the moon that hurls the moon along a network of 'corridors' to exciting new destinations (see Reynolds' 'Century Rain'). But this has a dependency on alien tech, a concept that I don't really like, and this has all the potential of turning into Quantum Leap in Space, or The Book of Job.

Alternatively, and as I've mentioned before when asking 'Why Alpha?', we could be experimenting with the space-time metric. We're on the moon to do 'dangerous' research. Stuff that we wouldn't want hanging around in the back garden. After all, when the LHC was close to power-up, there were all sorts of scare stories about black holes being created that could gobble up the Earth - so why not do that kind of stuff somewhere far away - far away enough that we aren't on Luna, but somewhere else, like the Galilean moons. Some of them are massy enough not to have to worry about gravity generators too... and there are useful life-sustaining volatiles present that aren't on Luna (plus, there'd be great backdrops in Ep. 1 showing planetrise and moonrise).

For me, it would be more preferable to show human ingenuity and monkey curiosity causing this 'odyssey'. We have a talent for poking a wasp nest with a stick, so why should '2099 be any different? And this would also add to the storyline - encounter another race and get laughed at for being stupid. Or 'Yeah, our scientists discovered that too, we haven't seen any trace since they went away. But we know what they did wrong...' (yeah, they shouldn't have stuck their fingers in the socket).

Originally Posted by mlindroo

A near encounter with a "rogue planet" from deep space -- which is what we are talking about here -- is extremely unlikely (you'd have to wait hundreds of billions of years for this to occur) but there is no scientific reason why it could not happen.

The point of a dramatic story is to show events that occur, so the fact that it would normally take (cue Carl Sagan voice) billions of years is no big deal; for the purpose of drama its happening now storywise.

Originally Posted by mlindroo

The real problem (as I discuss here) is the Moon will not reach another star system within a human lifetime. Without wormholes or space warps (i.e. faster than light travel), you are stuck in our solar system for all intents and purposes...

However, I would still bring in the Mysterious Unseen Force and wormholes/space warps following the destruction of Earth. To me a series restricted to our solar system represents too radical a departure from the Space:1999 format.

That, if handled correctly, is the solution to the problem, but has the potential for abuse. It could become the "easy out" for the writers who back themselves into corners or get lazy.

As I wrote in a contribution to an online article on SF and Christianity (Fantasy, science fiction, and Christianity)

In Space 1999, the characters struggled for survival against a hostile and
uncaring universe, yet they slowly came to realize there was something bigger
than themselves that has not only taken an interest in their plight, but
actively sought to help them. This realization was moving a group of unbelievers
towards God.

Now I understand that not all will subscribe to that interpretation of the series (in fact I know some might be hostile to the idea of ANY SF that deals with metaphysical issues), but I do think that the new series would do well to follow this "formula" to bridge the old and the new. When the new BSG came out, they dropped the Cecil B DeMille melodrama, but kept (and cleaned up) the Mormon theological elements that series creator Glen Larson put in the show. They juxstaposed two historic religious struggles - the struggle between Monotheistic Christianity and Pagan Rome and the modern struggle between Islam and the West (with their secular ramifications) - within a SF backdrop based on the story of the Exodus, with great dramatic success.

But Space:1999 did that first; albet the struggle was between belief and unbelief. I think that if the inhabitants of Moonbase Alpha come to the slow realization that their journey was either at the behest of a powerful entity or that they are being helped along their journey by a God or God-like entity might prove to be an interesting development story-wise.

Moonbase Alpha

What if, instead of it being in the bottom of a crater, it were on a mesa, a plateau, the highest point on the Moon. What a view.

Create indestructible "diamond-glass" (or whatever) windows and use green-screen technology to its fullest. Let's BE in outer space as much as possible.

Eagles

Make them truly modular. Make the Eagle cargo section detach and lower into the travel tube, where it will be able to go straight to Main Mission.

Music

I'd stay away from the original themes and create something new. Include the old themes from time to time, as the new Galactica did.
I'd recommend symphonic and classical for outer space scenes, and more contemporary for the indoor stuff, in a nod to the original show.

Costumes

Wow. Hmmm. Stretch-wool tunics? Seems kind of dated. There will have to be some nods to zippers and colored sleeves, of course. I love the spacesuit in the new poster. I'd say mix it up. Alpha should be populated with all sorts of people, from the wealthy and connected, to scientists and grunts.

"This Episode"

Ron Moore openly admitted borrowing Space's opening montage sequence, it is so iconic. 1999 took it from Mission: Impossible, who took it from Thunderbirds, etc. etc. So, yes, of course, use it.

christopher

I've been thinking a lot about this, and after reading this I hope you will all take time to consider the tremendous challenge that Jace Hall will face in the endeavor of creating SPACE: 2099. First of all I, like many of you, dearly DEARLY love Space: 1999. This show was and always will be unique and very special in the history of science-fiction television. Step back for a minute and look at Space: 1999 as a whole and think about it: why do we love it so much? Moonbase Alpha! The Eagles! The Hostile Aliens (with english accents)! Koenig/Helena/Victor! Martin Bower's Models! The Polka-Dots! ..the list could go on and on! We even love and cherish Space: 1999 when, held up against the standards of TODAYS truly sophisticated science fiction, we must accept that the show's basic premise is clearly all the more ludicrous. AGAIN, step back for a second and look at the core premise of Space: 1999. In presenting this awesome and action packed episodic story back in the 70’s, Gerry Anderson had us accept and believe that the vast expanse of outer space is in actuality a very narrow and very, VERY long tunnel, of sorts, where everything and everyone resides and wanders and floats in until happened upon by out castaway heroes on the moon. OR, that space itself is just really, really, REALLY crowded with stuff. Either way, what are the odds (it’s funny that back then as a kid it never occurred to me to ask myself this), what are the odds that all those planets, derelict spaceships, failed earth missions (!), collision courses, space phenomena etc. would just happen to be all conveniently lined up along this random path that our little rogue moon is travelling? Just think, what if those waste dumps had blown up just 10 minutes later? Given this premise, for the show’s sake we NEED space to be that diverse and populated and packed with adventure in any given direction!
So this brings us to the ultimate challenge faced by Mr. Hall with SPACE: 2099 -- How DO YOU remake (or reimagine or whatever) this premise? The answer is you don’t. You CAN’T. The show would be a laughing stock and a failure. Jace obviously knows this, and WE must come to know and accept this. What will ultimately be delivered to us as SPACE: 2099 will almost certainly be nothing like the SPACE: 1999 that we loved so much. So what will make us happy? What will it take to please the fans, and please the critics and huge potential audience, a vast majority of which will most likely never have even seen or heard of SPACE: 1999.
As I said, I’ve been thinking about this A LOT, so this is what I would like to see in SPACE: 2099: Pick up the story some generations later (2099). Moonbase Alpha is populated by the descendants of our beloved original Alphans, and the moon has at long last finally found itself locked in orbit around a planet within in a very diversely populated planetary system. Simple enough… now let the new adventures begin! Who knows, maybe with the odds in their favor, they just might run into that long lost Superswift rescue mission that really WAS launched from earth. OH.. I hope they keep the polka-dots too! Thoughts anyone?

I must agree that Mr. Hall has a rather hard task before him to come up with a show that will please everyone. What he does come up with will be a total mystery until he gives us some clues.

I guess we are just going to have to wait!

I must admit the term re-imagining scares me to some extent, I urge Jace and everyone to think about The Munsters reimagining, which turned out to be a bit of a flop. The problem with veering away from the source material of the original makes the show inevitably a copy of something else (as in Mockingbird Lane, which turned out to be Addams Family lite, instead of anything like The Munsters). I'm a big fan of The Munsters, not so much of the Addams Family...I watched the Mockingbird Lane pilot, cringed all the way through it and absolutely hated it. I didn't really recognize the characters and found myself wondering why they even bothered to do a re-imagining/remake, if they wanted to veer so far from the original.

Its certainly a gamble, Jace may find Space fans leaving in droves if it is too different from the original (or worse, too much like some other science fiction series), then again we may be surprised and really like it.

Dana

Alpha, a series about the descendants of Moonbase Alpha personnel would also be a failure, since it is based on a series that is anachronistic to start with. It might be a hit with fans of the original, but I fear all of the past Space:1999 hate club members would come out of the wood work, just to point out all the errors and inconsistencies stemming from the original premise. Critics would also be quick to point out how ridiculous the premise is. Perhaps you don't remember the raking over the coals the original series got from science fiction fans and critics, who didn't see what we see in the series?

Dana