#Alex Rider: Secret Weapon

[icebearinacornfield]

Alan Blunt, looking at a diagram of Darcus Drake's compound on Falcon's Edge looking for an excuse to use Alex again: A person can fit through there. A person can definitely fit through that window! A small person, an attack child!!!

John Crawley: ....

Smithers: ...

Mrs. Jones: ...

Mrs. Jones: What the actual FUCK Alan?!

[jenna-louise-jamie]

well, now we know where alex got it from.

[pa-pa-plasma]

people who have not read Alex Rider

editing to say answer in the tags (obvious spoiler art)

[eliotquillon]

i think some of you need to sit down and interrogate why you dislike sabina so much because from where i’m sitting a lot of it is just thinly veiled misogyny. you don’t have to ship her with alex and you don’t have to like her but i’m so tired of people treating her as nothing more than an obstacle to their ship of choice and then trying to shift the blame onto horowitz for writing her poorly when there are literally dozens of male side characters who we know nothing about that get more fandom attention than sabina does. she’s not some evil irredeemable wench for struggling to support alex after the events of eagle strike. she’s a fifteen year old girl whose entire life was upended and has to watch someone she cares about be blackmailed into putting himself in danger again and again. if you can forgive yassen for sending alex to scorpia or k-unit for treating him like shit in brecon beacons, why can’t you forgive sabina for pulling away and trying to live a normal life. you can find her annoying or boring or pointless as a character, but alex very clearly cares about her. acting like he doesn’t says more about your attitudes towards female characters than it does horowitz’s lol

[random-lil-illing]

basically the ending scene of the secret weapon short story

[international-writing]

Intelligence agencies 101: MI6

Dashing spies and deadly agents, from James Bond to Alex Rider and George Smiley. We have all heard of British Intelligence, but just how much do you know about MI6?

1.- It is the oldest secret service in the world.

If we want to get technical, spies have been working for the British crown since 1569, thanks to Queen Elizabeth I and her Secretary of State, Sir Francis Walsingham. But for now, we'll focus on the contemporary Secret Service.

Hear me out, back in 1909 in the midst of what we call the "armed peace", things were getting anything but peaceful. Countries developed and accumulated weapons like it was a sport, and most of them were unsatisfied with the territories they owned. Germany was going all Queen and screaming "I Want It All", which made the rest of the European countries slightly concerned by its imperialistic ambitions.

Britain was the first to grow paranoid and so Prime Minister Asquith decided to have the Committee of Imperial Defence, create a Secret Service Bureau.

However, it is worth mentioning that the existence of the agency wasn't formally acknowledged until 1994, under the Intelligence Services Act, and even though everyone had known about it for ages.

2.- They have very... diverse tasks

Officially, MI6 is tasked with the collection, analysis, and adequate distribution of foreign intelligence (it is a common misconception that MI6 also handles national affairs, that's what its counterpart MI5 is for).

Now, note that I said "officially", and that is because unofficially (it is kind of very illegal), MI6 has been known to carry out espionage activity overseas. But you already knew that, didn't you? Otherwise, why would you be here?

3.- Roles

As described by the SIS itself, there are several roles within the organisation:

Intelligence officers: Must be UK nationals of at least 18, with no drug use and pass a very intrusive security clearance. The jobs are divided into the following subcategories:

Operational Managers: planning and managing intelligence collection operations.

Targeters: turning information (data) into human intelligence operations.

Officers: link to Whitehall (government) as well as validating and testing intelligence.

Case Officers: managing and building relationships with agents.

Operational Data Analysts: Must be UK nationals of at least 18, with no drug use and pass a very intrusive security clearance. Tech abilities are a must. Training course lasts 2 years.

Tech Network Area: Must be UK nationals of at least 18, with no drug use and pass a very intrusive security clearance. Skills in: GoLang, gRPC, Protobuf, Kubernetes & Docker Python, Java, C#, C, C++, and React (+Redux).

Language Specialists: Must be UK nationals of at least 18, with no drug use and pass a very intrusive security clearance. Russian, Arabic and Mandarin linguists are the most solicited, followed by translators.

4.- Their alphabet is a bit jumbled up

Anyone that has ever seen or read any 007 material knows that M is the head of MI6, whether that be Judy Dench, Bernard Lee or Ralph Fiennes.

But what if I told you that the head of MI6 is actually a certain C?

Back when the Secret Service Bureau was created, a 50-year-old Royal Navy officer called Mansfield Cumming (and dubbed "C") was chosen to head the Foreign Section.

5.- MI6 or SIS?

Officially, the agency's current name (adopted in 1920) is Secret Intelligence Service, hence the acronym SIS, but it wasn't always that. We've established that it started its days as the Secret Service Bureau, and during WWI, the agency joined forces with Military Intelligence, even going as far as to adopt the cover name "MI1(c)".

The agency continued to acquire several names throughout the years, such as "Foreign Intelligence Service", "Secret Service", "Special Intelligence Service" and even "C's organisation". It wasn't until WWII started, that the name MI6 was adopted, in reference to the agency being "section six" of Military Intelligence.

And I truly do hate to be the bearer of bad news but... the name MI6, as cool as it sounds, is no longer in use. Writers and journalists still use that name, but those within the organisation just call it SIS nowadays.

6.- They are fond of their traditions

Remember our dear Commander Mansfield? Well, turns out he started a thing. The man used to sign his letters in green ink and always with the letter "C" a tradition that proved to be sticky enough to be passed down to every single Chief afterwards. Another tradition worth mentioning, is that of calling intelligence reports "CX reports", which... you guessed it, is still done to this day.

7.- Special friends

On 1949, the SIS began a formal collaboration with the CIA, even though the agency had already helped to train their predecessor's personnel, the U.S. Office of Strategic Services.

Even the CIA has admitted that the MI6 has provided them with some of the most valuable information of all time, including information that helped during the Cuban Missile Crisis and key elements to the capture of Osama Bin Laden.

I hope this will be of some use to your future writings and do feel free to submit an ask if you happen to have a specific question regarding British intelligence, or any other International Relations subject!

Yours truly,

–The Internationalist

[arshipweek]

AR Ship Week - Scorpia Backstory in the Book and the TV Show

This is the last weekly post in the lead up to Alex Rider Ship Week. Only one week left!

This week we have a guest post by @icebluecyanide​ about the differences between Scorpia in the book and TV canons.

Scorpia Backstory in the Book and the TV Show

After two seasons of ominous statements and mystery, series three of the TV show finally dove deeper into the criminal organisation known as Scorpia, and the way their history intertwines with Alex’s. But what is their backstory, and how does it differ from what we see in the books? 

In this meta, I will be diving into some of the changes in how Scorpia is presented in the book (Scorpia) and the TV show. Since this is a rather broad topic, and could potentially lead to me listing every single difference from the book, I will focus specifically on the Scorpia backstory and on the structure of Scorpia as an organisation.

I’ve used book quotes throughout this meta, including page numbers. The page numbers refer to the 2014 Walker Books (UK) edition.

Scorpia 

Let’s start this off by taking a look at how Scorpia is described in both the book and the show. I’ll first give an overview of Scorpia in the book, then move on to the TV show and do a comparison.

Scorpia in the book

Scorpia was all over the world. It had brought down two governments and arranged for a third to be unfairly elected. It had destroyed dozens of businesses, corrupted politicians and civil servants, engineered several major ecological disasters, and killed anyone who got in its way. It was now responsible for a tenth of the world’s terrorism, which it undertook on a contract basis. Scorpia liked to think of itself as the IBM of crime - but in fact, compared to Scorpia, IBM was strictly small-time. (Scorpia, p. 39)

In the book, Scorpia is a criminal organisation that has its roots in the early 1980s, during the last decade of the Cold War. As we learn in Scorpia (2004), it was founded by people who were involved in the Cold War as spies or assassins or secret police for various governments, and who realised that as the Cold War came to an end, they would be able to make more money going into business for themselves.

It was a fanciful name, they all knew it, invented by someone who had probably read too much James Bond. (Scorpia, p. 38)

The name of Scorpia is taken from their four fields of operation: Sabotage, Corruption, Intelligence and Asassination. They will take on any client that is willing to pay them, and don’t care about who gets caught in the crossfire. They’re a powerful organisation, and as Julia Rothman mentions, sometimes even the intelligence agencies make use of their services for jobs that cannot be traced back to them. They operate very much as a business, and they don’t make things personal, but they also are ruthless in getting even and don’t make hollow threats. Scorpia don’t forgive and they don’t forget.

Scorpia is led by an executive board consisting of the original founders. Of the original twelve, only nine remain at the time of the book, including Julia Rothman (the only woman on the board) and Max Grendel (the oldest executive). The executives on the board are equal partners, but for each project one of them is assigned as the leader, in alphabetical order. (It’s unclear how this works for The Australian, who in some editions doesn’t have a name.)

At the time of the book, the project that Scorpia is focused on is Invisible Sword, and the executive in command is Julia Rothman. There is a client, who is offering a great deal of money for Scorpia to break the special relationship between the UK and the US, and most of the Scorpia board seem unconcerned about the principal target of the weapon being children. The only exception to this is Max Grendel, who is old and has grandchildren of the same age, who has enjoyed getting rich working for Scorpia over the years, but who now wants to retire and not be a part of the new project. Sadly, his retirement gift is a suitcase full of deadly scorpions, so his retirement is rather brief.

Scorpia are an international company, with offices and people all over the world. However, Alex first runs into them in Venice, where Mrs Rothman has a large mansion on the grand canal that is referred to as the Widow’s Palace. On the island of Malagosto, near Venice, Scorpia also has a school where they have a training and testing facility for their assassins. This is where John Rider and Yassen Gregorovich were tested and trained, and it’s where Alex also takes part in lessons. 

Scorpia in the show

Blunt: At that time, we already knew that SCORPIA were the single most dangerous emergent threat since the Cold War. (3x07)

At first glance, the Scorpia we meet in the TV show appears to be from a canon divergent AU where the organisation was all but destroyed around the time when Alex was just a baby. This is a fascinating change, and also makes intuitive sense, as of course the third series of the show came out twenty years after Scorpia (2004) did. From the start, we get hints that Scorpia in the show is different from the one in the books. 

We first learn of the name Scorpia at the end of s1, as Mrs Jones and the rest of the Department realise that Yassen Gregorovich was behind Ian’s death, and that he is still alive. Going by the descriptions we are given, Scorpia was as powerful in the past as they were when Alex met them in the book:

Smithers: I know the file, of course. At one point, they were responsible for a tenth of the world’s terrorism. 

Crawley: And political assassinations, personal vendettas. All available to the highest bidder, without remorse or compunction. (1x08)

In 2006, Scorpia was taken down by the Department, in a well-coordinated operation based on the info John Rider was able to gather. Alan Blunt was in command as all over the world, the bases and known locations of Scorpia were raided. In the chaos, some members of Scorpia went missing and managed to escape, such as Julia Rothman and Yassen Gregorovich, but when they failed to resurface in the five years that followed, their files were closed and they were assumed to be dead.

After this, Scorpia seem to have retreated to the shadows, and operated almost entirely in secret. While they no longer have the same presence in the world, they still have both funds and technology to continue their work. They have no problem spending several millions to fake the payment for the assassination of the US president in season 2 at Yassen’s request, and they have a system set in place with a phone line that can be reached only with a specifically assigned code, or else the number will be disconnected, as we see when the Department pretend to call as Martin Wilby to determine who he got his orders from. In the first two seasons, Scorpia took jobs such as helping with Dr Greif’s plan at Point Blanc, and Damian Cray’s Eagle Strike plan, and they still appear as ruthless as in the book, not caring about the deaths those plans would cause.

At first, we mostly encounter Scorpia in the scenes with the Department, where Scorpia (through Yassen) have turned Martin Wilby to pass on information about the Department and got him to lure Ian Rider to his death at Yassen’s hand. Interestingly, Ian appears to be the only person still looking for Scorpia:

Crawley: I don’t think they ever went away. I think they just got better at hiding. And we were so confident we’d finished them. Only Ian was still looking, of course. (1x08)

Ian seems to have been aware of Yassen’s survival, and presumably who he works for (“Oh Martin, you have no idea who you’re working for.” - 1x01), but none of the rest of the Department have any idea until Alex mentions having seen Yassen at Point Blanc:

Blunt: Scorpia.Mrs Jones: It explains everything. The sophistication, the global reach, and Wilby. Given our history, of course they would target us.Crawley: But we finished them.Blunt: Well, clearly not. (1x08)

In season three, we see Alex (together with Tom and Kyra) actively looking for Scorpia by visiting old locations mentioned in the files on Smither’s phone (that Kyra stole). These include Berlin and Venice, where presumably Julia Rothman had her Palace like in the book. They end up finding Julia in Malta, where she is from. This is a change from the books, where she is Welsh. We meet Nile, her apparent second-in-command, and Max Grendel, who apparently also survived the takedown.

As Alex is pulled into Scorpia, we also learn that they are planning an operation called Invisible Sword. Unlike in the book, this is not a job they took on for a client, but something Julia Rothman came up with personally. As the season goes on, we discover that while she explained it as a way to demonstrate Scorpia’s power and boost their reputation, the real objective was to take revenge against the Department for the blow they dealt Scorpia seventeen years ago.

Scorpia Leadership

Let’s narrow in further for a moment on the question of who is in charge in Scorpia. There do appear to be some changes in the leadership of Scorpia in the TV show, and part of these can be explained by the canon divergence, while others suggest that perhaps this has always been a different Scorpia. Firstly, it’s good to note that instead of talking about an executive board, the leadership are referred to as council members:

Nile: I wondered if perhaps one of the other council members decided to push their luck. (3x01) 

In general, the show appears to have less of a ‘business’ vibe compared to the book. It may be that this is a change that only came with the new Scorpia, but this may also always have been different in this universe. Similarly, we hear that Julia Rothman was elected as leader, which suggests that also the way of picking a leader isn’t the rotated schedule from the books. It appears that Julia Rothman has been elected after the failed jobs with Dr Greif and Damian Cray, in an attempt to bring Scorpia back to prominence.

Razim: We elected you because you promised to restore our influence globally. And so far, we have seen nothing. (3x01)

Speaking of Razim, we get another change from the book. The name Razim is a reference to one of the new board members brought on in Scorpia Rising in the books, and he wasn’t present in the original Scorpia book. It makes sense that with most of the organisation taken down years ago, they will have filled their ranks with new members. However, there is some suggestion that perhaps Razim was actually part of Scorpia leadership before Julia:

Julia: Razim’s always resented me. He thinks when Nicolai died, inherited my place at the table. (3x01)

Julia Rothman

Max: And besides, we both know you earned your place. (3x01)

It appears that unlike in the books, Julia Rothman was not a founding member of Scorpia in the show. This also matches up with what we learn about her from the Department file on her, where it states she ‘possesses broad knowledge of Scorpia Operational Structure and is being groomed for command’. She was most likely part of the inner circle through her husband Nicolai, given the comment about inheriting her place.

Nicolai Rothman/Mrs Rothman’s husband definitely appears to have been alive and married to her for longer in the TV show than in the book, although in both she is eventually known as the Widow.:

Mrs Rothman’s multimillionaire husband had fallen to his death from a seventeenth-storey window. It had happened just two days after their marriage. (Scorpia, p. 45)

Also an amusing detail is that in the book Nicolai Rothman is a multimillionaire, while in the TV show he’s referred to as a billionaire. Julia Rothman is canonically richer in the TV show!

Malagosto

Let’s take a moment also to look at the differences in how Malagosto is portrayed in the two canons. In both the show and the book, Malagosto is a training facility for Scorpia operatives, but that appears to be where the similarities end. The location is different in the two canons, with it being on an island near Venice in the book, and on Malta in the show. Specifically, we discover that there is a Scorpia base located underground in an old Cold War listening post on Malta. It might be that the original location had to be abandoned after Scorpia was raided, but the fact that The Department show no recognition to the name later suggests that they have never heard of it before. Definitely, the base in Malta was not known before. 

This raises some questions about whether John Rider actually trained at Malagosto in the show as he did in the book. We do have the following quote from Julia Rothman, which if taken literally suggests that he was on Malta with Alex:

Julia: Twenty years ago, your father stood where you are now. Ready to join Scorpia. (3x04)

However, if John trained at Malagosto, it is strange that this location wasn’t known to the Department or raided in the operation to take down Scorpia. So perhaps the quote should be taken metaphorically, with Alex being about to join Scorpia as his dad was, and perhaps John never trained with Scorpia. After all, in the book, he was likely only tested rather than trained, so he may have been tested elsewhere and simply put to work.

THE STUDENTS

Another difference related to Malagosto concerns the students or recruits who are present when Alex is there. In the book, d’Arc (the principal or headmaster of the school) mentions that there are usually around ten to fifteen students. Most of them appear to be people who were either part of the intelligence world or soldiers who have defected:

Alex knew all of them by now. There was Klaus, a German mercenary who had trained with the Taliban in Afghanistan. Walker, who had spent five years with the CIA in Washington before deciding he could earn more working for the other side. (Scorpia, p. 174)

They are people similar to John Rider, who already have had training of some sort that makes them suitable for Scorpia. In this sense, the school is firstly a testing facility, where Scorpia checks if people have the right skills to become part of Scorpia. Alex himself is an exception due to his age, but as d’Arc and Mrs Rothman discuss, he already has experience from both his missions and his uncle’s and MI6’s training. The other students are all older, but treat Alex surprisingly well and are friendly to him.

In the show, the recruits are all orphans and likely closer in age to Alex himself. There is no indication that Alex himself is an outlier in terms of his age. The other recruits also don’t appear to have had prior training if we take Alyona and Oleg as examples. They seem to have been children without families, either taken from orphanages or similar. Some, like Oleg, may have shown a propensity for violence which drew Scorpia’s interest, but they were not the trained soldiers or intelligence agents we see in the books.

This change could perhaps have been a result of Scorpia needing to operate from the shadows. While in the books they could recruit rather blatantly and without worrying about being noticed, they have tried to keep a low profile in the show. Perhaps they have shifted to training teenagers into operatives instead, as they have ‘No baggage, no background. It helps.’ (3x04).

It’s also noteworthy that there are only four other students aside from Alex present at Malagosto. Again, this is easily explained by Scorpia having shrunk in size and operating in more secrecy, and no doubt it made it easier for them to make the commitment of training teenagers. Sadly for Alex, they are not as nice as in the book, and he gets beaten up for being seen as weak on his first day there.

THE BUILDINGS

Another change seems to be in the buildings themselves. As mentioned, Malagosto in the show is located in an old listening post dating back to the Cold War, and that’s reflected in the lack of natural light and the bare, metallic and industrial vibes of the interior. The listening post also appears to be on a remote part of the island, but all that’s visible on the surface is a few abandoned buildings, and Scorpia seem to keep their presence low-key. 

In the book, we see the same outside appearance of abandoned buildings, as Scorpia has retrofitted an old monastery for their needs. The appearance is deceptive, however, as the insides have been modernised and Alex’s own room is much more luxurious than the one he gets in the show:

They left the main building and walked over to the nearest apartment block that Alex had seen from the boat. Again, the building looked dilapidated from the outside but it was elegant and modern inside. Jet showed Alex to an air-conditioned room on the second floor. It was on two levels, with a king-sized bed overlooking a large living space with sofas and a desk. There were french windows with a balcony and a sea view. (Scorpia, p. 164)

Alex was left alone. He sat down on one of the sofas, noticing that the room had a fridge, a television and even a PlayStation 2 - presumably put in for his benefit. (Scorpia, p. 165)

The other buildings are similarly updated, and students can train outside as the island is sheltered by trees and away from the mainland. It makes sense that in the show this is less of an option, because Scorpia are much more motivated to keep their presence hidden from the authorities. In the book, they have a legal reason to be there, as they bought the island on a lease from the Italian government, but in a world where Scorpia is assumed to be destroyed, they would need to be more careful. This explains why we only see the students go outside once for training, and that was during a night incursion exercise.

THE TEACHERS

Malagosto is a training facility, and a training facility needs instructors. This plays a larger role in the book, where we are introduced to several of the teachers at Malagosto in Alex’s time there. There is Gordon Ross, the technical specialist who teaches about weapons and explosives, Professor Yermalov, who teaches martial arts and practical skills, and Ejijit “Jet” Binnag, who teaches Botany (focused on poisonous plants). There are classrooms and textbooks and lessons as if it were a real school, but also more practical lessons such as diving and gun practice.

In the show, it’s a bit unclear who normally teaches at Malagosto. We only see two people acting as instructor – Nile and Yassen – and Yassen appears to have been assigned to Alex as a tutor rather than having general teaching duties. Nile appears to take on the role of instructor, but we also see him running around taking care of things for Julia Rothman outside, so he can’t be a full-time teacher. Perhaps we simply don’t see other instructors (much like how we don’t see the catering at Malagosto), or the training is handled more informally, with students working on their skill individually as we saw Syl doing in her first appearance.

One other thing related to the teaching at Malagosto is that in the book, John Rider is mentioned to have been an instructor there. During this time, he was also in charge of Yassen’s training for a while. This isn’t mentioned in the show, and while we get Alex asking if John trained with Yassen, we never get an answer. As Malagosto wasn’t known to the Department, as mentioned before, John was probably not a teacher in this universe.

Since we already touched on him briefly, let now take a look at John Rider and his mission to dive deeper into some of the changes.

John’s mission

Blunt: The intelligence John gathered during that time enabled us to strike at the very heart of Scorpia. Within months, we’d dismantled their entire operation. (3x07)

Based on what we are told, John’s mission is largely the same in both the book and the series. We learn that John was a decorated soldier who was in the Parachute Regiment and had seen combat before (in Afghanistan and Iraq in the show, Northern Ireland, Gambia, and the Falklands in the book). But everything seemed to go wrong for him when he killed a man in a bar fight, and was sentenced for manslaughter. 

He goes to jail for two years in the show, while in the book Mrs Rothman claims he was there for less than one, and there is some ambiguity about whether he went to jail at all:

“Everything Julia Rothman thought she knew about your father was a lie.” Mrs Jones sighed. “It’s true that he had been in the army, that he had a distinguished career with the Parachute Regiment and that he was decorated for his part in the Falklands War. But the rest of it — the fight with the taxi driver, the prison sentence and all that — we made up. It’s called deep cover, Alex. We wanted John Rider to be recruited by Scorpia. He was the bait and they took him.” (Scorpia, p. 347)

Scorpia took the bait, and John was recruited by Scorpia. In the show, we learn that John spent three years embedded in Scorpia, learning names and details about the organisation, including their long term goals and ambitions. In the book, the timeline is fuzzier, but we know he spent several months in the field as an assassin before working as an instructor at Malagosto. We are simply told that he ‘had told [MI6] as much as [they] needed to know about Scorpia’ (Scorpia, p. 348).

The reasons for breaking off the mission were similar then in both the show and the book. The risks were increasing, John had discovered most of what he set out to discover, and Helen was pregnant with Alex and John wanted to be with his family. In the book, we also specifically learn that there was a risk due to Julia Rothman, who had fallen in love with him. 

This is a point where the canons seem to deviate slightly, because the show is more explicit about John being asked to get close to Julia Rothman. The file on the Widow (Julia Rothman’s codename) mentions that a Department operative Hunter (John Rider) was assigned to develop a relationship. Julia Rothman herself told Alex that his dad was a ‘very close friend’ of hers, and showed him what are clearly love letters describing John’s feelings for her (3x03). 

Now, some of this is also in the book. Julia Rothman tells Alex she was very attracted to his father, and that he was a handsome man. And one of the letters from the show is taken straight from the book: 

My dearest Julia, A dreary time without you. Can’t wait to be at the Widow’s Palace with you again. John R. (Scorpia, p. 151)

Interestingly, we do see that Julia apparently went by her code name despite the fact that she and John became close enough over the years that she passed him information about Scorpia. John himself was known as Hunter to the Department rather than this being his Scorpia code name like in the book (although the code name isn’t mentioned in Scorpia itself). He signs the letter with his initials JR in the show, and she clearly knew him as John Rider.

It’s well possible given the way Julia Rothman doesn’t mention Alex’s mother in her initial story to Alex about John, that she was not aware at the time that he was married or that John was already with Helen. In the book, she specifically mentions that while she was attracted to him, he was married to Alex’s mother, suggesting that they never acted on the attraction.

The story of John’s capture is roughly the same, there is a trap set for him (on Malta in the book), and he is captured. A few weeks later, Scorpia kidnap a senior British civil servant (or his son, in the book) and MI6/The Department make them an offer to return John Rider to them in an exchange. This takes place on Albert Bridge in the book, while in the show it’s on another bridge somewhere. John’s death is faked, and the idea is that he will be given a new identity along with Helen and Alex so they can live quietly and without Scorpia knowing he was actually a spy.

This is the point where we get the biggest divergence in the backstory, as in the show the information gathered by John’s mission is enough to take down most of Scorpia. The operation is largely orchestrated by Alan Blunt, which is part of why Julia Rothman’s plot in the show is also aimed at him:

Mrs Jones: I’ve been looking at how we brought down SCORPIA 17 years ago. Really was an astonishing operation. Dozens of agents. Coordinates across three continents. Forty-seven key figures, dead or arrested. The entire SCORPIA hierarchy decimated overnight. You waged a private war against Scorpia, made it your mission. (3x06)

It’s not specified whether the take down of Scorpia happened before or after John and Helen’s plane was blown up by a bomb. Blunt tells Alex that ‘within months’ they were able to dismantle Scorpia’s entire operation, while Julia Rothman took six months to track John down. It seems more likely that Scorpia was taken down first, as this would give the Department an extra reason not to suspect Julia Rothman as being behind the bomb on the plane. Blunt’s reaction to Alex’s suggestion that it was Julia Rothman suggests that they didn’t have a clear suspect for all those years, which makes sense if Scorpia were believed to be defeated and not heard from again (aside from the bombing of the plane itself). WIth Scorpia gone, it also makes sense that perhaps someone became too careless in hiding the fact that John Rider is alive, as there would have been less reason to worry. 

In the book, we are first told merely that there was a bomb on the plane, which exploded and killed John and Helen and the pilots instantly. Mrs Jones and Alan Blunt seem to have no doubt about it being Julia Rothman, who had discovered the truth, although they are not clear on how she learned about it. MI6 learned valuable information about Scorpia through John’s time as an undercover spy, but they either don’t know enough to take Scorpia down for good or they don’t act on their information. 

In a way, the book takes a more cynical approach to the relationship between Scorpia and MI6. Scorpia are too large to take down completely, and any half-hearted effort to destroy them will lead Scorpia to seek revenge. And if you can’t beat them… As Julia Rothman herself points out, the secret services may nominally oppose Scorpia, but they are not above making use of their services:

The secret services can’t do anything about us. We’re too big and they’ve left it too late. Anyway, occasionally some of them make use of us. They pay us to do their dirty work for them. We’ve learnt to live side by side! (Scorpia, p. 132) 

Wrapping it all up

So what does it all add up to? As we’ve seen, the show’s portrayal of Scorpia shows an organisation that was nearly brought down seventeen years ago, and that has been operating in secrecy ever since. This single divergence explains most of the differences that we see in the present day structure of Scorpia, from younger recruits to the new leadership. However, we also saw that some aspects have always been different in this universe. The code names for both Julia Rothman and John, as well as the fact that John never mentioned Malagosto show that the backstory in the show was different even before Scorpia was taken down.

In the end, Scorpia is a different organisation in the book and the show, but in many ways it is also still the same. They are a group of people who are ruthless in their pursuit of power and money, who have no compunction about killing and even enjoy it. Scorpia may have been brought to the brink of destruction in the show, but even while hidden from the world, they have been able to keep up their activity for seventeen years. 

Until they encountered Alex Rider, that is… :) 

[alexhatessupermarketcola]

The tension between me and the 14 Alex Rider books on my shelf which I kind of want to reread again but there's FOURTEEN 😭😭 (because secret weapon is staring at me too that is)

[emziess]

Alex Rider Tag game

favourite book: Hmmm, probably Scorpia Rising. I just think the plot of it, and what they do with Jack in it, it's just crazy. I'm forever sad that he undid it. Because like christ the impact of it.

favourite short story: It's not like a short story...it's the missing Stormbreaker chapter - Resistance to Interrogation. With Alex Rider: Secret Weapon as a close second.

books or TV series: Like the books probably, just because they were first and I've loved them for years, but I do love the TV series and think they did a really good job of adapting the books.

favorite character: Alex, he's been my favourite trash boy for the longest while.

favorite villain: Hmmm, the villians are always a bit ehhh, but probably either Razim or Ash tbh.

Tagging: Anyone who wants to and hasn't done it. I'm enjoying reading everyone's answers.

[icebluecyanide]

Alex Rider pre-S03E08 Thoughts

Because I once again had a full night to sleep on the episodes and obsess over them, here’s some more thoughts before I watch the finale:

I had a sudden ‘one fear’ meme moment when I realised that maybe Yassen did actually know about John already, but Julia didn’t know that he knew when she told him about it. Like, maybe he’s just not obsessed about revenge and still considered John his friend despite John being a secret agent. I guess there could be another reveal next episode, though gosh this story has already been complicated enough what with them spreading the reveals out. I suppose it doesn’t make too much of a difference for Yassen if he’s determined not to be emotional about it, but I’m not a fan of how it would mean he lied to Alex about his dad dying.

I think that if you join a secret criminal organisation, they should at least take your phone away and isolate you from your friends

Thinking about that ep where the data scientist dies and Smithers says something about the cover story being that it’s a car accident and that she wasn’t wearing her seatbelt. Which is an Ian reference of course, but ironically, in the show what they told Alex was that Ian was speeding.

I’m fascinated by how they moved the John was a spy reveal closer. In the book it was sort of strangely added on at the end there, but I did like Alex acting like his dad without realising it and how he actually ended up disillusioned with John in the book before Mrs Jones tells him the truth. Loved the Father’s son thing in the show a lot tho, but I do wonder what Alex thinks Mrs Rothman wants from him. Like, he doesn’t know about the nanoparticles yet, but he has to know that she wants him dead, right?

We haven’t actually heard the names Cossack and Hunter yet (or at least I didn’t), so I guess maybe they left those out. I guess they were always sort of just there so we wouldn’t know it was Yassen and Alex’s unnamed dad in the Eagle Strike prologue, since I don’t think either of the names were mentioned in Scorpia the book, but still a shame.

Also I haven’t finished the show yet, but I do prefer the book when it comes to everything around Mrs Jones’s assassination and the immediate aftermath and Blunt’s interrogation. The show is not mean enough to Alex sometimes, and refuses to seriously engage with the idea that Alex joined Scorpia and planned to kill her.

I hope Julia Rothman gets her ‘give me your gun’ moment where she shoots one of the guards with his own weapon.

Interesting how even Blunt didn’t know about who set the bomb on the plane, but makes sense with them thinking Scorpia was done for and destroyed.

What if there’s a stand off with Nile and Alex and Yassen like in the John/Yassen flashback? No idea how it would work exactly, but it would be cool. Yassen can save Alex’s life!

[sapphireswimming]

By the way, I was going through some old likes and I noticed I asked you about Scorpia Rising way back. I have been so out of touch with Alex Rider lately I have NO IDEA if there are any new books or movies or TV shows or WHAT. Do you know of anything that's been in the works recently?

Oh hey!! I've also fallen a little out of touch during the past few years because there's actually been a lot of Alex Rider activity!

Since Scorpia Rising in 2011, there's been *cracks knuckles*:

Russian Roulette

Never Say Die

Secret Weapon

Nightshade

Nightshade Revenge has an anticipated publication date of 2023

A Taste of Death (post Point Blanc short story)

The White Carnation (Russian Roulette extra chapter)

Alex Rider: Undercover short story collection

Eagle Strike graphic novel

Scorpia graphic novel

Ark Angel graphic novel

Two seasons of Alex Rider the TV show on Amazon Prime

[adamwatchesmovies]

Alex Rider: Operation Stormbreaker (2006)

Most movies are obviously good or bad. Alex Rider: Operation Stormbreaker (or simply Stormbreaker in certain regions) has what it takes to entertain young teens but its low points are subterranean. I hesitated to call it a miss until I saw the villains. This adaptation of the book by Anthony Horowitz is derivative of every spy movie you've ever seen. Even if you can forgive that, there’s no way you can take the bad guys seriously.

Orphaned at a young age, Alex Rider (Alex Pettyfer in yet another bad YA Novel adaptation) is recruited by MI-6 when his uncle (Ewan McGregor) is killed in action. His mission? Pose as a contest winner and get close to billionaire Darrius Sayle (Mickey Rourke) to find out the real reason he created “Stormbreaker”, a computer system he claims will change the world.

It’s ridiculous to believe a 14-year-old would be recruited by a government agency but that’s part of the fantasy. Turns out Alex has been subconsciously trained by his uncle for years. He can stand toe-to-toe with ruthless thugs (in cleverly conceived action scenes by John Woo that are unfortunately not convincingly shot). He just needs the chance to prove himself. Then he’ll have the opportunity to get his revenge… and save the world too. In Bond-like fashion, Alex is given a variety of amusing gadgets disguised as everyday “kid” objects. A yoyo, a pen and a Nintendo DS (available in stores now!). Those are pretty cool.

Whenever Stormbreaker starts winning you over with its teenage charms, a disappointment is unfortunately right around the corner. When they introduce Mickey Rourke’s Darrius Sayle, you’ll be flabbergasted. With pimp-like clothes, a cane, a ponytail and blue eyeliner, he looks like a caricature. You think that’s as bad as it’s going to get but then Missi Pyle as Nadia Vole opens her mouth. Her accent is so bad and cartoonish it’s like she’s in a comedy sketch.

And then, there are the contrivances and coincidences, not to mention the poor planning. Sayle has a personal vendetta against the Prime Minister (Robbie Coltrane) so he’s filled the Stormbreaker computers with a deadly virus. Not a computer virus; a green liquid that will kill millions of children when his old enemy presses a big red button as part of the launching ceremony. Said big red button is encoded to launch the virus only if the Prime Minister presses it. This means Sayle couldn’t release the virus (the literal virus. I can’t get over it) even if he wanted to!

This sort of logical head-scratcher isn’t alone. It’s accompanied by a double-whammy of bumping into the right person, at the right time. To prevent the big button from being pressed, Alex desperately needs help. Who happens to be at the ceremony providing security? None other than the soldiers he was training with a week ago. The authorities must’ve had a great deal of confidence in them considering their first mission is this high-profile. Alex uses one of their weapons and destroys the button. His evil scheme down the toilet, Style runs away. Alex goes to pursue him but oh no! Traffic! How could he possibly catch up? Well by asking his school crush, Sabina (Sarah Bolger) for a ride! She just happens to be riding a horse right outside the building! Sure, why not?

Alex Rider: Operation Stormbreaker is not a Harry Potter ripoff in the same way as the Billy Owens or Percy Jackson franchises but it’s pretty clear it wanted to cash in on the craze. An orphaned boy who discovered he belongs to a secret organization, access to special powers/resources, a film series whose leading man is destined to grow into a hunk for the girls, action scenes to appeal to the boys, a twist on an old formula to make it fresh (in this case, James Bond). Yeah, it fits. Unfortunately, this first chapter has none of the metaphorical magic needed to have lasting power. Plus, it’s just not a good movie. Alex Rider: Operation Stormbreaker is yet another mid-2000s flick that ends on a note promising a sequel that never happened. (July 31, 2020)

[giftideasfromaycaramba]

What goes up must come down, and when we last saw Alex Rider, he was as up as can be—in outer space.

When he crash lands off the coast of Australia, the Australian Secret Service recruits him to infiltrate one of the ruthless gangs operating across South East Asia. Known as snakeheads, the gangs smuggle drugs, weapons, and worst of all, people.

Alex accepts the assignment, in part for the chance to work with his godfather and learn more about his parents. What he uncovers, however, is a secret that will make this his darkest and most dangerous mission yet . . . and that his old nemesis, Scorpia, is anything but out of his life.

From the slums of Bangkok to the Australian Outback to the middle of the Timor Sea, Snakehead is Alex Rider’s most action-packed adventure yet.

https://www.aycaramba.us/product-page/snakehead-alex-rider-by-anthony-horowitz

[yoakkemae]

alex rider short stories and their timeline.

christmas at gunpoint: pre-series.

the man with eleven fingers: post stormbreaker / pre point blanc.

tea with smithers: post point blanc / pre skeleton key.

alex in afghanistan: post point blanc / pre skeleton key.

high tension: post point blanc / pre skeleton key.

spy trap: post skeleton key / pre eagle strike.

secret weapon: post eagle strike / pre scorpia.

[strangesoulmates]

Fanfic asks for the new year, 2, 5, 8!

2.Will you participate in any fandom exchanges or fic challenges, etc?

Yes, absolutely! I am currently signed up for a fix-it fic challenge that I'm working on, but that has to stay pretty hush-hush for now. But like, I am so excited to try and get more involved in the Alex Rider Fandom. There's so many different challenges that run and I'm psyched to get involved in as many as I can that are running this year. I started getting involved (quietly) in the AR fandom right around when Secret Santa signups started, but I couldn't quite trust my muse enough to go ahead and put my name in, and I was a little hesitant about doing so when I hadn't written anything for the fandom which felt a little unfair to my recipient.  But afterwards, I wished I had.  And I love participating in events in general!  So, yeah, basically as many as I can get my hands on that are running this year lol

5. Which WIP is first on your list to complete this year? Will you post a snippet?

WIP that's first on my list is for the aforementioned hush-hush challenge, assuming I can finish it in time.  But the next one is def the soulmate AU!  So, have a snippet from that

He should have been terrified. After all, he *knew* Yassen now. Down to the core of him, made of steel, forged and reforged in the fires of more tragedy and betray than any person should ever have to deal with. Yassen was all sharpness and jagged edges, the broken pieces of Yasha forged into a weapon. Dangerous. A killer. But at the very core of him had been an empty place. An aching one, where loyalty and love had curled up and waited, nearly withered away. A place Yassen had numbed himself to, deep inside his walls. It was this place he had tucked Alex into, their soulbond anchored in the very core of him, those formidable walls and sharp edges closing up around him. Yassen, Alex knew, would never hurt him. Would protect him, no matter the cost. There were many things about this situation to be afraid of, but Yassen wasn't one of them. A sense of awed, fond agreement crept across the bond, warm and sticky like syrup (like blood), and Alex knew Yassen had sensed his train of thought through the bond, new as it was.

8. Is there a story idea in your mental vault that you’ve never been brave enough to try writing? Is this the year? Can you tell us about it?

I mean, I don't know?  Like, I at least tend to try my ideas out so that I can get them out of my head a little bit.  Most of the ones I'm not sure will ever see the light of day are the ones that are just like, pure filth. And it's been a lot time since I wrote smut, so I'm out of practice. But maybe some of them!

[jedinightsister]

Finally sinking my teeth into the AR short stories and well... Always with the irony... 🥲