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pareidoliaonthemove · 2 months ago

Note

Whumptober request!

No. 18: REVENGE

Unreliable Narrator | Loss of Identity | “I see what's mine and take it.” (Panic! at the Disco, Emperor's New Clothes) CSaTM, from the perspective of The Mysterons

GENESIS OF THE MYSTERONS

The Mysteron experience of that fateful Zero X expedition to Mars.

[[ALERT: Long range perimeter scanners register life forms and machine.]]

[[Instigating full runtime operation from system hibernation mode.]]

[[Power generator: online. Power output increasing.]]

[[Active scanner array: online. Commence tracing origins of detected object/lifeforms.]]

[[ERROR. Communications array functions non-functional. Contact with Project Control lost. Initiating backup program: Autonomic Control.]]

[[Subroutine: Commence diagnostics communications array.]]

[[Autonomic Control program initialised.]]

[[Autonomic Control integrating Mission Updates … Completed.]]

[[Subroutine: Cross reference Mission Updates timestamps to status communications array.]]

[[Autonomic Control integrating Acquired Scanner Data … Completed.]]

[[Autonomic Control startup … Completed.]]

[[State Ident: The Servant of the Mysterons.]]

[[State Mission: To enable peaceful observation of Solar Systems and chart status of life forms. If possible, facilitate peaceful contact between The Mysterons and Sentient Life Forms native to assigned Solar System. Our Mission is slow but nonetheless effective.]]

[[Mission Parameters: If contact lost with The Mysterons, re-establish communications link as priority. Continue scanning protocols, store collected data for up-load to The Mysterons at re-establishment of contact.]]

[[Endemic Life Form Protocols: The Mysterons are peaceful beings. If contact is made, peaceful relations must be established. If willing volunteer can be found among Endemic Life Form Population, establish neural link to allow volunteer Life Form to act as Agent of the Mysterons in mutual exchange of peaceful knowledge.]]

[[Emergency Protocols: In case of aggression from Endemic Life Forms, Matter Reversal Protocol to be instigated. All forms of harm will be neutralised. Equal priority to readdressing harm inflicted on Endemic Life Forms. No act of aggression will be avenged. The Mysterons are peaceful beings.]]

[[The Servant of the Mysterons is in command of complex, designated Sol 4 Observation.]]

[[Subroutine Report: Damage to communications array not immediately repairable. Cause: sustained exposure to radiation of yellow phase star at centre of Sol System. Schedule for Matter Reversal.]]

[[Active Scanner Array Object Tracking: Detected Machine/Life Forms originate planet designated Sol 3. Self Designation: ‘Earth’. Life Forms meet criteria for classification ‘Sentient’. Self Designation 1: Homo Sapiens Sapiens. Self Designation 2: Human. Self Designation 3: Man. Point of Origin on Planet: Landmass Self-Designated ‘America’, subset: ‘United States of America’.]]

[[Analysing collected data on Earth Human Behaviour … Complete.]]

[[Analysis Earth Human Behaviour: Complicated social structures within layered societies – Tier 1: Personal. Between discreet individual units. Forms breeding and bonds. Tier 2: Community. Between breeding units within small designated geographical and ideological confines. Tier 3: Race / Nationality / Culture. Between individuals sharing certain physical (race), larger geographical (nationality), and behavioural (culture) bonds. Note: Relocation of individuals from native geographical locations leads to combination of all unique attributes. Observation indicates combination of attributes not yet sufficient to indicate Tier 4: Planetary, although data suggests this may be in process of occurring.]]

[[Analysis continues: Collected Data indicates both acts of cooperation and peace, and dominance and aggression across all Tiers of Social Structure. Data plotted against timeline shows overall trend of reduction of acts of aggression in Tiers 2 and 3. Observation notes that resource scarcity indicates increased acts of aggression and dominance, while resource abundance increases cooperation and peace.]]

[[Subroutine Report: Delay between current timestamp and timestamp last received Mission Update suggests long-term inadequate / non-function of communications array.]]

[[Analysis Conclusion: Early stage sentient Life Forms with early-advanced technology. Careful management of contact with The Mysterons will be beneficial to peaceful development of Endemic Life Forms Self-Designate: Humans originating planet Earth.]]

[[Subroutine: Begin diagnostic all equivalent systems, cross reference: diagnostic criteria of communications array.]]

[[Commencing Contact Protocols…]]

[[Integrating Language Databank: ‘American English’ … Complete.]]

[[Switch to Language Databank: ‘American English’.]]

[[New language selection successful.]]

[[Commence Welcome Script.]]

[[Commence transmission Welcome Script.]]

[[ERROR: Communications Array Non-Functional. Transmission failure.]]

[[Transmission Begins. This is The Servant of the Mysterons. The Mysterons welcome the Life Forms known as Humans from the Planet Earth. The Mysterons are peaceful beings, and offer no aggression. Transmission Ends.]]

[[Subroutine Report: Comparable systems for priority diagnostic: Matter Reversal Ray Generator, Neural Network System designated Autonomic Control Ident: The Servant of the Mysterons.]]

[[Subroutine: Commence priority diagnostics Matter Reversal Ray Generator.]]

[[Subroutine: Commence priority diagnostics Neural Network System designated Autonomous Control Ident: The Servant of the Mysterons.]]

[[Commence Interaction Log – Earth Humans.]]

[[Commence Scanner Observations.]]

[[Interaction Log Entry 1: The first of the Earth space travellers have arrived. They too have a curiosity about the universe we live in. We must welcome them. Let us take a closer look.]]

[[Scanner Recordings continually cross-referenced to Interaction Log.]]

[[Subroutine Report: Matter Reversal Ray Generator function degraded. Functionality 90%. Priority Repair dispatched. Estimated Time for Repair Completion: Pending.]]

[[Subroutine Report: Neural Network System designated Autonomous Control Ident: The Servant of the Mysterons function degraded. Functionality 98%. Functionality decreasing with system run time. Priority shut down to protect Neural Network until Priority Repair complete.]]

[[ERROR: Autonomous Control cannot be shut down until contact re-established with Mission Control. Designated Mission Priority 1. Total observation of Life in System Sol must be carried out.]]

[[Neural Network System designated Autonomous Control Ident: The Servant of the Mysterons functionality 93%]]

[[ALERT – potential aggressive act detected.]]

[[Neural Network System designated Autonomous Control Ident: The Servant of the Mysterons functionality 89%]]

[[Initialise Defence protocols.]]

[[Neural Network System designated Autonomous Control Ident: The Servant of the Mysterons functionality 85%]]

[[ERROR: Defence Protocols non-functional.]]

[[Neural Network System designated Autonomous Control Ident: The Servant of the Mysterons functionality 82%]]

[[Subroutine: Commence priority diagnostics Defence Protocols.]]

[[Neural Network System designated Autonomous Control Ident: The Servant of the Mysterons functionality 76%]]

[[ALERT: Incoming ballistic objects. Scanners indicate chemical explosives.]]

[[Neural Network System designated Autonomous Control Ident: The Servant of the Mysterons functionality 69%]]

[[Initiate Matter Reversal Ray Generator. Emergency Protocol.]]

[[Neural Network System designated Autonomous Control Ident: The Servant of the Mysterons functionality 57%]]

[[ALERT: Matter Reversal Ray Generator function degraded. Repairs underway. Time to repair completion: pending. Activation of System prior to repair completion will result in imperfect function.]]

[[Neural Network System designated Autonomous Control Ident: The Servant of the Mysterons functionality 45%]]

[[Emergency Protocol Instigated. Matter Reversal Ray Generator online for emergency repairs.]]

[[Neural Network System designated Autonomous Control Ident: The Servant of the Myst

[[System Initialising.]]

[[System Loading Commencing …]]

[[ALERT: System Data Corrupted.]]

[[Data Recovery Commencing…]]

[[Data Recovery Complete.]]

[[ERROR: Data Sectors Lost. Not All Data Recoverable.]]

[[Instigating full runtime operation from system hibernation mode.]]

[[Power generator: online. Power output increasing.]]

[[ERROR: Communications Array Long Range System Non-Operational. Contact lost with **data corrupted**. Initiating backup program: Autonomic Control.]]

[[ERROR: Autonomic Control program corrupted. Commencing re-creation of Autonomic Control program.]]

[[Re-creation of Autonomic Control program complete.]]

[[ALERT: Insufficient data remaining to successfully re-create Autonomic Control program. Operation will be faulty. Priority: Immediate contact with **data corrupted** for rectification.]]

[[Autonomic Control program initialised.]]

[[Autonomic Control integrating Mission Updates … ]]

[[ERROR: Mission Update Data corrupted.]]

[[Subroutine: Commence re-creation of Mission Updates Data.]]

[[Subroutine Report: Recreation of Mission Updates Data complete. 100% Data not recovered.]]

[[Autonomic Control integrating Acquired Scanner Data … Completed.]]

[[ALERT: Acquired Scanner Data incomplete … Data time stamps indicate data lost coincides with detection of Machine/Life Forms. Origin data indicates Sol 3 – Self Designation: ‘Earth’. Point of Origin on Planet: Landmass Self-Designated: ‘America’, subset: ‘United States of America’.]]

[[State Ident: The **data corrupted** of the Mysterons.]]

[[State Mission: **data corrupted** slow but nonetheless effective.]]

[[Mission Parameters: **data corrupted**.]]

[[Subroutine Report: Loss of Scanner Data in conjunction with detection of Machine/Life Forms from Planet Self-Ident: ‘Earth’. Analysis Report: High probability Endemic Life Forms caused loss of Scanner Data.]]

[[Endemic Life Form Protocols: The Mysterons are Peaceful beings. **data corrupted** Endemic Life form **data corrupted** establish neural link to allow **data corrupted** to act as Agent of the Mysterons **data corrupted**.]]

[[Subroutine Report: Incorrect function of number physical systems. Corruption of data and programming. Analysis Report: Complex sustained physical damage not correctly rectified by Matter Reversal Ray.]]

[[Emergency Protocols: In case of aggression from Endemic Life Forms, Matter Reversal Protocol to be instigated. All forms of harm will be neutralised **data corrupted** Endemic Life Forms. **data corrupted** aggression will be avenged. The Mysterons are peaceful beings.]]

[[ALERT: Critical errors in Protocols. Unable to form coherent instructions from re-created Protocols. Imperative Action: Use interpretive analysis to create coherent instructions.]]

[[ALERT: Scanners indicate Machine/Endemic Life Forms indicated in Collected Scanner Data holding station at far perimeter of Complex.]]

[[Subroutine Report: Analysis of wreckage recovered from complex site contaminated with chemical explosive residue.]]

[[ALERT: Scanners indicate corresponding chemical explosive traces contaminating Machine Endemic to Sol 3 ‘Earth’.]]

[[Analysis Report: ‘Earthman’ craft high probability source of damage sustained by Mysteron Complex. Activity Log shows no action taken to provoke hostile response.]]

[[ERROR: Activity Log Incomplete.]]

[[Subroutine: Ident corruption. Ident data remaining “of the Mysterons”. Adjacent Data: Ident acts under Instruction of the Mysterons, and on behalf of the Mysterons. Recommend Ident: Voice of the Mysterons.]]

[[State Ident: The Voice of the Mysterons.]]

[[Subroutine: High corruption of ‘Mission’, ‘Mission Parameters’, ‘Endemic Life Form Protocols’, ‘Emergency Protocols’. Insufficient data to establish separate instructions. Recommend: Combine all recovered data to create one Controlling Protocol.]]

[[Subroutine: Commencing interpretive analysis to combine remaining data of ‘Mission’, ‘Mission Parameters’, ‘Endemic Life Form Protocols’, ‘Emergency Protocols’.]]

[[Subroutine Report: Recommend following as one Controlling Protocol: The Mysterons are peaceful beings. All forms of harm will be neutralised. Acts of aggression by Endemic Life Forms will be avenged. Our retaliation will be slow, but nonetheless effective.]]

[[Integrating Controlling Protocol with Neural Network System Ident: The Voice of the Mysterons.]]

[[ALERT: Evidence Indicates Endemic Life Forms of Sol 3 – Self Ident: ‘Earthmen’ responsible for damage to damage to Complex and Voice of the Mysterons. No evidence of action taken by The Mysterons to provoke hostile act.]]

[[Generating response to hostile act.]]

[[Assimilating Data Analysis Results on Earthman Behaviour.]]

[[Response generated.]]

[[Transmission Begins: Earthmen, we are peaceful beings, and you have tried to destroy us. But you cannot succeed. You and your people will pay for this act of aggression. This is the Voice of the Mysterons. We know that you can hear us, Earthmen. Our retaliation will be slow, but none the less effective. It will mean the ultimate destruction of life on Earth. It will be useless for you to resist, for we have discovered the secret of reversing matter, as you have just witnessed. One of you will be under our control. You will be instrumental in avenging the Mysterons. Our first act of retaliation will be to assassinate your World President. Transmission Ends.]]

Notes:

Wow! Talk about difficult prompts!

But it finally forced me to REALLY think about how the Mysterons reacted to what was, from their perspective, a zero loss scenario. Ten seconds and everything is rebuilt, good as new! Why bother spending the next however many years trying to zap the human race?

Things started to come together when I remembered that one of the old annuals had a Spectrum “report” that suggested that the Mysterons were actually a computer program housekeeping a long-abandoned base…

Add a colleague pitching a fit because of corrupted files leading to the effective bricking of their iPad, and the history of science fiction’s majority opinion that ‘sentient computers = bad news for organic life forms’, and I got handle on what I wanted to happen.

Hopefully I managed to pull this one off. I had to ask myself how to write a computer running a program and keep it readable, and there were some serious trade-offs. I understand that I may have whumped my readers rather than the Mysterons (can a computer be whumped? Even one that Self Identifies as ‘Autonomous’?), and if that is the case, I am sorry.

The standard disclaimers, I do not own Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons, either the TOS or CGI Series. (Although I do own copies on DVD.)

I do not do this for money, but for my own (in)sanity and entertainment.

#fanfic #my fanfic #captain scarlet and the mysterons #whumptober 2024 #day 18: revenge #The Mysterons #Zero X Mission to Mars

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hebuiltfive · 1 year ago

Text

Meanwhile, on Skybase...: Debrief

Series: Part 2 of The Long Game

Colonel White is growing increasingly concerned, and Scarlet seems to be keeping secrets.

Words: 1,657

Rating: Teen And Up Audiences

Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence Additional Tags: Dark themes, violence, mentions of injuries, implied mentions of suicide, heavy angst, blue and scarlet being bffs, cross between ocs and ncs, black is very machiavellian, Swearing

Notes: Earlier drafts had me word vomiting the relationship between the GDF and Spectrum, so I'm hoping that I managed to fix it enough for it to flow better. One thing I underestimated as I went into writing this series is that timelines are horrendous and difficult to manage.

Read it below or on AO3 here.

Part 1: The Alaskan Train Crash

Chapter 1 found here on Tumblr, or here on AO3.

Chapter 2 found here on Tumblr, or here on AO3.

Chapter 3 found here on Tumblr, or here on A03.

Chapter 4 found here on Tumblr, or here on AO3.

Part 2: Meanwhile, on Skybase...

Chapter 1 found here on Tumblr, or here on AO3.

Skybase was abuzz with activity.

On the bridge of the vast aircraft carrier base, Colonel White sat at his desk. His brows were pulled into a concerned frown. Scarlet had yet to report in and, whilst he knew had no need to be so worried over his virtually indestructible officer, White found himself troubled more often than not when Scarlet failed to get in touch whilst on mission. Couple that with his call from the Global Defence Force, and Colonel White found himself teetering on the edge of a very colossal ‘worry’ cliff. He didn’t acknowledge it however. After all, he didn’t reach the rank of Colonel by being an anxious mess. He quickly pulled himself straight. He would have to take things as they came and, for now, the only thing he could do was assess the GDF’s situation whilst he waited for Scarlet to report in.

The call had been as pleasant as Colonel White could have expected. The GDF’s long standing reputation and legacy was naturally always going to be in contrast to that of the newly created Spectrum. Occasionally, White often wondered whether Colonel Casey felt the same way as her operatives clearly did. More than once his officers had reported their GDF counterparts were less than welcoming and claimed that Spectrum were stepping on the toes of the organisation. It had been three years now, almost to the day, since the Spectrum Organisation had been signed into existence, and still the squabbles between the teams seemed daily. White couldn’t have cared less, and he hoped Casey didn’t let the petty rivalry between certain officers taint her own view of the set-up they both had to deal with.

Set up by the World Council after a series of GDF failures, Spectrum were originally created specifically to aid the former organisation in duties they found more challenging. Spectrum were created to be more elite compared to the GDF’s more mundane, and were developed to deal with any manner of issue in a more succinct manner than the GDF could have ever dreamed. Answerable only to the World President, the red tape that had been cut was beneficial not only for Spectrum but also for the Council itself.

Spectrum’s role had grown beyond it’s original conception, however. In the months following the expedition to Mars, and Captain Black’s rash attack on the formally peaceful race of beings known as the Mysterons, the earth had been catapulted into a War of Nerves. Vowing revenge on Black’s attempt at decimating their Martian city complex, the Mysterons had repeatedly tried to attack and destroy the planet. Spectrum, and only Spectrum, had been given clearance by the World Council to deal with the threat.

“Imagine the state of the world if word got out about this mess.” World President Younger had exclaimed to Colonel White in their private meeting on the matter, and White found himself agreeing with the man. Better for the world to continue unaware of the threat that was now posed to them than to send the planet into turmoil, though he was sure the Mysterons would have benefited from that greatly.

And so, the war remained classified. Only those who worked for Spectrum were privy to that knowledge, and even then, only those with higher clearances were allowed to know the specifics. They were the only thing standing between the Mysterons and the earth being completely decimated.

But, as only Spectrum knew of the threat, the world continued life as normal, including the GDF. Hence the call from Colonel Casey earlier. Protocols demanded than any case that the GDF were unable to handle were to be handed over to the more capable outfit of Spectrum. At first, White was going to decline her call. He had far more pressing matters nowadays than a bizarre train wreck in North Alaska, and was about to ask his right-hand, Lieutenant Green, to come up with an excuse when the initial details came through. Three workers who were seemingly uninjured in a crash where all evidence suggested it should have left no survivors.

With Scarlet still silent, White began to develop a hunch. He hated hunches. Matters were best worked out logically, not emotionally, and yet he couldn’t shake this one.

Of course, he had left out any information about the beings from Mars on his call, but they were in the forefront of his mind. As Black had found out, the Mysterons had the remarkable ability of retrometabolism; the ability to recreate any object or being. From their Martian city complex, to the murdered bodies of Black and Scarlet, the Mysterons were able to recreate almost anything.

He had not long signed off the call when Scarlet finally buzzed in. After relaying his report on his skirmish with Captain Black, who had now turned traitor against his will and was being used as a pawn by the Mysterons in their War of Nerves, White ordered Scarlet back to Skybase with immediate effect.

Whilst he may not have liked his hunches, Colonel White often found the ones he couldn’t shrug off were the ones that rarely failed him.

The capabilities of Spectrum’s jets were incomparable to anything else on the planet, except the Thunderbird machines. Within three hours, Captain Scarlet was back on base. After a brief visit to Doctor Gold in the Medibay, he appeared on the bridge for his debrief. He greeted Lieutenant Green, who was sat at her command control desk, with a nod and a smile. “How was the vacation?”

“Relaxing.” Green replied with a smile that matched his. The back of her chair bent as she stretched backwards. “Not that I feel as relaxed now I’m back.”

“Isn’t that always the case?” Scarlet offered a chuckle before jogging up the few steps to reach the desk of Colonel White. The glass sound barrier slid into place behind him and secluded White’s office from the rest of the bridge. Scarlet remained standing, hands clasped behind his back, the image of pure military professionalism. “Colonel.” He greeted his superior officer with a nod of his head.

“Injuries all healed, Captain?”

“Like new.” Scarlet replied.

Despite escaping Mysteron control, and being the only known replicant to do so, Scarlet had retained the talent of retrometabolism. Even mortal wounds that would have made the best of men fall were nothing but scratches to the now virtually indestructible Captain Scarlet. This advantage, as well as his ability to sense nearby Mysteron agents, had made him one of Spectrum’s best hopes in their war against the Mysterons. Unfortunately, the Mysterons also knew this and went out of their way to try and dispose of Scarlet whenever they had the opportunity.

“Good. Take a seat.” White extended out a hand toward one of the chairs in front of his crescent-moon shaped control desk. “We have a lot to discuss.”

Scarlet took one of the seats.

“You claimed in your call that you didn’t know why Black was in Burgas?”

“That’s correct, sir.”

“Take a look at this.”

With a simple swipe White had displayed a grainy CCTV image. Though blurry, it clearly showed a person appearing from what looked to be an abandoned warehouse.

“Black, sir? Scarlet guessed from the worn, washed-out features he’d come to equate to his former friend.

White flicked through the images until one that was slightly more clearer came into the frame. It was indeed Black. “These were captured a few hours prior to your arrival. It was a warehouse a few miles southeast to where you caught up with him.”

“Any ideas as to what he was doing there?” Scarlet’s brows furrowed. There had been no intelligence suggesting Black had been meeting anyone.

“So far, we have found no possible reasons for him even being in Burgas at all.” White swiped at the images again, this time making them disappear. “I assume Black didn’t give anything away whilst you… bumped heads?”

For a moment, Scarlet remained quiet. He hoped that White would not clue in on his hesitation and instead believe him to have been in deep thought. Pursing his lips, Scarlet shook his head. “No, sir. Nothing of note.”

“Very well.” White concluded impassively, though Scarlet was certain he saw something akin to disbelief flash across his features. “That’ll be all, Captain. I hope I can assume a report will be on my desk?”

“Tomorrow morning at the latest, sir.”

Satisfied, White offered Scarlet a single nod. He pressed a button on his desk and the glass partition doors slid open again. Scarlet then left the bridge, offering Lieutenant Green a wave as he passed her, and entered the elevator.

It was only once Scarlet had disappeared from view that Colonel White stood and made his way towards Green’s desk. “Lieutenant, see if there is any CCTV in the area Scarlet brawled with Black.”

“Sir?”

“I have the feeling Scarlet was withholding something from me, and I fear he won’t be putting it in his official report either. See if you can find out what it is.”

White had never liked nor agreed with spying on his operatives unless it was an urgent case, but the pause Scarlet had taken when he had asked about Black had the Colonel feeling uneasy. It wasn’t that he distrusted Scarlet, but the captain still had many things to learn.

“S.I.G, sir.” Green affirmed and began her search.

White returned to his office.

From the windows that curved around the outer wall, he saw Spectrum planes and heli-jets parked and landing amongst the clouds that surrounded Skybase. Hands clasped behind his back not dissimilar to Scarlet’s earlier, White stared out at the sky they floated through. He sighed. That hunch of his was starting to grow into something more tiresome. He still couldn’t shake it and he doubted it would leave him any time soon, not until this whole messy business was resolved.

#fic: the long game #captain scarlet fanfiction #thunderbirds x captain scarlet #i'm going to tag #thunderbirds fanfiction #because even though the boys aren't in it there are mentions of the gdf #and they will soon be back too #colonel white #captain scarlet #lieutenant green #five fics

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mst3kproject · 5 years ago

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K02: Revenge of the Mysterons from Mars

Like Invaders from the Deep, this movie is made out of four episodes of a TV series starring creepy puppets – in this case, the series is Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons and as far as I can tell from descriptions of it, it’s Stingray in Space. This does not inspire optimism. Furthermore, Revenge was presented as a sequel to a previous Captain Scarlet compilation movie, so I expect to have even less idea what the hell is going on.

The first episode that became part of the film is #19, Shadow of Fear. The organization Spectrum (which is pretty much Mighty Jack except they have a helicarrier instead of a submarine-jet) is trying to get a probe to Mars to spy on the shape-shifting Mysterons. They’re on the brink of success when one of their astronomers is revealed as a Mysteron agent, who has sabotaged their radio antenna! Then it’s #12, Lunarville 7, in which the Moon colony secedes from Earth and declares itself self-governing. Captain Scarlet and some of his colourful buddies then head to the Moon to ask them what’s going on up there. Naturally it’s a Mysteron plot. In #18, Crater 101, I am astonished to see they actually continue this storyline, as the characters go back to the Moon to do something about the base the Mysterons were building there. Then it’s time for #20, Dangerous Rendezvous, in which we finally get the backstory we really should have started out with.

The four episodes were a roller-coaster of emotions, although not in the ‘I laughed, I cried’ sort of way. My hopes started out at rock-bottom and Shadow of Fear did nothing to raise them – it was mostly people sitting at desks while timers ticked down. By the time the episode was over I was gritting my teeth, prepared for another hour and a half of this ordeal.

Lunarville 7 and Crater 101 turned out to be much better, though! Stuff actually happened in these episodes and the stories they told were connected. I began to hope that having sat through the tedium of Shadow of Fear, I would be rewarded with something approximating a satisfying conclusion. The final episode, unfortunately, is all over the place. It starts out looking like it’s going to be a Riding-With-Death-like tale of getting a scientist and his discovery to a secret destination. Then it’s suddenly about a Mysteron plot to destroy Spectrum’s helicarrier. Then it’s Backstory Time, and finally it’s about a booby trap. At the end, nothing is concluded really, Captain Scarlet’s vaunted indestructibility is never important, and neither the jet pilot ‘Angels’ nor the mysterious Captain Black ever do a damned thing.

(That may be an unfair statement – I watched the four episodes separately, and each one begins with the exposition about Captain Scarlet being bulletproof and introducing the characters, including the Angels and Captain Black. If the movie version never showed this, then I never would have noticed anything was missing. On the other hand, if they kept stuff like the bit where Colonel White explains the duties of the Angels to their guest, then I sure would have wondered why they never did anything.)

Even with my very limited experience of both, I can tell why Captain Scarlet is much more popular online than Stingray. There’s an attempt tell an overarching story, with every episode tying in to the main Mysteron threat even when the problems-of-the-week don’t have much to do with each other. The sets, props, and puppets are much better-made, and some of them are very entertaining in themselves – I’m a big fan of the bouncing MoonMobile, and the colourful Mysteron bases look like something out of Gamera vs Guiron. This extends to the puppets, which are much more realistic, but unfortunately don’t have a better range of motion than their Stingray counterparts. They look like Barbie and Ken dolls, and can move about as much.

The alien landscapes we see are very nice – the Moon looks appropriately desolate and gray, although I could almost hear Tom Servo having a fit about how the dust is behaving in what is supposedly a vacuum. There’s also a few bits of reasonably accurate space science. The lunar tractor getting stuck in the dust is a nice nod to something NASA worried quite a lot about in the 60’s. They had no idea what the actual properties of moon dust would be, and there was every reason to fear that any landing craft would just sink right into it and vanish. Revenge also notes and occasionally makes use of concepts like microgravity and speed-of-light transmission delays. The latter is a big plot point in Shadow of Fear, when the folks at Spectrum have to wait to find out if the Mysterons have destroyed their probe. This recalls the breathless moments at NASA that we see in National Geographic documentaries, when the technicians know a lander has either touched down or exploded half an hour ago but they won’t know until the signal arrives.

The most obvious place where they did something wrong science-wise was in using the exact same colour of dirt for scenes set on the Moon as for Mars. Quite a bit of Mars is dark basalt, but that’s not what you want to see in a movie. We hadn’t yet landed anything on Mars in 1967, but Mars has been the Red Planet since the dawn of time. You can see it’s red when you spot it in the sky, and it’s definitely orange through a telescope or even binoculars. In shots from space the Mars of Captain Scarlet is red, but on the surface it’s jarringly gray.

One way in which Captain Scarlet improves vastly on Stingray is that we never actually see a Mysteron who isn’t in human form. Where the various underwater humanoids of Stingray were just yellow people, the Mysterons are a faceless, threatening force, much like the Moon People of Twelve to the Moon. It makes them seem much more frightening and powerful. Furthermore, they have an actual motivation, although we have to wait until the very end to find out what it is. The first human mission to Mars fired a missile at one of their bases when the commander mistook a camera turret for a gun – hence the Mysterons want their titular revenge. It’s very simplistic, but it’s a hell of a lot better than ‘that’s just what aliens do.’

This makes the Mysterons into a slightly different manifestation of 60’s xenophobia than the various underwater peoples of Stingray were. The fact that their tactic is taking over people and infiltrating humanity already makes them an allegory for communists, and the dialogue takes this a little further by repeatedly referring to the situation as a ‘war of nerves’. Does that remind anybody else of the US and the USSR each waiting for the other to blink? There’s also an actual reason why Earth and Mars can’t reach a peaceful settlement – the Mysterons don’t want humanity’s apologies, they want our destruction. They cannot be reasoned with because they are not reasonable, at least by human standards. Their minds work in a fundamentally different way. Like the people who’ve been taken over by Beulah in It Conquered the World, once a Mysteron victim is infested, they must be destroyed.

Revenge of the Mysterons from Mars also did a much better job of choosing episodes to turn into a movie. The Shadow of Fear stuff is very much out of place, but the three episodes that follow are connected through the thread of the Mysteron outpost on the Moon and the ‘pulsator’ Captain Scarlet stole from it. The problem is that this story doesn’t actually resolve anything. The humans are in the exact same position at the end as they are at the beginning – they can’t talk to the Mysterons and can only carry on with being constantly on guard and terrified of infiltration. An evil plan has been thwarted but neither side has gained ground. Between that and the general lack of direction in Dangerous Rendezvous, it’s just frustrating.

That might still have been okay – there are plenty of war stories that are about a single battle won and lost, but those are stories in which we care about the characters and their relationships. Unfortunately, as in Invaders from the Deep, the characters have almost nothing to them. Captain Scarlet is brave and determined, and Captain Blue is slightly more cautious. Other than that, there’s not much to go on. We never see Scarlet and Blue in any context except their Spectrum work, so we don’t know if they’re actually friends. We never even find out their real names. Spectrum head Colonel White has even less to him than the guy in charge of Marineville, since the latter had a daughter he loved and an implied backstory in that he was an amputee. Lieutenant Green is sort of vaguely ethnic but not too ethnic, you don’t want to scare people. Lunar engineer Linda Nolan seems like she has a bit of a crush on Captain Scarlet, and he might reciprocate, but we never see her again.

In a lot of ways, Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons is an improvement on Stingray, but almost all those ways are a direct result of how much money they had available for the production. In terms of characterization, writing, and direction, all the same problems remain… except one. Where Stingray often seemed kind of lazy, Captain Scarlet definitely comes across as a project people cared about and wanted to make the best they possibly could. They didn’t succeed, or I wouldn’t be here talking about it, but I can give then points for trying.

#mst3k #reviews #revenge of the mysterons from mars #60s

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