Conflict

Mary Veres' recent email regarding 'How did Henderson
become the bad guy?' is right on the money. To me,
this is the biggest mystery of 'UFO' - what caused the
friction between Straker & Henderson?

We know from 'Confetti Check A-OK' that Henderson
wanted Straker to run SHADO because he was still
recovering from the injuries he sustained in
'Identified'. But in 'Conflict', and all the
subsequent episodes featuring Henderson, there is this
friction between him and Straker which has never been
explained. I personally don't have a clue, I wouldn't
even like to hazard a guess because I feel if I was to
do so it would just come out contrived-sounding, I
really can't offer a rational explanation. We don't
get any clues from the 'UFO' novel either.

Do we know if Ed bishop or Gerry Anderson have ever
commented on this query? Is this the sort of thing
that they might have been asked at aconvention
perhaps? I'm intrigued to find out & I'd be interested
in knowing if any other fans have any theories on this
subject.

Neil

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> Mary Veres' recent email regarding 'How did Henderson become the
> bad guy?' is right on the money. To me, this is the biggest
> mystery of 'UFO' - what caused the friction between Straker &
> Henderson?

It's very simple I think - the producers and/or writers decided
that it would create a nice bit of dramatic tension, so they
made them hate each others' guts with no apparent explanation.
It's just another of the many inconsistencies.

Another one: Freeman loathes Dr Jackson in COURT MARTIAL, but
there's no hint of the detestable behaviour that makes Jackson
so unpopular with Freeman in any other episode.

James

Neil May wrote:

> Mary Veres' recent email regarding 'How did Henderson
> become the bad guy?' is right on the money. To me,
> this is the biggest mystery of 'UFO' - what caused the
> friction between Straker & Henderson?

The way I see it, Henderson knew it was best for Ed to head up SHADO,
but ten years have passed now and Ed has been the golden boy of the
intelligence community while Henderson has been reduced to being a
glorified banker ... he's a bitter old man ...

-- Y

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-- Doctor Who
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http://yuchtar.users4.50megs.com/
http://home.earthlink.net/~nunzie945

Conflict has always been one of my favorite episodes. One change I would
have made to the script to make it more accurate is to have the limpets fire
a rocket to put the space junk on a trajectory to reenter the atmosphere and
burn up.

The process of blowing up the space junk actually exacerbates the problem
because you create a high quantity of small debris. A small piece of debris
traveling at 17,000 + mph can do some serious damage.

I'll have more comments on the episode when I have a chance to watch it
later this week.


Ron

--- In SHADO@y..., "Ron DeMedeiros" <rjdshado@a...> wrote:
> Conflict has always been one of my favorite episodes. One change I
would
> have made to the script to make it more accurate is to have the
limpets fire
> a rocket to put the space junk on a trajectory to reenter the
atmosphere and
> burn up.
>
> The process of blowing up the space junk actually exacerbates the
problem
> because you create a high quantity of small debris. A small piece
of debris
> traveling at 17,000 + mph can do some serious damage.
>

Well, if you want be more accurate... the whole concept of the UFO
device hiding behind space trash waiting for the lunar module to
pass by is very unreal. In reality, you would like to pass several
miles away from any known space trash. And in the event you happen
to pass near something, the encounter relative velocity is likely to
be several thousand MPH. In the episode, you get the idea that
things in space are semi-static or move very slowly with respect to
each other. Also, the idea that Straker and Freeman, just by looking
at the poster that had a description of space junk, could determine
the probable space junk behind the incident, is very far fetched
(someone would need to know the exact positions of the junk when the
incident happened, and would probably need to do several
calculations). Also, it would be impossible for Foster to recreate
the previous flight. He could have flown the same exact trajectory,
but all of earth's artificial satellites would had been in different
positions.

This also reminds me about something very implausible in Computer
Affair. The probability of two objects, with huge relative
velocities, each one with a size smaller than a truck, colliding in
the vastness of space would be infinitesimal (even if you tried to
smash them on purpose). But this is for another episode...

David Levine

This was exactly the point I brought up last time we discussed Conflict.
The chances of hitting any single object of any size is small but the
chance of impact when there is a wide spray of buckshot coming at you is
greatly increased. The effect of getting hit is devastating when the
object is anywhere above about 1 gram so you're far better off just leaving
junk alone rather than blowing it to bits. The odds for survival greatly
favor a miss of a big object rather than an impact with one of many tiny
bits since even a collision with a tiny fragment makes you just as dead.
Re-entering junk whole is by far the best solution, but then examinations
and good reporting of things like space junk had never really been
distributed to the public when UFO aired so I don't really blame them.

Hindsight being what it is, I think UFO missed an opportunity to inform
people far more accurately as to the realities of the problem of space
junk, and they could have done it without disrupting the script or the
story much at all. Sci-Fi is always best when served with a healthy side
order of solid science. They could have even gotten away with blowing
things to bits (so important for adding action and thrill) as they showed
the re-entry of the junk. It was good that they brought up the subject of
space junk but bad in the fact that they helped to propagate the myth of
blowing up space junk which has stayed with the general public even to
today.

Shawn "GOT*SKY?" Kelly
www.sdaa.org


Date: Tue, 8 Oct 2002 19:02:35 -0700
From: "Ron DeMedeiros" <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: Conflict

Conflict has always been one of my favorite episodes. One change I would
have made to the script to make it more accurate is to have the limpets
fire
a rocket to put the space junk on a trajectory to reenter the atmosphere
and
burn up.

The process of blowing up the space junk actually exacerbates the problem
because you create a high quantity of small debris. A small piece of debris
traveling at 17,000 + mph can do some serious damage.

I'll have more comments on the episode when I have a chance to watch it
later this week.

Ron

Hi all,

I've seen some good comments for our CONFLICT episode discussions
this past week. We've still got another week to discuss this
episode, so you've still got time to comment on this episode if you
haven't already!

Marc

> Hi all,

Hi Marc,

> I've seen some good comments for our CONFLICT episode discussions
> this past week. We've still got another week to discuss this
> episode, so you've still got time to comment on this episode if you
> haven't already!

Someone mentioned the matter of when the enmity between
Henderson and Straker set in. I think it goes back to when
SHADO was set up and Straker was offered the job of heading it.
Henderson says

"You could always refuse"

Straker didn't, and Henderson never forgave him for it.

D.

One thing I noticed about this episode is the different styles of the
episode title appearing. This episode uses a really cheesy zooming word that
none of the other episodes seem to.

Oh, and UK viewers note that Clockwork Orange shown on Channel 4 yesterday
featured Adrianne Corri who was also in the episode 'The Square Triangle'.

Grant.


-----Original Message-----
From: [hidden email]
[mailto:[hidden email]]
Sent: 13 October 2002 10:00
To: [hidden email]
Subject: Re: [SHADO] CONFLICT


> Hi all,

Hi Marc,

> I've seen some good comments for our CONFLICT episode discussions
> this past week. We've still got another week to discuss this
> episode, so you've still got time to comment on this episode if you
> haven't already!

Someone mentioned the matter of when the enmity between
Henderson and Straker set in. I think it goes back to when
SHADO was set up and Straker was offered the job of heading it.
Henderson says

"You could always refuse"

Straker didn't, and Henderson never forgave him for it.

D.





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