The level of thought needed to make UFO2 a reality (?)...

Hi All,

Pam, this email is not directed at you specifically. I'm trying to
make a point. Because we don't have the sheer numbers of people who
lived and breathed Star Trek before the first movie, we must go
beyond a "UFO LIVES" bumpersticker mentality. Scripts for a single
show are marvelous. But we must also think in broader terms. Where
will UFO2 go? Think that you are at the healm of the show, because
your single script must be put in context.

A way to get deeper into the thoughts and motivations of Shado types
is to pretend in your mind that you are in Shado as you go about your
daily business. This can be fun, and you will gain valuable insights
that can find their way into your script work.

Everyone could start stringing their Shado fantasies together, not in
1980, but say 2015. What would you do if you were a character
interacting with those around you, and what kinds of things would be
happening? Speculate on the past, what happens next, and what does it
all mean?

That kind of collective energy could produce some fun exchanges on
the list, and maybe provide a real direction for UFO2.

Writers get their inspiration from every bit of life experience, and
bit of information that comes their way. The creators of Dark Skies
were very keen on the North American radio show at coasttocoastam.com.

They had the shows former host play a Majestic 12 character in a
small role. Some of you may find this a fun sight to check out,
especially if you have Windows Media Player or Real Audio. The show
presents interviews in a non-judgemental fashion, and then allows
listeners to call in or email questions. Recent shows are available
to listen to when you are.

For now, if we want UFO2, we have to dream it up ourselves, every one
of us.

Stephen

Hi all and especially Stephen:

I think I can certainly agree with you on your very timely comments just
posted. UFO2 does need to think beyond a new 2-hr pilot to re-introduce the
show, its concept, premise, characters, mission, et al. 2015 might be
putting a bit out of reach,but I can certainly see the story being brought
up to date either present day 2000-2001-2002. Close enough for some of the
original actors/actresses to make cameos or starring appearances, and far
enough away that we've got some breathing room from today's immediate
political situations.

"Speculate on the past, what happens next, and what does it all mean?
.......For now, if we want UFO2, we have to dream it up ourselves, every one
of us."

Guess we'll have to get busy, huh?

Pam

"Stephen Greaney" <[hidden email]> wrote:-
> Everyone could start stringing their Shado fantasies together, not in
> 1980, but say 2015. ...

By that time everybody will be 35 years older and in thir 60's or older (or 20
years older, if UFO2 is set around 2000, as "Pam McCaughey" <[hidden email]>
suggested), and some will likely have retired, or have died from natural
causes as the years passed. A new set of young action characters would have to
be agreed on, like it is with Captain Picard era Star Trek compared with
Captain Kirk era Star Trek (unless SHADO found from the aliens how to stop
their 1980's members from aging). Points to agree on will likely be:-

0) Earth and Moon only? Or can Man routinely reach Mars etc?

1) Has SHADO found from captured UFO's, or from captured or defecting aliens,
how to fly FTL (= faster than light)? If so, which of these?:-
a) Man can make FTL spaceships completely.
b) Man can only build an FTL spaceship around a captured alien UFO drive
block.
c) Man's only FTL spaceships are captured working UFO's.
d) Human liquid-breathing spacesuits? (I found a UFO fan fiction story
where SHADO has a new sort of Interceptors which have so much acceleration
that their pilots had liquid-breathing flight suits.)

2) How far do we go in letting SHADO have energy weapons? Ray-guns under
various names have appeared in space stories from the beginning, as
automatically as mice in a corn warehouse, but Gerry Anderson kept them right
out, except for alien ship-mounted beam weapons; his alien rifles fired
bullets. (Despite that, UFO stories in the Countdown and TV Action comics show
and describe alien rifles as rayguns.) If you want opinions on likeliness of
real rayguns, ask on the newsgroup guns.rec .

3) Other sorts of alien? E.g. Greys? (Please don't get too fantastic or silly.)

4) Is SHADO still secret? It is said: "Every pitcher goes to the well once too
often."; passage of 35 years will have multiplied the chances for knowledge or
clues that SHADO exists to leak out. Every times Sky 1/2/etc fies over land or
much-used inshore sea, hundreds of people would likely see it, and some would
photograph it. Each time Mobiles are in action, a stray local human may be
hidden in undergrowth and sees and films it and there is say a 5% chance that
he is not detected (unless SHADO has an "automatic camera detector" like in
Thunderbirds). OK, SHADO would have infrared heat detectors to detect hidden
people (human or alien) - and while SHADO are rat-hunting after some hidden
birdwatcher or courting couple or poacher or anti-poacher guard, or shooing
away some bunch of local P.C.Plods who came to find out what was happening, or
finding that the heat signature was a large deer or a bear, the aliens do what
they came for and get away. Better perhaps to go after the aliens first and
hope that the spectators will still be there afterwards for SHADO to catch
them. Plus those two enemies of secrecy: tongues loosened by drink, and a
participant who starts not liking what's going on and turns public evidence.
As I wrote in my text story http://www.buckrogers.demon.co.uk/ufo/end.txt and
..../end2.txt, "with the landing deleted the returnees MIGHT be persuaded that
the rest of their voyage was a hallucination; but how on earth to round up and
truth drug interrogate and amnesia-drug half of north Strathclyde!?".
(Strathclyde is part of Scotland.)

5) Some sort of occasional or routine message-passing contact with the aliens,
or with some aliens?

6) Humans in league with aliens? (The humans may be ordinary bad characters,
or astronomers wanting use of FTL craft to go look at things, or whatever.)

> Writers get their inspiration from every bit of life experience, and
> bit of information that comes their way. The creators of Dark Skies
> were very keen on the North American radio show at coasttocoastam.com.
> They had the show's former host play a Majestic 12 character in a
> small role.

Does that point to an email group / etc that habdles the Dark Skies scenario,
like we handle UFO?