Thunderbirds :: no sport diving :-( ?

A day or two ago I saw the Thuderbirds episode "Terror in New York". In it,
two nosy TV reporters get trapped underground on Manhattan Island in New York
in a building collapse which filled with water before International Rescue
could get there. Thus, someone had to let some underwater breathing sets down
to them --- and they had to fetch it from a Navy Yard, although the sets were
ordinary open-circuit scuba and not some fancy frogman's rebreather. Surely in
New York there would be hundreds of underwater breathing sets at dive shops
and private owners etc very near around, much nearer and quicker than having
to go to a navy base and arrange matters with naval officialdom to borrow the
sets? It seems that when the Thunderbirds events happen, there will be no
sport scuba diving, at least not in the New York area of the USA. Likely in
that time-line, either sport scuba diving never started, or it had long ago
been stopped by law and use and possession of scuba gear restricted to work
and the armed forces. International Rescue men scuba dive sometimes, but
likely they would have a general "ship's diver" type of permit to use scuba
gear. That wouldn't be any use for me :-( - I like sport scuba diving.

Yeah, and if they could get Scuba gear to them, they could get an airline
too!
Grant.
Hang on, this is UFO not Thunderbirds.

-----Original Message-----
From: Anthony Appleyard [mailto:[hidden email]]
Sent: 23 November 2000 09:10
To: [hidden email]
Subject: [SHADO] Thunderbirds :: no sport diving :-( ?


A day or two ago I saw the Thuderbirds episode "Terror in New York". In it,
two nosy TV reporters get trapped underground on Manhattan Island in New
York
in a building collapse which filled with water before International Rescue
could get there. Thus, someone had to let some underwater breathing sets
down
to them --- and they had to fetch it from a Navy Yard, although the sets
were
ordinary open-circuit scuba and not some fancy frogman's rebreather. Surely
in
New York there would be hundreds of underwater breathing sets at dive shops
and private owners etc very near around, much nearer and quicker than having

to go to a navy base and arrange matters with naval officialdom to borrow
the
sets? It seems that when the Thunderbirds events happen, there will be no
sport scuba diving, at least not in the New York area of the USA. Likely in
that time-line, either sport scuba diving never started, or it had long ago
been stopped by law and use and possession of scuba gear restricted to work
and the armed forces. International Rescue men scuba dive sometimes, but
likely they would have a general "ship's diver" type of permit to use scuba

gear. That wouldn't be any use for me :-( - I like sport scuba diving.





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[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

"Anthony Appleyard" wrote:

> sets? It seems that when the Thunderbirds events happen, there will be no
> sport scuba diving, at least not in the New York area of the USA. Likely in
> that time-line, either sport scuba diving never started, or it had long ago
> been stopped by law and use and possession of scuba gear restricted to work
> and the armed forces. International Rescue men scuba dive sometimes, but
> likely they would have a general "ship's diver" type of permit to use scuba
> gear. That wouldn't be any use for me :-( - I like sport scuba diving.

Anthony,

Firstly, I think you are reading _far_ too much into the plot
of this episode, much as (I must say) people often do with
UFO (I'm on topic :/ ) .. I'm sure the notion of a ban on
recreational scuba-diving never crossed the writer's mind.

Secondly, there IS sport scuba-diving in Thunderbirds as shown
by the episode where Tin-Tin takes Jeff Tracy's friend diving
to distract him during the launch of a rescue operation.

Thirdly, I'm out of here before we get our fingers chopped off,
figuratively speaking of course, by Marc ..

Hi all,

[Scuba-snipped]
> > sets? It seems that when the Thunderbirds events happen, there will be
no
> > sport scuba diving, at least not in the New York area of the USA. Likely
in
> > that time-line, either sport scuba diving never started, or it had long
ago
> > been stopped by law and use and possession of scuba gear restricted to
work
> > and the armed forces. International Rescue men scuba dive sometimes, but
> > likely they would have a general "ship's diver" type of permit to use
scuba
This is a really interesting topic for further debate, actually.....
but it poses probably far more questions than it answers,
and maybe goes a little beyond the scope of this group
to discuss.....but it is interesting nonetheless....

The main problem arises in our view of the Anderson universe:
how do we approach it? Completely unified, under one continuity,
or fragmented according to the type of production or series title??
What do I mean by this and why do I ask??

Simple: if you view the puppet productions as standalone, the
continuity and timeline that builds up between them is quite good,
but once you introduce the live action productions into the equation,
the balance tips a little....it's not impossible to make them all fit,
but it does become difficult......I know, I tried many years ago....
so have other fans, with varying amounts of success, by making
certain assumptions and justifications.

And over that, one must make the basic decision of whether to
place Thunderbirds in the 2020s or 2060s, (one episode places
the series squarely in 2026, but *another* episode shows the year
as 2067, and the feature film Thunderbird 6 also places it in 2068....
which fits beautifully with Captain Scarlet's year of 2068). But I
won't bore list members with further expansion on this thread.....

In the main, if one views the puppet series as standalone, then,
yes, recreational sports *are* still popular, (according to publicity
blurbs, Gordon Tracy from TBirds was supposed to have won a
gold medal in swimming in the Olympics [2060? 2064?]).

The problem arises if you place Space: 1999 into the basic
established GA continuity, (which some fans still enjoy doing;
many 1999 hard-liners prefer not to, even ignoring its UFO
origins...). Apart from all the tech problems, (and re-appearance
of the Moon by the time Supermarionation series start), within
the script of the Year 2 episode "Journey To Where", we are told
by Dr. Logan quite clearly that:
"....all competitive sports were abandoned in the year 2026."

Obviously as far as internal 1999 timeline structure is
concerned, that's a perfectly valid statement to make, but for
all-round GA chronologists, it does muddy the waters.... ;-)

So you have the option of:
(a) ignoring his statement, (as you would the 2026 TBirds date);
(b) falsifying his statement (to fit the cause, maybe making it
2086, 2096 2106 or something equally as ridiculous....
anything so long as its beyond the scope of the puppet series)
(c) justifying his statement, (by making it *mean* that *most*
competitive sports were abandoned, (not all)....or that
only those that were perhaps corporate-sponsored
[Olympics?] were still a happening concern)
(d) ejecting 1999 from the continuity all together because it
make things to hard to fit.....

Me, personally, I prefer option (c) because of the challenge,
but there will no doubt be many folks out there, especially
experienced fanfic authors who would be able to find
other lapses of continuity and be able to do a better job
than I of stitching the continuity together to make better
sense of it all, (an admirable attempt was made several
years ago in Century 21 magazine, but it still made the
assumption that Thunderbirds was based in 2026 and
not within the SuperM 2060s...which is contrary to TV21
timelines, and alternate dates offered as canon in the
series itself.....).

My head hurts.....time for someone else to take up this
topic.....

Hope I haven't strayed too far OT....


Kelly

Kelly Patrick Lannan
The Gerry Anderson Memorabilia Site
<[hidden email]>
http://www.users.bigpond.com/BASE_KOALA/GA.Memorabilia/Infornation.html

Anthony Appleyard wrote:-
> It seems that when the Thunderbirds events happen, there will be
> no sport scuba diving, at least not in the New York area of the
> USA ... [because in an episode set in New York, rescuers needing
> underwater breathing apparatus had to hunt round Navy Yards for it,
> as if there were no scuba dive shops anywhere near to get it].

someone answered:-
> ... there IS sport scuba-diving in Thunderbirds as shown
> by the episode where Tin-Tin takes Jeff Tracy's friend diving
> to distract him during the launch of a rescue operation.

International Rescue would have a general diving permit, and thus Tin-
Tin would have access to scuba gear and could physically (even if not
legally) take a civilian for a scuba dive. That does not imply that
the general public would have access to scuba gear, or that a stray
civilian could try to scuba dive with a home-made or industrial
breathing set without being liable for arrest for frogman-type diving
without a permit. This restriction would likeliest have started in
the 1950's or 1960's, say at the time in 1953 when a National
Geograpic Magazine article about Cousteau's work started a massive
wave of public demand for scuba gear. In the real world in USA and
France the diving gear makers responded fast and massively and the
resulting profits swamped any naval-minded control mentality that
might have been trying to restrict it, thank God. But perhaps in some
other time-line things went different, with Cousteau being ruled out
of the debate because he owned the patent for the Aqualung and so had
a financial interest in one side. Other issues might be people
getting scared at the idea of the general public owning high-pressure
gas cylinders.

--- In [hidden email], "Kelly Patrick Lannan" <BASE_KOALA@b...>
wrote:
> The main problem arises in our view of the Anderson universe:
> how do we approach it? Completely unified, under one continuity,
> or fragmented according to the type of production or series title??
> What do I mean by this and why do I ask??

I.e. in Straker's world do Captain Scarlet and the Thunderbirds crews
and Joe 90 etc live also? Would e.g. a UFO / Captain Scarlet
crossover story be valid? Are the Mysterons allies of the UFO-aliens,
or even the same people?
> ... [a statement in SOace:1999] by Dr. Logan quite clearly that:
> "....all competitive sports were abandoned in the year 2026."

Perhaps as fossil fuels and metal ores got scarce during the 21st
century, there was a widesweeping ban on all unnecessary activities
that use up metals or fossil fuel, and that would include most sports.
Plus a big roundup of metal objects in private hands, to recycle
them, and that would include privately owned scuba gear kept for
pleasure diving. Of that, what is in good condition and suitable
would likely go into naval warehouses to be gradually used up as
needed for work.

Okay folks, I take the list out of moderation mode, and what happens?
People start discussing Thunderbirds and scuba gear...

I must remind you that the people who signed onto this mailing list
did so to discuss UFO, not this...

--
Marc Martin, [hidden email]

>International Rescue would have a general diving permit, and thus Tin-
>Tin would have access to scuba gear and could physically (even if not
>legally) take a civilian for a scuba dive. That does not imply that
>the general public would have access to scuba gear, or that a stray
>civilian could try to scuba dive with a home-made or industrial
>breathing set without being liable for arrest for frogman-type diving
>without a permit.

Um, hey guys? As much as I love it... its a PUPPET SHOW.
AT