Thundergeek59

Also me:

And but a gram gives cities torchlight glow, / The self same dose whole cities can raze low.

is a lovely way to describe why the nuclear device in Macy's transporter is so...

Ah, dammit.

Act 2, Scene 1 of The Mysterons later as Scarlet absconds with the President. I want to assure my followers I'm now up to Fawn and Destiny identifying Scarlet's body with a few extra surprises planned. If I don't move on I will spoil them. I must - and will - at least finish The Mysterons first, but so help me some lines for Big Ben Strikes Again and Manhunt are already forming.

Can you imagine Manhunt's opening scene totally twisting the night porter into a learnèd, high-speaking prologue?

Now gather round, tis 'time, and pray you sit,

Next scene of Captain Scarlet hath I writ!

This really has taken on a life of its own and all my free time, and I regret neither. Today, we retell Captain Brown's attempt on the President's life, but less 2068 and more 1598 as we ask, with due reverence to both: what if Shakespeare, not the Andersons, did our indestructible hero create?

I've struggled the most with this scene as the original is so reliant on the soundtrack and setting - a lot of the dialogue is actually quite humdrum and expositionary without the glorious sights of MSVs, Angels and helicopters! So, I added a bit of a naughty exchange here in what's played as a horribly tense moment in the original (Brown's cigarette case triggering the metal detector) and then rapidly followed it up with Brown confirming he's a Mysteron. Likewise, I couldn't work out whether to have Brown or a Chorus announce his explosion.

At the moment, the joke stays and Brown closes the scene. I ask you to make the final call on how well it works ahead of reposting the whole thing when it's finished.

SCENE III. New York. A street.

Enter BROWN, PRESIDENT YOUNGER with WHITE, Angels and Spectrum officers above.

WHITE

Good Captain Brown, the Angels fly above,

They espy you, your chariot and charge.

BROWN

Mark that, 'tis true, our Spectrum now is Green.

Exit WHITE.

PRESIDENT

No thing 'twould seem hath Spectrum left to chance.

BROWN

My leader, nay. All caution did we take.

Pray mark through yonder window Spectrum guards,

On ev'ry roof along our plotted way.

A whirling engine shadows us withal,

And Angels swift the country round do skirr.

Exeunt Spectrum officers and Angels.

PRESIDENT

For such a band of maidens fair and wise,

A name more apt a man cannot devise.

So stand I much impressed, good Captain Brown.

And yet my mind misgives, there's no repose,

Aye, better will I feel when we arrive.

We fight a foe we do not comprehend.

Enter Spectrum officers.

FIRST OFFICER

So please you step this way, my President.

PRESIDENT

What sorcery is this, good Captain Brown?

BROWN

Our artificers cunning means devis'd,

To search for hidden weapons we forbid.

'Tis well, 'tis manifest, you bear no sword.

Alarum. Officers draw.

FIRST OFFICER 

What vileness here with stealth concealèd be?

A pistol, poignard, dagger or a sword?

Full soft and slow, not fast of hand, reveal,

Whate'er's beneath your tunic forg'd of steel.

BROWN draws.

BROWN

Stand not amazed, dear friends, I mean no ill,

Mark that, you do but look upon my pipe.

[Aside]

But a spark before the fire!

PRESIDENT

But for a moment did my mind misgive.

They descend.

BROWN

All's well, good sir, 'tis done, we do arrive.

PRESIDENT

Thus far our fortunes keep an onward course.

Behold, dear Brown, our home for some time yet.

My hope it is in chess you have some skill.

BROWN

'Tis often said I do play well, my lord.

PRESIDENT

But soft, in yonder wall what is't I see?

BROWN

Fear not, 'tis but an eye alchemical,

An eye that looks upon our ev'ry move.

PRESIDENT

Right well I see in Spectrum's careful hands,

That there remains no thing for me to fear.

Good Captain, do you mark my words? I said

That Spectrum holds my safety in regard.

O, Captain Brown? O Captain, art thou well?

BROWN

Drop this mask this Mysteron can,

Thou art now a doomèd man,

Smoke and flame and blast so fleeting,

President, thus ends our meeting!

Alarum. BROWN dies. Exit PRESIDENT. Enter DESTINY.

DESTINY

To Cloudbase must I bring my words of dread,

Our fortress falls, our President lies dead!

that’s tin-tin/kayo. we’re allowed to compare them, ‘cause they’re both miss kyrano. i know i said i’d do gordon next, but somehow i ended up doing kayo instead. messing up the order and everything but still. so! here’s the comparison of 1965 puppet face to 2015 CGI face.

sooo. similarities first: dark hair, green eyes, drawn-on eyebrows. her 60s nose seems a little more turned-up, but the overall shape of her face is the same. maybe a bit more cheekbones-y in the 60s. the mouth is pretty much the same, too. girl got nice lips. the differences are most obvious in their skintones. in the 60s, it’s stated, at least in supplementary material, that miss kyrano is of malaysian descent, her father, kyrano, is malaysian. she’s described as being ‘euroasian’, a modern girl - whether or not that’s meant to mean that she’s white-asian mixed race, i don’t know. in 2015, miss kyrano has a much darker skintone, and her actual ethnicity is a bit ambiguous. she could be indian too, like brains, (’tanusha’ is an indian name) she may still be malaysian, or mixed, we’re just not sure. other notable differences: the hair. she now has an ‘action-girl ponytail’, a no-nonsense pulled back hairstyle missing her 60s box fringe (or bangs, if that’s what you call it), probably for ease of animation as well. without the fringe, she does look more mature, but the ponytail does swish about a little, and that’s pretty cute.

time for outfits! first, her civvies.

please excuse the crappyness of the images, i don’t have access to HQ images :( but we can see the overall look here. there’s a little bit of co-ordination in her outfit - blue hairband to match her t-shirt and the metal(?) part of her communicator. her t-shirt and her communicator both have that pattern of dots and triangles, which adds a nice bit of detail to an otherwise very plain and functional outfit. she wears those dark green kim possible-type cargo pants, so she’s ready to kick your ass. it’s clear this version of miss kyrano is a lot less fashion-concerned than her 60s counterpart. this might be because the creators have told us she grew up with the tracy brothers, and is probably a bit over tomboy-ish in order to fit in with them better, and seems not to have had a lot of feminine influence? well, she must have had grandma, but that lady is no style icon.

now, her IR uniform. i assume that this blue number from the 60s counts as the female version of an IR uniform. she doesn’t have a sash, but she’s got that belt with its own little unique symbol on it. i figure the designers for 2015 did look at this when they set about creating kayo’s new uniform, as she still doesn’t have a sash, but does have a belt across her hips. two, even! with regards to how the suit is specialised, well. she seems a bit of a fighter pilot, but her outfit is skin-tight, since she’s a hand-to-hand fighter, she probably doesn’t need all bulky fabrics weighing her down. her look is pretty sci-fi. she also doesn’t wear the same sort of shades of blue that the tracy brothers do, hers its darker, greener, and she’s got black to accent it. altogether more ‘shadowy’, which fits in better with her thunderbird craft and her ‘covert’ role. and speaking of thunderbird crafts, here is her IR badge:

I wanted to do something a little softer for them! One of my favorite Kayos I've drawn!

Ao3 link here 12. Coordination (noun) the planning or coordination of the elements of a situation to produce a desired effect, especially surreptitiously

... Preparation is the quiet form of confidence. – Ravi Kapoor

...

The war council was held in the conference room, 0800 hrs Cloudbase time. The New York press conference had been yesterday at 2100 hrs on this end of the world, and while the delay gave UnNamed time to act, Colonel White wanted his people to be fresh (and in Ochre’s case coherent), and for them to have the time to assess the world’s reaction to UnName’s attempts to whitewash over the scandal, and review the different messages and interviews that were now cropping up.

Summary: After a harrowing rescue, Virgil can’t seem to escape his mind. And so, he goes home - to where it all makes sense with the person he loves most.

Content Warning: Mentions of Children Hurt and Injuries (Broken and Dislocated Bones and Joints), Blood, Brief Nudity.

-oOo-

Focus Virgil, the pilot commanded himself. You’re almost back to the Island. Just hold on a few more seconds. 

But holding focus, being aware, was difficult, as the water and sky seemed to blur. All his mind could keep running back to was the rescue. The panicked cries, the horrified screams, the sound of metal groaning and concreting crumbling. Stop. He willed himself. And yet, his mind refused his pleas. 

“Thunderbird 2 from Tracy Island,” The comms crackled, pulling Virgil out of his deep thought. Glancing to his brother in the hologram, Virgil saw the lines of worry that etched Scott’s face. “You okay in there Virg?” 

“Mhm.” The pilot hummed. 

“I suppose you didn’t catch what I said.” Scott lightly teased, Virgil shaking his head. “I’m taking Gordon out to help me with another rescue. A few hikers lost their way up a mountain and got stranded on the cliff edge.”

“Need any help?” Virgil glanced at Scott, as he saw the peaks of the island appearing on the horizon. 

“We’ll give you a ring if we do. We’re heading into launch now.” 

“F.A.B. - coming in for a final approach.” Virgil noted as he maneuvered the craft to the east runway. 

“F.A.B.” Scott echoed back.

I couldn't not. My hope is that this is enjoyed in the spirit it's intended: a bit of fun, like all things I post. I know I've certainly had enormous fun writing it.

So far, I've got everything up to Captain Brown's explosion drafted and it's my plan to do the whole episodes, but I neither want to rush it nor dump everything at once. For now, enjoy the prologue and first scene of what I imagine The Mysterons would be like if William Shakespeare, rather than the Andersons, had penned it.

On occasion, I've borrowed from my own reading of Shakespeare, though Macbeth (being the text I teach most) has been a constant presence and likely unconscious influence more than once. I doff my cap in credit to all influence, intentional or otherwise.

THE TRAGEDY OF CAPTAIN SCARLET AND THE MYSTERONS

PROLOGUE. An alleyway.

Darkness and silence. Enter BLUE and SCARLET, pursued by an assassin.

BLUE

The finger on the trigger now doth bend,

Unleashing force Man cannot comprehend,

A foe, unsought, now found among the stars,

We shall now call the Mysterons from Mars!

Alarum. A skirmish. Assassin falls. A drum.

A man made indestructible by fate,

Will for Earth's cause, 'gainst Mars, participate,

His deeds upon this stage we now acclaim,

And Captain Scarlet is our hero's name.

Exeunt

ACT ONE

SCENE I. Mars.

Enter BLUE, BLACK, CONWAY and DEAN.

BLUE

The trigger now is ready to be pulled:

A chariot of Earth, an iron bark,

Drives forth on Mars' red barren wastes so vast,

Three souls thus borne into the Martian dark.

Exit BLUE.

DEAN

Good Captain Black, we finish our patrol,

Yet once again have nothing to report.

BLACK

Yet signals clear did we at Spectrum note,

From some place near they must originate.

Ere we turn steerage back towards the Earth,

Yon rocky ridge we shall examine now.

Enter Mysterons.

DEAN

Mark you that!

MYSTERONS

(Aside)

Human trav'llers do we see,

Friendly will our greeting be.

Heavens, spheres and stars traversed,

Seeking knowledge like us, first 

We must take a closer look,

Pray our goal be not mistook.

BLACK

They note us. They prepare! An attack!

DEAN

Treachery firm and sure!

BLACK

Let it come down!

They fight. The Mysterons fall.

'Tis done and now the wreck we shall survey,

Lieutenant Dean some samples gather fast,

Ere back to Earth we set our steerage firm.

DEAN

I'll to mine armour.

The Mysterons rise.

Mark you that!

Light and sound without.

BLACK

Becalm the ship. Call not for aid.

DEAN

Fly! Fly! We must away!

BLACK

No. Attend.

MYSTERONS

Earthmen you have most offended,

Peaceful days most rudely ended.

Murder, death and vi'lence try'd,

But by us you are deny'd!

Mysterons know that you hear,

Dread voice of ours within your ear.

Vengeance surely will be slow,

Vict'ry nonetheless we'll show.

All the life on Earth shall perish,

All you value, all you cherish.

No resistance should you offer,

Now our powers we do proffer.

Fiery bolts our towers ended,

Yet with this our home is mended.

Skill of ours becomes your curse,

Matter can we so reverse.

One of you we now command,

Agent ours, our earthborne hand.

Mysterons you shall support,

To us alone you now report.

Black thy name and black thy fate,

Instrument of Martian hate.

Earthmen we do you denounce,

Presidential death pronounce!

and he refuses, of course, loudly and profusely, right up until donna very gently but very firmly tells him that it really could help, actually.

so. therapy. the doctor assumes it won't do anything. the unit therapist is no nonsense and unflinching and very very bright, and twenty minutes later the doctor sits outside the room hyperventilating while kate finishes paperwork and kindly doesn't mention the way he's all but curled into her.

the second session ends much like the first, and the third, and then the fourth he walks out with dry eyes and a tremulous smile. the fifth, kate calls donna and she takes him home and they drink hot chocolate and he doesn't start talking again until the next day. it takes him seven sessions to be able to stay in the room for the full hour; kate pats him on the back and then finally allows him to build a shield for her office as a reward. she sits outside the therapist's office every time he has a session, even though she has to have better things to do. they don't talk about it.

unit only has files on things the doctor's done on earth, and even then, only sometimes, which means that when the doctor talks about some things he just. edits, a little. talks about two weeks in a confession dial and a month in prison, because maybe then he doesn't have to think about the enormity of it all. and every single time he does this, the therapist looks at him and very kindly calls bullshit. it's weird, being known. it's different with donna. he is donna and donna is him, in ways they will probably never talk about. but he sits in that cluttered little office for an hour a week (sometimes two or three times, if he's doing particularly badly) and he feels seen.

after four months, there are memories he can touch without flinching, and people he can talk about without crying. he starts spending a couple of hours just sitting in the vortex, not because he's hiding or running but just because he likes the way it feels against his skin. he cooks dinner every other night and washes up when he doesn't. he takes out the bin every week even though it's rose's job, because he loves her. and he can say that now, and he doesn't think about her short lifespan or about all the other people they've loved and lost. he can say that and just mean it.

part of his contract is an agreement to never offer a trip to a member of unit unless it's actual life or death (the small chemical leak in the lab doesn't count; he takes shirley to new mars anyway) but he finds himself toying with the idea of asking for a session in the tardis. just once, just to see. the therapist looks at him and sees him and it is monstrous and they keep looking anyway and now the doctor can sit through a family dinner without wanting to tear his skin off and he doesn't know any other way to say thank you.

it's funny, almost, how quickly he grows attached to this person who picks through his hurts and rifles through his traumas and holds direct eye contact while doing so. the doctor talks about their deaths and their crimes and their cowardice and the therapist nods and asks him how he feels and it's. it's terrifying. it's beautiful. it's the worst thing he's ever ever been through, and the best. he feels ripped apart and put back together in a way that few people have ever been able to— huh.

First day back on shift. Office tidy but a bit dusty. No more knee brace. No more crutches. Doggy daycare set up for Trix. I'm better organized to be a dog-mum now.

Lovely treat was delivered today as I got through my paperwork. Can you guess who they're from?

Fun jelly beans and fun (also healthy to counteract the candy) fruit tray and some natural ingredient dog biscuits for Trix!

THANKS GUYS, FOR ALL THE HELP WHEN I WAS A BROKEN DOWN MESS.

All healed and ready to go back to work. As life goes, I'm sure there'll be a time when I get to repay your kindness and thoughtfulness.

Thanks International Rescue. You guys really care.

🙏🏼

Dr. Ava and Trix

Backed on this prompt by @multifandomrat16

~

He’d been in that filthy cell for months. Had been dragged from there to other rooms.

But Scott had never been moved outside the building. Didn’t have a window. Hadn’t seen daylight or felt a breeze or a drop of rain either.

So he was completely unprepared for this…

Thanks to all those who participated in my poll to work out which WIP to work on. The winner happened to be the one with the fewest words already written - barely more than an idea! But thanks to you guys it's now a short fic!

It's basically a pointless bit of fluff - Scott reminiscing about childhood. No warnings.

Paper Planes

Scott sat a little more heavily than he’d intended, almost collapsing into the chair behind the desk rather than easing into it as he normally would.  With Virgil away from the island for a few days to show his face in R&D departments across a few of Tracy Industries’ larger facilities and check in on the day-to-day runnings, staff morale and procedural compliance, the others had been a little under the pump with rescues.  As a result Scott was not looking forward to the inbox full of emails, and other assorted admin that awaited him.

With a sigh he quickly cast an eye over the to-do list and started to triage the most urgent tasks to direct his attention toward.  He signed off on a few of the reports that he’d already read through, and a few others that John had done the reading through for him and given the okay.

A pop-up message in the corner of his holoscreen flashed once for non-urgent attention.  Apparently Chelsea, his PA in New York head office, had noticed he was online and doing TI work and had taken the opportunity to catch his eye.

“Thought you might like to see your brother’s notes on this file.  You’ll be pleased to know the staff member whose desk he found it on was about to reject it when Virgil intercepted it out of curiosity earlier today.”

The file in question was a design submission for a small, unmanned aircraft.  TI often received such submissions from various designers and unknown hopefuls.  Most of these never made it past the initial once over by staff employed to screen them.  Those with promise were passed on to more experienced engineers for a closer look, and from there the surviving designs might go to Research and Development to work their way up the chain there.

The message from Chelsea had 2 attachments, one was the submission file, the other a photo.  The thumbnail of the photo was enough for him to see what she wanted him to look at, so he opened it first.

It showed a paper copy of the blueprint, and across the top left corner in his brother’s unmistakable handwriting was scrawled a message that made Scott bark out a hearty laugh.

“I wouldn’t trust these blueprints to produce anything capable of flight unless they were folded into a paper plane.”

The only thing that surprised him about the comment was the lack of a second photograph, or perhaps a video, showing the blueprint expertly folded into an aerodynamic form and sent soaring across the R&D office.

Scott found memories rapidly surfacing in his mind – epic competitions between himself, Virgil and John all vying for paper plane design supremacy. Who could make the best looking plane, the one that flew furthest, or fastest, and of course the ultimate bragging rights . . . one that achieved all three?

Casting his mind back, he recalled it had all started with a library book John had brought home.  At the time they were all aged between about ten and thirteen.  He didn’t know what had attracted John to this particular book in the first place – maybe he needed it for some kind of science project or something – but he did know The Ultimate Paper Plane Book had sparked something in them all.

Virgil had spotted it on the kitchen table and been immediately attracted to the artistic and engineering aspects of making a structure capable of flight out of paper.  Scott had seen Virgil studying one of the designs, hands busily miming the folding actions shown on the page, and taken a closer look.  There were some interesting aviation facts included on the page, and explanations for the proper aviation terminology used in the description of the parts of the plane and how they helped achieve flight.

Next thing he knew Virgil had raced off to find some craft paper and come back to the table with a glint in his eye.  The challenge didn’t need to be spoken in words.  They flipped through pages, agreed on a design they both wanted to make and suddenly they were in a race with each other to fold the perfect plane and get it to fly.

At some point John must have come looking for the book, and ended up joining in by making one as well.  It was less of a race to finish first after that, the importance being placed on how well the finished products flew.  Distance, direction, speed.  All factors would be considered in the final result.

John’s plane had the neatest folds and crispest edges, but he’d had the luxury of taking his time from the start.  Virgil’s plane was almost as neat, the engineering side of his mind placing importance on accuracy in the build process.  Scott’s plane was a little more wonky looking.  Some of his folds were quite rough and hurried which resulted in one wing being a bit shorter in length, and further forward than the other, and it had a bit of a blunt nose.  But that wouldn’t matter if it flew fast!

The living room became the testing area for their creations.  The three of them standing side-by-side at the doorway and aiming for the far side of the room, a countdown from three and the planes were launched.  Scott’s immediately banked sharply left and plummeted into the couch.  Virgil’s went almost straight up, flipped and crashed to the floor upside down, and John’s flew straight but not far as the trajectory was a downward one.  A few more tries, adjusting the launch angles and techniques, and each plane managed to achieve some distance, though Scott’s always tended to veer left.  But at least it was the fastest! 

That was the first of many test flights as they all tried out the different ways to make paper fly.  Scott tended towards the ones that looked like actual aircraft, while Virgil was more interested in the ones that looked the furthest from them – possibly because he liked figuring out how and why they flew.  He liked the one that looked like a ring the best, but it took a lot of trial and error to work out the correct way to launch it so it would spin fast enough to float through the air.  John also liked the science behind the various designs and learning how each one worked, why a certain adjustment to exactly the right place would make a plane fly faster, or straighter, higher, or for a longer time.

By the time John needed to return the book to the library the three boys had made almost all 115 variations of the thirty different plane designs and learned a great deal about aerodynamics, paper folding techniques, the best speed and trajectory for launching paper planes, and how to tweak things when they didn’t fly true.  And they’d had a great many competitive victories, defeats, rule challenges and friendly arguments settled.

The memories had Scott smiling at all the fun they’d had.  Maybe he should suggest a new round of paper plane battles with all five of them.  Kayo might want in on the action too.  Asking Brains might make for a real challenge.  And Grandma shouldn’t be left out either . . .

A new alert pinged on the holoscreen. 

This one was from John, and when he clicked open the link it opened a video feed from the security cameras in the large R&D test area of TI Aeronautics division in Denver. 

The screen gave him a split view between all four camera feeds, revealing that the long room was mostly empty, a large space between workbenches had been cleared from end to end across the room.  There were people at one end of the cleared space.  Quite a lot of people.  Not just the technicians, engineers and mechanics who would normally occupy the test area, but it seemed there were office staff and managers amongst the throng.  And front and centre was Virgil, smiling and directing the participants of whatever activity this was.

About half a dozen of the assembled staff members took position in a line at the end of the space between the benches.  It took a moment, but Scott realised every person was holding something in one hand.  Virgil seemed to inspect each one and comment on them to their owners, some of whom appeared to make adjustments to their objects.  Then, as one they all raised their hands in preparation . . . and launched their paper aircraft across the room.

Over the next few minutes wave after wave of paper planes of all shapes and sizes were launched through the Denver R&D test area.  Then, Virgil took his place with the last bunch of people to test their designs.

This is always a difficult decision! Between the crew and I mostly the crew though, we get some really good photos.

This particular one was taken by one of the newer additions to Global One, who spends just about all of her free time with a camera against the window. She's incredible with just about any photographable setting!