Rank and File Angels and others

[Marion]

Something cropped up the other day - and the question about the Angels' quarters jogged my memory too, so, I thought I would mention it and see what the general thoughts are.
Firstly: why are there only 5 Angels? (Forget the cost of making extra puppets etc - I am not talking about the production side of things)
Cloudbase has a system where 3 Angels have to be ready for launch at all times... so logic would suggest a team of a minumum of 6 pilots. 3 on duty, 3 off.
With 5 pilots doing 4 hour stints and 3 having to be on duty ... that makes it VERY hard to organise, and they must regularly end up with 8 hour shifts...

Secondly: are the Angels the same rank as the Captains? They order the Angels about on missions, but then, presumably one of the Captains is the field commander and so is allowed to tell them to go fly around or shoot things as necessary. If they are not the same rank (and why not???) are they Lt. Green's superiors? (This raises the question of why is he Lt. when he is SO important?)

Finally and not necessarily connected: ( ) several writers have invented - and resort to in our Fan Fic stories - the convenient solution of the 'Standby Angels'... largely anonymous females who leap into action when the main girls want a holiday or are needed elsewhere.
Well, it makes sense, doesn't it?

However, Standby Angels is not an exactly snappy title for this band of useful ladies. Surely they would have a classier name... after all there are various sorts of Angel: Cherubim & Seraphim & Archangels and the like. A little diggging on Google brings the information that of all the 9 degrees of Angelic-existance... Angels are the lowliest! So it looks like we're stuck with Standby Angels as a name unless someone has a better idea?

[Carrie]

Well, they could always be called the "Devils"!!!

[Matt Crowther]

Or Guardian Angels maybe

[Sage]

Firstly: why are there only 5 Angels?
They need on in Angel one (for immediate action), two more to make up the necessary formation. Then obviously a couple of 'spares' who would be off duty.
Guess that was the minium requirement and Spectrum are just tight about staffing costs.

Makes sense in a way, seeing as there are five captains on Cloudbase (weren't orginally but you know).
That and too many people would be very confusing to organise. The rota system must be very efficent.

Secondly: are the Angels the same rank as the Captains?
They had bloody well better be!
Can you imagine the earbashing White would get from them otherwise.
Seriously though by rights they should be. Their job is as vital. And they do colaborate for assignments (e.g Model Spy)
Yes the captains do give order, (especially Scarlet, bossy so and so) but no more so that they do each other.
With Green, I think he is actually equal to the captains. It's just that the lieutentants run support services, while Captains are in the field.

I like Archangels or Seraphims for them. Not sure the 'angelic ranking' really matters. Angels is just the simplest term.

[Captain Indigo]

I always wondered about how the rota worked with five Angels and a standard Angel One shift of four hours, each Angel would have to be on duty for a full 12 hour period, 4 in Angel One followed by 8 in the Amber Room (or vise versa), followed by 8 hous off duty in order to eat, wash, socialise and sleep before going back on duty! This gives a rota totalling 20 bours, and is obviously impractical! Most people need 8 hours to complete a full sleep cycle (which is actually two cycles, but never mind), and I don't know about you, but I can't go a full 12 hours without eating or losing concentration. Granted, standby duty doesn't need that much concentration, but for EIGHT hours? Yuck!

The rota becomes even worse when one is off sick or on holiday, with only a 4 hour rest period. I assume that they would use the Room of Sleep when working like this, but then no one else would get a look in as it would be in constant use by one Angel or another, not to mention the fact that it isn't apparently good for them! When two are off, it just becomes a complete shambles and impossible to handle.

By factoring in just one other Angel, the Angels can be on 8 hour shifts, either split between the Amber Room and Angel One, or just on standby. This still only gives 8 hours off duty, but the rota is cut down to 16 hours, so the rest periods are more often.

Of course, this rota would have to be fiddled with slightly, as I always have the same Angels on double standby duty (it's easier to see what's going on if you move them in order) but that shouldn't be hard to do.

I always planned that the Angel that I bring in to the P&J series to replace Rhapsody during her maternity leave will stay on and be a sixth Angel, creating the shorter (but slightly more complicated) rota, and giving a little more leeway for vacations etc.

A seventh Angel is the one that makes all the difference. She would allow 8 hour duty shifts followed by a much more amenable 12 hours before coming back on duty. This rota also varies the previous problem with the same angels always doing the double standby shift. It also only repeats every 56 hours, so also eliminates the problems of the same people pulling the night shift.

Surely Spectrum can afford another two girls to make everyone's lives easier?

Hmm, I may have to review my Angel pack in the future timeline...

[Captain Indigo]

P.S. Sorry that's so long and complicated!

P.P.S. That rota with the seven Angels took me absolutely AGES! I have just realised that I have no life.

[Marion]

Never mind, Indigo, you are not alone.
Many moons ago - whilst I was at home looking after a pre-school child and Captain Scarlet started to air on TV again - I can remember sitting at a table one afternoon with several sheets of paper and struggling to work out an Angel timetable based on the 5 known staff available.
Such was the mushy state of my brain - probably from repeated exposure to 'Postman Pat' and ' Fireman Sam' on the video - that I found it damn near impossible.
Since then I have always worked on the theory that there must be a group of 'vice-angels' somewhere, ready to leap into action whenever one of the Angels proper goes on holiday, falls sick or is doing something more interesting that sitting in the Amber Room for hours on end.

[shaqui]

Most people need 8 hours to complete a full sleep cycle (which is actually two cycles, but never mind), and I don't know about you, but I can't go a full 12 hours without eating or losing concentration. Granted, standby duty doesn't need that much concentration, but for EIGHT hours? Yuck!

Wasn't it one of the 1960s 'Captain Scarlet' annuals which stated there was a 'room of sleep' which could compress a normal eight hours sleep into just a couple? Maybe this wasn't envisaged by the series production team but at least someone at Century 21 Publishing had their eye on the ball!

[chrisbishop]

Why is it that we constantly see the Captains lounging about in the Officers Lounge, waiting for the next assigment (well, according to the TV series), while the female Angels ARE CONSTANTLY SUBJECTED TO SUCH A TIGH ROTA?

Obviously, A MAN designed those schedules...

[Marion]

Chris,
I can do no better than to refer you to a recent story - Rock-a-by-Angel (by a certain C. Bishop and M. Woods) - in response to your valid comment about the inequality of the duty rotas:

… I suppose you think we just lounge about in the Officers’ Lounge?” Ochre grumbled.
“By and large, yes, you do,” Symphony replied. “Whenever I drop by there, you are all reading and playing cards, anyway…”
“But we have to be ready to leap into action at a moment’s notice – we’re all living on the edge…”
The Angels all chuckled at this outrageous assertion.
“And we are not?” Rhapsody asked with a mischievous smile.

Whatever the officers do do in the Officers' Lounge - the Angels are aware that it isn't exactly onerous, shall we say! I have no doubts that they make sure the men pull their weight... one way or the other.

[Captain Indigo]

Wasn't it one of the 1960s 'Captain Scarlet' annuals which stated there was a 'room of sleep' which could compress a normal eight hours sleep into just a couple? Maybe this wasn't envisaged by the series production team but at least someone at Century 21 Publishing had their eye on the ball!

Mentioned it about two lines later, Shaqui

Not being old enough to own the annuals from the sixties and seventies , I have to rely on what other people either tell me or write in their own stories. As far as I have been able to gather, the Room of Sleep does considerably shorten the period of rest needed by a person, what it induces is not natural and has an adverse effect on the body after a while.

If only we could arrange for them to be Mysteronised and freed, they'd all be like Scarlet and only need a few hours sleep...

to the guys for their complaints.

[Doc Denim]

The Room of Sleep was mentioned quite clearly in one of the J. Theydon novels (#2, The Silent Sabatoeur, the only one I had as a kid) and I think that's where I picked up the notion, as I just don't remember it being mentioned in the series at all. I don't recall that it described any adverse effects in the novel, that, I beleive, is something I tacked onto it, because it just struck me as too much of a good thing, and I'd done some reading on sleep cycles and such when it was a hot topic in the 70's. If I can conveniently locate the novel I'll look for the relevant section, but here's my bit of fanon regarding the Room Of Sleep.... (exceprt, Op Min, ch 4)

***

....she’d be impressed by the facility so innocuously called the Room of Sleep. It was one of only a handful outside of experimental electro-sleep labs that was fully operational. Prolonged use of electro-sleep had been shown to be less than healthful, but it had proved extremely and justifiably useful when time and human resources needed to be stretched. It was not recommended for stealing time-out for less-than-critical time management situations. Down-time in the Room of Sleep was meticulously logged and if one happened to log just one minute too many in there, one was apt to find oneself hauled off to Sickbay for a session with the Australian Inquisition. Doctor Fawn took a notoriously dim view of electro-sleep abuse.

***

Will get back to you with the Theydon excerpt as soon as I find it.....

Doc Denim

[C21]

Hi,

it was mentioned in one episode by Destiny Angel quote:"Take me to that Room of Sleep" which if you were not aware of the back story you might have interpreted as a quotation. I did until I got my hands on some of the original 60s annuals!

Here's an interesting piece from the tv tome website:

Short, minor scenes from Tony Barwick's original script draft for this episode were either edited out before production of this episode commenced, or the scenes that had been filmed were "left on the cutting room floor" (didn't make it to the final cut). Theose scenes would have shown Spectrum consisting of officers code-named "Yellow" and "Purple", and would have also shown the Room of Sleep, an area of Cloudbase which is referred to in Treble Cross and Place of the Angels, and actually seen in Place of the Angels.


C21

[Poetry Angel]

Well I certainly hope there are more than five angels. Maybe the five in the series are simply the five that they spotlight. I mean what would happen if some of them were shot down? Wouldnt it make sense that there may be squadrons elsewhere on ground bases perhaps, but that they dont fly out of the main base? After all, if a large force attacked and damaged the base, you woldnt want the pilots out there to have nowhere to go. So maybe there are, just they dont talk about them because they want to spotlight these five...

Poetry Angel

[Scarlet Lady]

Colonel White mentioned the Room of Sleep, too, when Lieutenant Green suggested that he get some rest.

Quote:

LG: Why don't you get some rest, Colonel?
CW: What's that, Lieutenant?
LG: You've worked round the clock - you should try and get some sleep, Sir.
CW: Hmm... maybe you're right. I think I'll take a couple of huors. I'll be in the Room of Sleep - if anything breaks, inform me at once.