The Mystery of Paul Blake

[Clya Brown]

Following the declassification of top-secret government files on 1st January under the 30-year rule, the mystery surrounding the remarkable resemblance between Secret Service agent Paul Blake and Captain Scarlet has at last been solved. The link below, recently discovered during a routine trawl of the Internet in search of Spectrum-related material, strongly suggests that Blake is actually Scarlet himself, working under cover. The evidence, now available for public scrutiny for the first time since the 1970s, speaks for itself, though the question of how Scarlet was seemingly transported back through time to adopt this critical role in Great Britain's history remains unresolved. Perhaps the fan-fic community should give this remarkable revelation some consideration in the coming months.

http://www.randomperspective.com/page.asp?1news/2/028

[Sage]

LMAO
That is awesome.
Maybe they used the tardis? (woo, three-way fandom crossover)

General consensus I've heard is that Blake is Scarlet's grandfather*. Which would explain the resembalance and the time diffrence thing.

Shall certainly give it some though.

*Which works in the fanfic. However if you were going to get picky about timeframes of the two series it may be necessary to say 'great grandfather' or even 'great great grandfather'.

When was The Secret Service set, anyway?

[shaqui]

LMAO
When was The Secret Service set, anyway?

Despite what you may read in some 'unified Anderson history' fan listings, it was contemporary to when it was made - circa 1970.

And as for the time travel thing, I can sum my feelings on that up with one word beginning with 'b', ending in 'ox', and with an 'ol' in the middle...

[Clya Brown]

Is it too much to hypothesise that Father Unwin's matter-reducing machine - the Minimiser - utilised the same transdimensional stabiliser technology employed within the TARDIS to render it bigger on the inside than the outside? If "The Secret Service" was contemporary to the 1970s then such technology didn't exist on Earth at that time - but it could have been passed on to MI6 by Jo Grant acting under orders from Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart while the Doctor was still preoccupied with trying to repair his dematerialisation circuit at UNIT headquarters. Dreaming up a better theory might take some thinking outside the 'b' and 'ox'. The police 'b' & 'ox', naturally. Without the 'ol' in the middle*.

[* As I recall from the 1996 movie, the Eye of Harmony is in the middle - doubtless named after the Japanese Angel. Link between Spectrum and Gallifrey established beyond all reasonable doubt. QED.]

[shaqui]

Grrrrrrrrrrrrr...

[Sage]

LMAO
When was The Secret Service set, anyway?

Despite what you may read in some 'unified Anderson history' fan listings, it was contemporary to when it was made - circa 1970.

That'd make sense.

********

In that case Paul Blake couldn't have to been Scarlet's grandfather. The maths just doesn't work...

* The very youngest Blake could be during TSS is his early 20s. Meaning he'd have been born around the mid 1950s. As my father was born 1956 I'll use my own family as a case study here.
* My father had me when he was 30. Which I guess is a reasonable average age for a first time father. So let's say Blake had children around the mid to late 80's too.
* I am 20 now, and will [theoretically] have children in 5 to 10 years time. Going by averages here; most career women have children in their early 30s, or around that age.

So Blake will be about 80 in 2036 (when Scarlet is born), ergo 112 when CS is set. Now there may be some impressive medical advances coming up but I still doubt very much the average man will live that long.

That would also mean that Blake's children will in their late 40's/early 50s in 2036. Again considering contemporary medicine that is too old to be becoming first time parents.

Their children on the other hand, being around Colonel White's age, would be in their late 20s in 2036, which would be perfect timeing to have children. Then be in late middle age by the time CS is around, which fanon decrees that is true of the Captains and Angels parents.

In conclusion...
Only way Blake and Scarlet could be related is if the former is the latter's great grandfather.

*Sage cowers under her desk in preparation for response to her having just utterly screwed the fanon*

[chrisbishop]

Get out of under that desk, we won't kill you - yet.

I don't think there is a RIGHT answer to this, and I find fascinating and interesting to actually read other people's theories about whatever aspect of the series - characters' bios and family history being one of them, and in this case, the relationship (or possible relationship) between Captain Scarlet and Paul Blake being the subject of the discussion.

There will always be points of arguments about dating of events - to my knowledge, no dates have been given on-screen about The Secret Services (not many Anderson shows have been dated, if I'm not mistaken - Captain Scarlet is one of the rare examples). Remember the point of dissension about Thunderbirds and when the action is set (2027 or 2065... or whatever else). There will always be arguments about the characters background (As an example: Rhapsody's various bios...) And there will also ALWAYS be points to argue to whether all the series belong to the same universe or not . This is the beauty of it - we can discuss this 'til Kingdom comes, and never reach an agreement. As long as we keep civil about it, and don't make it a subject for schism, we can live with that and continue to have fun!

Now, while we are on the subject of 'fadom' (and/or 'fanon'), here a little additional point.

When writing fanfiction you can follow many different options, starting from:

a) Follow indications given by the TV series only (in that case, you miss an awful lot of background information, especially concerning characters - we learned in the series the real names of Scarlet and Blue ONLY).

b) Follow indications given in a) and then in different other official sources - like mags, comic strips, annuals, you name it...

c) Follow given indications in a) and b) and also provided by other less official sources, like fan materials (like fanzines, fans in-dept studies of all above mentioned sources...)

d) Follow given in a), b) and c) and take a few liberties allowed by your imagination, extrapolated on the subject, give and take whatever will suit you, at the condition of not going too far away from the "established" background.

Right that doesn't appear like easy explanation...

Chris

PS: For those who are wondering about Unified Anderson History, mentioned by Shaqui in an earlier post, check this link, where you'll find the Introduction to GERRY ANDERSON ALL SERIES CHRONOLOGY, and then a link to said chronology. You might agree with what you'll find there, or not with everything, or with nothing at all, but you have to admit it's an interesting document, and a wonderful tool for Fanfic writers (who take whatever they want from it). AND it's obviously a work of love from one very dedicated Anderson fan -by the name of Keith Ansell.

PPS: LOVED your theory(ies), Doc! Are you planning to do something with it?!

[Sage]

LOL
*clambers out from under desk*

Very good answer, guess part of the fun is that there is so much creative flexibility.
I am pretty sure stingray and CS are linked, if only via Grey's biography. Otherwise, hmm who knows.

I go with option D, as a rule.

That is very cool, shall have to look through it properly and keep for future reference.

[Clya Brown]

:shock: Me do anything with it, Chris? Good grief no - I was just having a bit of a technogiggle. But if anybody else feels like picking up the idea then that's great. Apart from anything else, I never got into "The Secret Service" at all: after having grown up at roughly the same rate as Fireball XL5, Stingray, Thunderbirds, Scarlet and finally UFO in both maturity of script and production values, I felt that "The Secret Service" was a bit of a retrograde step, to be honest - or at least a sideways move. In hindsight, I suppose that was just me outgrowing the genre, but that was the way I saw it at the time. (Has anybody ever written any "Secret Service" fan-fic, by the way? I can't remember ever having seen any.)

[chrisbishop]

Not really - but I did use the Minimizer in one of my latest Scarlet stories - and the character of Paul Blake, as Scarlet's grand-father. That's as close to 'The Secret Service' as I'll get for now. Not to say that Blake won't make a reappearance, though.

Size Doesn't matter

(I know: shameless advertising...)

[Scarlet Lady]

If you can't advertise on your own site, then...

[chrisbishop]

Kind of a retro-posting here, but there is a reason for it.

I found this thread while doing further research on Paul Blake, for the sake of a new story I'm presently writing. I needed to know the birthdate of the character. Through this thread, I followed the link to the GERRY ANDERSON ALL SERIES CHRONOLOGY, and discovered that Blake is reported to have been born December 31st, 1974 (Information given by a certain Martin Hutchinson, and I unfortunately don't know who Martin Hutchinson is!). That would give Blake 94 years old at the time of the Captain Scarlet series. Not unlikely, as people today are living longer than the previous generation and that it might hold true for later generations as well.

For the story I'm writing (set in 2048), Blake still needs to be in the Universal Secret Service, as a Senior Director, but he would be 74 years old, and that would be a little stretch. I would need him to be a little younger, maybe from six to ten years.

Am I justified to move the year of his birthday a little bit, so to have him well into his sixties, by the time of my story?

[Marion]

The way they're advancing the age for receiving a retirement pension 74 would still be working age by then...