Captain Brown's background

[Marion]

Following on from the question about Captain Indigo's background and the posting of the 1993 comics biography - here for interest is what they have to say about Captain Brown.
This really has no more validity than the wonderful character created by Mary and Chris in their stories about the early days of Spectrum.... and is a lot less personable...
Real Name: Alan Stephens
Born: 14/01/2033, in Truro Cornwall.

Alan Stephens was the real name of Captain Brown. After leaving college Alan joined the World Army Air Force where he gained degrees in aerospace design management, metal structural engineering and space related mathematics. His abilities in these fields impressed his superiors so much that he was transferred to head the top secret organisation responsible for the research and development of the new Zero X space ship project. This success led to work on the designs for Cloudbase, Spectrum’s impressive headquarters. During this time, Alan became firm friends with Colonel White, whom discovered that Stephens had become quite expert in camera and surveillance work while a member of the World Army Air Force. With all these skills he became a natural choice as one of Spectrum’s first captains and was given the codename Captain Brown.
In his spare time Captain Brown enjoyed photography and antique clock restoration. He was also a keen fisherman.
Captain Brown’s first assignment for Spectrum against the Mysterons was assisting Captain Scarlet to protect the World President. As we now know, both Brown and Scarlet were ‘killed’ by the Mysterons during this mission. Captain Scarlet escaped the Mysteron power and became indestructible, but fate was not so kind to Captain Brown. Having been made a walking time bomb, he was blown up by the Mysterons in a failed attempt to kill the World President.

Told you....

[Elentari]

Truro Cornwall ????

Listen to his accent! I had no idea people normally spoke with Australian accents in Cornwall

Another very good example of writing 'the facts' without reference to the original episode. (I don't buy that 'antique clock restoration' idea either!) Give me the fan fiction version of him any day - it's FAR more sympathetic to the Captain Brown on TV.

Elentari

[Mary]

Thanks for the kind words. I must admit, I take pride in the fact that many fanfic authors consider my initial characterization of Captain Brown to be the benchmark for the character in the CS fanfic universe.

Just to clarify, I thought I'd copy in the actual text I wrote for "Chance for a Lifetime" all those years ago...


[Blue had] just found out that not one of his friends, but two, were dead. Captain Grey had told him about Captain Brown at his debriefing. According to Grey, Captains Scarlet and Brown were in a patrol car heading for New York when the car went out of control and crashed. Scarlet, who had been driving, was able to escape uninjured but Brown was killed.

Blue sighed and rested his face in his hands. First Paul and now Steve. While he had become good friends with the former upon joining Spectrum, he'd known the latter much longer. Steve Blackburn had also been a World Aeronautical Society test pilot. He was a great pilot, even better than himself, and the two had a friendly rivalry when it came to breaking speed and altitude records. The rivalry eventually grew into a warm friendship; not only was Steve a crack pilot, he was a good tennis player and surprisingly an excellent cook. Then Adam was transferred to the security department, and Steve stayed on to become head of the Flight Test Division. They didn't come in contact with each other too much after that until being individually selected for Spectrum.

Blue was actually surprised to see his friend again. He always figured Steve would take one chance too many one day and plow himself and his airplane straight into the ground. Either that, or the smoking would eventually kill him. It was ironic that he died in a simple car accident....


It's interesting to note that while I did state Brown was married (Blue was agonizing over writing The Letter to Brown's widow in the above scene), nowhere did I speculate at Brown's nationality. I was probably afraid to, as this long ago I was still learning about the backstories of the characters and their voice artistes.

I've been told many times over the years that I have an ear for accents and regional North American dialects, but like most Yanks I have trouble with distinguishing those from the rest of the old Empire. I don't really think I picked up Brown's accent, as at times it sounded "public-school English" to me ("If you'll look through your windoooooow..." comes immediately to mind), which is similar to "Preppie American," and at other times it kind of reminded me as *mild* Australian. In the early 90s when this story was written the only Australian accent many Americans were ever able to clearly distinguish was Paul Hogan's. Fortunately I was a LITTLE better than that...

I give full credit, therefore, to Chris nailing Brown down as an Aussie in "All the Colours of the Rainbow" and giving him his typical Australian sense of humor. However, I will point out that some of the IDEAS Chris brings up in her later stories, such as Brown being the "reckless Aussie" who "threaded the needle" between the Cloudbase pylons, came from me in our numerous fanfic discussions. Chris merely beat me to the keyboard. Well done, Chris!

[Elentari]

I'm not surprised Captain Brown's origins weren't immediately apparent. Charles Tingwell's accent is hardly broad Australian, and in fact he fitted right in playing British characters for many years (or at least ones where his nationality was never discussed). Think of the Miss Marple films with Margaret Rutherford where he played the police inspector.

I liked the idea of a somewhat reckless Aussie character for Brown (though to be honest you wouldn't guess it from the TV episode ) - the fanfic version ties in with the cherished image of the 'typical Aussie larrakin' as reported about soldiers in both world wars.

Thinking about the TV episode, I confess I couldn't remember him at all from when I first was the series. When I bought the DVDs and watched the first episode (after a gap of more decades than I want to think about), I recognised Bud Tingwell's voice immediately and knew why he was written up in fanfic as an Aussie....but the Brown of the TV episode was rather dull compared to the person I'd read about.

Elentari

[Marion]

Cornish accents - hmmm.
I spent my teenage years in Cornwall (I was born 'up north') and have had some exposure to the accent.
My closest friends at school spoke with remarkably different accents - one has a Brummie accent ( she'd only lived in the Duchy since she was three) and the other - a native born Cornish woman - speaks with an accent that would have done credit to the early days of the BBC - Received Pronounciation with a vengence!
There were very few people who had a strong regional accent of any kind - although we could all do a passable attempt at 'local phrases' such as "me 'ansome". I don't doubt that there were pockets of 'proper Cornish speakers' out there - although few people can actually speak the Cornish Language - except for a few phrases - like 'Mebyon Kernow' - the political movement advocating 'home rule for Cornwall'.
The TV Brown doesn't sound very Australian to me, so he might as well be Cornish - but maybe I'm just not good at accents?
Mind you - the version of the character given in the comic does sound rather dull - but he too was a 'firm friend of Colonel White' and that makes me wonder if the Mysterons didn't have a scheme to annihilate all the colonel's friends... starting with Black and Brown

[Parker Gabriel]

The man called Captain Brown, Steven Charles Blackburn, was Strine, but like Paul Metcalfe--Captain Scarlet--he had Yank training; in his case, it was in the Colorado Springs Air Force Academy. That was where he lost most of his Strine accent. So he actually had TWO homes; the one was in his native Canberra, where his widow, the former Rebecca Evershaw, is still living, and the other was in Denver, Colorado, to where she plans to move in an unknown number of years. Or months.

[chrisbishop]

Captain Brown's Steven Blackburn is a fanfic creation (I believe, originally created by Mary Rudy for "Chance for a Lifetime") and it's me who actually gave him an Australian background, for the only reason that Charles "Bud" Tingwell was himself Australian. I didn't give any place of birth (so it's anyone's guess where it could be, but I might come up with an idea eventually, who knows - or perhaps Mary will, as she's the original creator...). Beckie Evershaw is entirely my own and so far, she's living either in London - or Futura City (I haven't decide, but it'll come in a soon to be published story!).

As this identity is fanfiction creation, and that Brown doesn't really have an OFFICIAL background, it can be accepted as such, but in no way should be considered as "official". It just happens that other writers have used it to for their own purpose. Any other name created by others could do as well, and to that effect, so can the name Alan Stephen, as given to Brown in the TV 21 magazines.

[Marion]

Chris Bishop said:
Any other name created by others could do as well, and to that effect, so can the name Alan Stephen, as given to Brown in the TV 21 magazines.

I have used the biography from the 1990s comics for Captain Brown in an (I hope) almost completed story. I chose to do that, partly because it suited the setting of my story better than the Australian character, and partly becasue I did not want to tread on ground originally (and excellently) covered by Mary and Chris in their fictions.
We are told very little about any of the characters on the TV show - the majority of what we do know comes from annuals and comics and it is often inconsistent.
People can chose to believe what they prefer, or emphasise a particular aspect of a character, if that fits in with their story the better.
No one's ideas are wrong.

[Matt Crowther]

I would like to expand upon the Brown storyline, I might do in an alternate story but when I do it'd be with kid gloves.

[Sage]

I did something with Brown (see link in my signature, it's the 'brown' fic). It's slash though, so not to everyone's taste.
Haven't given Brown much thought beyond that. At that time I had no idea about the official biography, so trusted the judgement of Chris & Mary. Think their version ended up better anyway.

[Parker Gabriel]

Since I saw no apparent consensus on Captain Brown's background, I propose a challenge: For writers to give the best fanfic background for Captain Brown that they can.

[Sage]

Umm did you actually read the thread?

I think TV21 is about as close as we'll get to canon in this case; but there's already such a diffrent character established by fanon [without TV21 to hand] which I think most writers have used so far.
Really though it can go either way; as long as you're consistent and clearly define which interpretation you're using.

There's no need to propose it as a challenge. Every fanfic writer strives to do the very best they can to build on the source material. To that end of course we all have diffrent results, which makes it all very interesting.

[Parker Gabriel]

Ouch.

[Decoy]

Interesting read.