What kind of Scarlet story would you most like to see?

[chrisbishop]

Ah! If I look at each character's respective background, I would have to say Original Scarlet, as he was bred a soldier, from a family of soldiers - and was voted ultimate soldier in West Point when he was there!

[Mary]

Ah! If I look at each character's respective background, I would have to say Original Scarlet, as he was bred a soldier, from a family of soldiers - and was voted ultimate soldier in West Point when he was there!

Not to mention NCS Scarlet's "qualifications" as listed in Skybase Central's character profile: an astrophysicist educated at MIT?! Can you say "nerd"? The choice of school alone qualifies him for nerdhood of the highest degree...

As with it being highly unlikely that OCS Scarlet "started out as a private" after an extensive -- and expensive -- military schooling at West Point, the concept of a highly-educated "astrophysicist" volunteering for, let alone qualifying as, a Special Forces member, with their rigorous selection process, is equally hard to swallow.

(BTW he would have been attached to Air Force Special Operations Command ; the "Special Forces" belong to the US Army)

Plus, every time I hear NCS Scarlet's voice it doesn't necessarily strike me as a confident, commanding-officer-type voice, JMO...

[Sage]

That sounds a lot like McGee in NCIS [my other pet fandom].
McGee went to MIT too, so yes total computer geek, which is his charm really. He can hold his own with the marines, ex-cops etc he interacts with (in this case as a field agent investigating crime in the US navy) but is still a bit of a 'fish out of water'. That seems far more plausable than for Scarlet to have gone from geek to 'James Bond' in presumably only a decade. Why would Spectrum even want/need* an astrophysicist in the first place?

LOL I'm never going to look at NCS Scarlet in the same way again. Never thought of it before but he actual does sound a bit like McGee. Where as OCS Scarlet is obviously more authoritive. With him they really followed through with the character and background which makes sense.

No contest as to who I'd want as a leader.

*then again OCS has two naval men [White & Grey] stationed 40,000 ft above sea level. So make of that what you will.

[Marion]

Sage said:

*then again OCS has two naval men [White & Grey] stationed 40,000 ft above sea level. So make of that what you will.

I always had the vague notion that as Spectrum was an anti-terrorist organisation with 'police powers' on Earth and in space - it would probably have staff that consisted of experts in many - if not all - disciplines, otherwise you might as well say the same thing about Ochre and Magenta.
Besides, White wasn't in the navy that long (for someone who made it to Admiral of the Fleet, I mean. He joined 'after university' and left when he was 30) After that, he went on to be a USS agent, serving in the field for 2 years, and as head of the British section thereafter, until he went to Spectrum.
Grey had been a World Navy officer before he joined the WASPS, and Green went straight to the WASPS after university.
Let's face it, basically, the 'canon' biographies are pretty hard to take seriously in most cases...

With NCS we have even less to go on - they never even tell us what Spectrum is meant to be doing and why... or maybe that is a good thing?

[Sage]

Hmm yes that's a very good point. It does seem a bit odd at first glance but makes sense when you think about it. Running with spectrum as a metaphor.

Well I suppose the others are pilots in some capacity (well Magenta isn't, but I get the impression he'd be happy anywhere that has computers to tweak), so it makes sense for to be there and quite content. Poor Grey must pine for the sea sometimes though.

I agree the bios are probably more of a springboard. An admiral in less than a decade, that's some serious fast tracking going on there. I don't suppose 'the powers that be' really expected that forty years on we'd be scrutinising them to any degree.

LOL very true

[Skybase Girl]

Is NCS an astrophysicist ? I thought that was his mother, but I could be wrong. Thought he'd been in the U.S Air Force, before joining other military type things. ( You can tell that the technical stuff is never going to be my strong point ). Even so, he does seem to have an impressive list of credentials for such a young age, as do all the characters in OCS. Shame they couldn't have passed on career advice to the likes of me !

As for McGee of NCIS...... Can't see it, I'm afraid. Now Martin Fitzgerald from Without a Trace - that's a different matter!

[Marion]

Skybase Girl said:

Is NCS an astrophysicist ? I thought that was his mother, but I could be wrong. Thought he'd been in the U.S Air Force, before joining other military type things.

I had a quick look on the site cast of characters - link below - and that says:
QUALIFICATIONS:
Astrophysics, MIT
MILITARY TRAINING:
U.S. Air Force,
U.S. Special Forces, Elite Unit Command.
I have to agree both series seem to expect their characters to have crammed an awful lot into their short(ish) lives!
http://www.spectrum-headquarters.com/skybase_central/cast_scarlet.htm

[Mary]

*then again OCS has two naval men [White & Grey] stationed 40,000 ft above sea level. So make of that what you will.

I think GA & Co. already did. Cloudbase is designed and operated almost EXACTLY like a ship except that it's floating on... uh, air or whatever, go to this other thread if you want to argue ... instead of operating on or under water. Who better than naval personnel would you have navigating her and commanding shipboard/flight deck operations?

[Sage]

Oh yes, well then I suppose it does make sense. In a round about way.

[chrisbishop]

I'm not so sure it really should be considered a round about way. Notice that most (if not all) scifi series where the action is set in outerspace use naval terms and ranks (StarSHIP, StarFLEET, BattleCRUISER, ADMIRAL ... CAPTAIN, come to think of it).

Really, in that view, the oddity in Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons would rather be having the commander being called a 'Colonel'. But then again, we know that the 'ranks' used in the series really serve to hide the identities of the personnel.

Interestingly, the first 'tanks', created by the British Army, during WWI, were really part of the British Navy, and were called "Landships", as reported in Wikipedia. As another interesting anecdote, concerning the name 'Tank', Wikipedia also says:

The vehicles were colloquially referred to as water carriers, later shortened to tanks, to preserve secrecy and the name became official in December 1915.

If you want to know more on the subject, go to:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tank

[Marion]

Several sources say that Spectrum originally considered various concepts for the mobile, secret HQ - including an aircraft carrier. there's even a picture of what might have been on this thread:
http://spectrum-headquarters.com/v-web/bulletin/bb/viewtopic.php?t=608
So, maybe that's why they have naval terms? Although Chris is right in saying that many SciFi transports do have watery connotations

[Matt Crowther]

In Star Trek they have a naval feel and connotation to the ships...the 'USS' prefix, the fact they're ships, 'sea of stars' perhaps. Certainly, Nicholas Meyer director of Star Trek II (and VI) goes into detail on the featurette for Star Trek II. Quite interesting.

[Mary]

I'm not so sure it really should be considered a round about way. Notice that most (if not all) scifi series where the action is set in outerspace use naval terms and ranks (StarSHIP, StarFLEET, BattleCRUISER, ADMIRAL ... CAPTAIN, come to think of it).

Actually, a "battlecruiser" is/was a distinct class of warship. It refers to a large ship with battleship-size armament, but with lesser armor protection to increase its speed to that of a cruiser. Perhaps the most famous battlecruiser was HMS Hood, which the German battleship Bismarck sank in May 1941.

[Matt Crowther]

Forgive this tidbit almost a month on! but not forgetting Repulse, Prince of Wales...

should anyone want to read a book, fiction, on it I recommend Douglas Reeman's Battlecruiser. I had the fortune to meet him a week ago. It was his books that provided inspiration for my Colonel White ancestor story Fallen Glory

[Mary]

Forgive this tidbit almost a month on! but not forgetting Repulse, Prince of Wales...

If you're referring to the HMS Prince of Wales sunk in the South China Sea in December 1941, that was a King George V -class battleship, not a battlecruiser:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Prince_of_Wales_%281939%29