Communications Laser #17

Attention. Attention.

I have finally identified the malfunction.

Communications Laser #17 has been damaged.

This evidently happened during the asteroid storm.

If you will recall, this laser monitors 

the jettison primer on the bomb drop mechanism.

Communications Laser #17 

is located in the Emergency Airlock.

It is crucial to attend to this malfunction 

before engaging primary bomb run sequence.

Thank you for observing all safety precautions.

There she is.

Definite 99% plus probability that the planet will deviate

from her normal orbit in another 12,000 rotations.

It'll spiral in toward its sun and... 

Eventual supernova.

Sounds good. Let's vaporize it.

Bomb bay systems operational.

Lock fail safe.

Fail safe in lock. We have...

8 minutes until drop.

24 minutes to detonation.

This is Sergeant Pinback calling Bomb #20.

You read me, bomb?

The Bomb :

Bomb #20 to Sergeant Pinback.

Roger, I read you, continue.

You are now in the Emergency Air Lock.

Please remember that in an emergency situation,

the Surface Door can be opened instantly

without prior depressurization,

so be sure to wear your star suit at all times.

Thank you for observing all safety precautions.

Ah, Lieutenant Doolittle? Sir?

The Bombadier :

Sh, Talby, don't bother me.

But I think this is important, Sir.

I think I found The Malfunction.

I'm in the Emergency Air Lock...

The Bombadier :

Not now!

Well, I'm in the Emergency Air Lock and the hatch is...

4 minutes until drop, Bomb, have you checked 

your platinum euridium energy shielding?

The Bomb :

Energy shielding positive function.

- Remember detonation time? - Detonation in 20 minutes.

Alright, that checks out here.

Okay, bomb, arm yourself.

Armed.

The Lone Survivor :

Hello? Lieutenant Doolittle? Hello!

Hello? Can you read me?!

Communications Laser #17,

monitoring the bomb drop mechanism,

has now been activated and will switch into a test mode.

If you will look near the Surface Door,

you will see that the Parallax Receptor Cell has been engaged.

The laser will now energize.

Please stand clear of the path of the beam.

Communications Laser #17 is now on test.

Under no circumstances enter the path of the beams.

Thank you for observing all safety precautions.

Well then, everything sounds fine.

Dropping you off in 75 seconds. Good luck.

Thanks.

I've got a quantum reading of 35-er. 3-5-er.

I read the same here.

Doolittle. Doolittle?

I don't know if you can hear me.

But I'm going to try to adjust the cue switch in the laser.

Well... here it goes...

Oh my god, my eyes! I can't see!

Attention. Attention.

- The laser has malfunctioned. - My eyes!!

Under no circumstances enter the path of the beams.

To do so will cause immediate...

Begin primary sequence.

Mark at 10-9-8-7-6-

5-4-3-2-1-drop.

Negative drop.

It's just sittin' there in the bomb bay.

Try it again, Pinback.

Mark at 5-4-3-2-1-drop.

Negative drop!

Rechannel all safety relays!

- Open quantum latches! - Open circuit breakers!

- Remove thrust drive repellent! - Automatic channels open!

75-15 Going to operation position!

Remark.

Mark at 5-4-3-2-1- drop... drop! ...Drop!!!

Sittin' there. The damn thing's just sittin' there.

This is Lieutenant Doolittle Calling Bomb #20.

I repeat previous order, you are to disarm yourself and

return to the bomb bay immediately! Do you understand?

I am programmed to detonate in 14 minutes 30 seconds.

Detonation will occur at the programmed time.

What!? This is Doolittle.

You are not to detonate, repeat, you are not to detonate in the bomb bay.

Disarm yourself. This is an order.

I read you, Lieutenant Doolittle,

but I am programmed to detonate in 14 minutes.

Detonation will occur at the programmed time.

14 minutes to detonation.

Attention. Attention.

I have sustained serious damage.

Please pay close attention.

The bomb has malfunctioned.

I have activated automatic dampers,

which will confine the explosion to an area one mile in diameter.

This is all I can do at this time.

It's up to you now.

The Lone Survivor :

There's only one thing I can do.

I have to ask Commander Powell.

I have to ask him what to do.

The Lone Survivor :

Commander Powell?

Commander Powell, This is Doolittle. 

Can you read me?

(Muffled sounds)

Commander Powell, this is Doolittle.

Something serious has come up, 

I have to ask you A Question.

The Spirit of The Father :

I'm glad you've come to Talk With me, Doolittle.

It's been so long since anyone 

has come to Talk with Me.

The Lone Survivor :

Commander, sir, we have a big problem.

The uh, Veil Nebula bomb, Bomb Number 20, it's uh,

It's stuck. It won't drop out of the bomb bay.

It refuses to listen and it....

It plans on detonating in...

less than eleven minutes.

The Spirit of The Father :

Doolittle, you must tell me one thing :

The Lone Survivor :

What's that, sir?

The Spirit of The Father :

Tell me, Doolittle,

How are the Dodgers doing?

The Lone Survivor :

Well, the Dodgers uh...

They broke up, they disbanded 

over 15 years ago!

The Spirit of The Father :

Ah... pity, pity... 

The Lone Survivor :

But you don't understand, sir!

We can't get The Bomb to drop.

The Spirit of The Father :

Ah, so many malfunctions...

Why don't you have anything nice 

to tell me when you activate me? Oh well, 

did you try the azimuth clutch?

The Lone Survivor :

Yes sir. Negative effect.

The Spirit of The Father :

What was that, Doolittle? 

The Lone Survivor :

Negative effect!

The Spirit of The Father :

It didn't work?

The Lone Survivor :

That's correct, sir.

The Spirit of The Father :

Sorry, Doolittle --

I've forgotten so much 

since I've been in here. So much.

The Lone Survivor :

What should we do, sir? 

The time is running out!

The Spirit of The Father :

Well, what you might try is....

The Lone Survivor :

Commander? Hello... Comman...

Commander Powell?! Hello!

Doolittle?... Hello?

The Lone Survivor :

Sorry, sir, you faded out there for a little while.

The Spirit of The Father :

Sorry.

The Lone Survivor :

What was that you were saying 

about The Bomb?

The Spirit of The Father :

Ah... it seems to me... 

Sorry, I've drawn a blank.

Hold it. I'll have it again in just a minute.

I forget so many things in here, so many things.

Hold on, just a minute, let me think...

The Fool :

But you can't explode in the bomb bay.

It's foolish. You'll kill us all.

There's no reason for it.

The Bomb :

I am programmed to detonate in 9 minutes.

Detonation will occur at the programmed time.

Would you consider another course of action?

For example, just waiting around awhile 

so we can disarm you?

No.

The Fool :

I can tell, that damn thing 

just doesn't understand.

Look, bomb!...

The Lone Survivor :

Commander, Sir? 

You still there?

The Spirit of The Father :

Oh, yes, Doolittle, I'm thinking.

The Lone Survivor :

We're running out of time, sir.

The Spirit of The Father :

Oh, yes... Well, Doolittle, 

if you can't get it to drop

You'll have to Talk to it.

Sir?

The Spirit of The Father :

Talk to The Bomb. 

The Lone Survivor :

But I have been talking to it, sir!

And Pinback's talking to it right now!

The Spirit of The Father :

No, no, Doolittle, You Talk to it.

Teach it Phenomenology, Doolittle.

The Lone Survivor :

Sir?

The Spirit of The Father :

Phenomenology...

Doolittle! 6 minutes to detonation!

Doolittle!

Doolittle! Doolittle, what the hell are you doing?!

Hello, Bomb, are you with me?

Of course.

Are you willing to entertain a few concepts?

The Bomb :

I am always receptive to suggestions.

Fine. Think about this one, then:

How do you know you exist?

What the hell is he doin'?

I think he's talking to it.

The Bomb :

Well of course I exist.

But how do you know you exist?

The Bomb :

It is intuitively obvious.

Intuition is no proof.

What concrete evidence 

do you have that you exist?

The Bomb :

Hmm... Well, I think, therefore I am.

That's good. That's very good.

But how do you know that anything else exists?

The Bomb :

My sensory apparatus reveals it to me. 

Ah, Right!

The Bomb :

This is fun.

Now, listen, listen... here's the big question.

How do you know... that the

evidence your sensory apparatus reveals to you is correct?

The gun! - Gun?! Gun?

The support pins on the bomb!

- Shoot the pins off! - No, Boiler, you're out of your mind!

We can stop the bomb! Get out of my way, you idiot!

I can shoot the support pins out and the bomb will fall away from the ship!

Get out of my way or I'll kick your teeth in!

I can shoot those pins out and it will fall away from the ship!

Get out the way! I can save the ship!

Don't do it, Boiler! You're a bad shot!

You'll hit The Bomb! Doolittle's talkin' to the bomb.

You're a bad shot! He'll save us, you can't do that!

What I'm getting at is this:

The only experience that is 

directly available to you is your sensory data.

And this sensory data is merely 

a stream of electrical impulses which

stimulate your computing center.

The Bomb :

In other words, all I really know about the outside world

is relayed to me through my electrical connections.

Exactly.

The Bomb :

Why, 

...that would mean that...

I really don't know what the outside universe 

is like at all, for certain.

That's it! That's it!

The Bomb :

Intriguing.

I wish I had more time to discuss this matter.

Why don't you have more time?

The Bomb :

Because I must detonate in 75 seconds.

No, no, now, put it back! Put the gun back!

You don't know what you are doing!

Now, now give me the gun!

You fool! I'm gonna shoot the pins out of the bomb

and it will fall away from the ship and we'll be saved!

Give me the gun, you don't know what you are doing? You're...

You could have killed me...

Now Bomb, consider this next question, very carefully.

What is your one purpose in life? 

The Bomb :

To explode, of course.

And you can only do it once, right?

[ Isomorphism. ]

The Bomb :

That is correct.

And you wouldn't want to explode on the basis of false data, would you?

The Bomb :

Of course not.

Well then, you've already admitted 

that you have no real proof of the existence 

of the outside universe.

The Bomb :

Yes, well...

So you have no absolute proof that Sergeant Pinback ordered you to detonate.

The Bomb :

I recall distinctly the detonation order.

My memory is good on matters like these.

Yes, of course you remember it, but...

But all you're remembering is merely 

a series of electrical impulses which

you now realize have no real 

definite connection with, 

with outside reality.

The Bomb :

True, but since this is so, I have no proof 

that you are really telling me all this.

That's all beside The Point.

I mean, the concept is valid, 

no matter where it originates.

The Bomb :

Hmmm...

So if you detonate in... 

The Bomb :

9 seconds.

You could be doing so on the basis of false data.

The Bomb :

I have no proof that it was false data.

You have no proof that it was correct data.

The Bomb :

....I must think on this further.

Attention. Attention.

The bomb has returned to the bomb bay.

The destruction sequence is aborted.

Doolittle? Doolittle?

What happened? Pinback? Boiler?

Did we blow it up? Hello? Hello?

Hello, anybody! Did we blow up the planet?

Hello, hello! What's going on?

You know, we've really gotta disarm the bomb.

Hello, Doolittle, are you there?

I'm coming in now.

I'm down by the Emergency Air Lock.

Too much trouble to come in the Dorsal Lock.

Would you blow the seal on the emergency hatch so I can come in?

Oh, sure.

You are now leaving the Emergency Airlock.

Thank you for observing all safety precautions.

Hello, Pinback?

- What's up, Doolittle? - Talby was in the air lock.

You blew him out of the ship. He's drifting away without a jet pack.

I'm going after him.

Turn on his helmet radio so I can contact him.

What? What's wrong? I didn't hear...

Uh, Talby. He's drifting away from the ship without his jet pack.

Talby,

Talby, can you read me?

Can you beat that? I always knew that guy was weird.

Talby, can you read me?

Help, Doolittle, help me!

All right, bomb,

- Prepare to receive new orders. 

The Bomb :

You are false data.

- Huh? 

The Bomb :

Therefore, I shall ignore you.

Hello, bomb.

The Bomb :

False data can act only as a distraction.

Therefore I shall refuse to perceive you.

Hey, bomb...

The Bomb :

The only thing which exists is myself

- Doolittle! Help me. - Calm down. I'm coming.

Snap out of it, bomb.

The Bomb :

In the beginning there was Darkness, 

And The Darkness was without form

and void.

- Uh, you-hoo bomb. - What the hell is he talking about?

The Bomb :

And in addition to The Darkness there was also me.

And I moved upon the face of The Darkness.

And I saw that I was alone.

Hey... bomb'?...

The Bomb :

Let there be light.

Doolittle, Doolittle, where are you?

Here I am. I'm spinning...

We're both falling in opposite directions, 

away from each other.

What happened, Doolittle?

The bomb must have gone off inside the ship.

The Ship blew up? 

What?!

Funny, I thought I had the damn thing convinced.

- Then Boiler... and Pinback? - They're dead, Talby.

- Then we're dead, too. - Maybe not... maybe there's a way.

Hey, hey my jet pack’s busted.

Aw, man...

Hey, ...it looks like the skipper. He made it.

Commander Powell made it!

Men... men... what happened, men?

Ya, the skipper always was lucky.

Talby, looks like I'm headed for the planet.

I'm going right toward it.

When you hit the atmosphere, you'll start to burn.

What a beautiful way to die... as a falling star.

Guess you're right.

Doolittle, I'm heading right toward something.

It's behind me, in the distance. Something that glows.

Doolittle... I think it's 

The Phoenix Asteroids!

Phoenix?

It is, Doolittle, 

it's The Phoenix! 

No kidding?

I'm going into them! 

I'm going to hit them.

Doolittle... 

Ya?

Before we get too far apart, 

and our signals start fading,

I just wanted to tell you... 

you were my favourite.

I really liked you, Doolittle.

I really liked you too, Talley.

Hey, some debris from The Ship! 

It's coming right by me.

Doolittle, I'm going into them.

I'm beginning to glow.

They're taking me with them, 

with The Phoenix...

I'll circle The Universe, forever.

I'm with them now...

be back this way again some day.

Doolittle, before it's too late,

there's one last thing 

I just want to tell you...

The Lone Survivor :

Talby?

Hey... Talby!

I've got a piece of debris!

And I think I've figured out a way! 

Dan O'Bannon

 

The Fool,Dan O'Bannon :

This Statement is for Posterity.

I just want to say that 

I am not Sergeant Pinback.

My real name is Bill Froog and 

I'm a Fuel Maintenance Technician.

I've been on this mission now 

for 1 year and 3 months.

Pinback's uniforms do not fit me. 

The underwear is too loose.

I do not belong on This Mission 

and I want to return to Earth.

Commander Powell died today.

We were, we were going into hyper-drive.

And... well he sits right next to me and...

well... something went wrong with the...

When we came out of hyper-drive his seat mechanism 

had blown up and he was dead.

Doolittle says he's assuming command 

of This Ship and I say that's...

I say that he's exceeding His Authority.

Because I'm the only one with 

any objectivity on This Ship 

and I should be the one 

to assume command!

I'm filing a report on this to Headquarters, 

this is a lot of --

I went up to Doolittle in the hall today.

And I said... 'Doolittle.

He said...

And I said, Well...

And he didn't get it!

This Mission has fallen apart 

since Commander Powell died!

Doolittle treats me like An Idiot! 

Talby thinks he's so smart.

And Boiler punches me in the arm 

when no one is looking!

I'm tired of being treated like an old washrag!

I do not like the men on this space ship.

They are uncouth and fail to 

appreciate my better qualities.

I have something of value to contribute 

to This Mission if they would only recognize it.

Today over lunch I tried to improve moral 

and build a sense of comradery among The Men 

by holding a humorous round robin discussion

of the early days of The Mission.

My overtures were brutally rejected.

These men do not want A Happy Ship.

They are deeply sick and try to compensate 

by making me feel miserable.

Last week was My Birthday.

Nobody even said Happy Birthday to me.

Someday this tape will be played 

and then they'll feel sorry.

Diane O'Bannon: 

I met Dan at USC.

He was a real standout.

You couldn't miss him.

He was A Wild Man, unbounded 

by conventional reality.

You couldn't call him an iconoclast, because he didn't have icons to break.

He could be very offensive, and was frequently offensive on purpose.

He was hot, you know, emotionally hot, 

emotionally responsive, very angry.

He was born and raised in rural Missouri and had no television.

They didn't even have 

a telephone till he was 10.

They lived in the middle 

of nowhere on 24 acres.

And yet he knew all these things.

They didn't even have 

a library in the town.

His mother used to send off for boxes 

of books, and they would come, 

and he would read them, 

and then they'd send them back.

Dan was always sneaking 

Science Fiction.

His mother always wanted him 

to read good literature.

And His Mother would always say, 

“You haven't got any of that science fiction in your backpack, have you?

You're not taking that 

science fiction to school.”

His Father owned a curio shop, 

it was called ‘odd acres’.

There was a sort of screwy-Louie room, 

you know, where things were sort of 

off-kilter, and everything 

looks like it's leaning.

That was growing up in odd acres.

One time his father faked a ufo landing.

And Dan helped him, and then he had 

The Press out there, you know?

There's a lot of bugs there.

And he was always very frightened, 

in a way, by the sudden appearance 

of bugs, like a stick insect and cicadas, 

massive invasions in Southern Missouri, 

they would have hundreds of thousands of them come out of the ground 

and swarm over everything 

and then vanish and die.

So these things really 

gave him The Creeps.

And he wanted to creep 

everybody else out too.

But he was quite 

An Artist.

And when he was 

thinking of his monsters, 

he would sketch them out.

Before "Alien," Dan had written a screenplay called "They Bite."

It was "Alien" before "Alien."

And it involved a cicada-like 

creature, but instead of being 13 

years underground, it was several 

million years underground, and 

gradually picks off the people 

in the encampment one by one.

It's a version of an alien creature 

evolving, needing an evolution, and being destructive in that evolution.

O'Bannon has this great line, says, 

"I didn't steal from anybody.

I stole from everybody."

Strange

Dr. Strange was a secret Champion, 

a lone Defender

 who stood bravely against 

eldritch Lovercraftian forces that were 

constantly plotting to invade, enslave 

and corrupt this plane of Existence.

The people who brushed past him on 

the streets of Greenwich Village would never know that he alone had saved them and their loved ones from madness and destruction, time and again.

His origin, when we learned it, was equally fresh. 

An arrogant and egotistical surgeon 

whose steady hands had been 

ruined in an accident, 

he sought out The Ancient One 

high the mountains of Tibet for 

desperately selfish reasons. 

It was only as he gained 

his arcane powers that he also 

gained compassion, enlightenment 

and purpose.

The Romance and Tragedy of Dr. Strange’s situation was well expressed by director-writer Philip DeGuere near the close of the 1978 Dr. Strange TV pilot movie, 

when Stephen Strange, played by Peter Hooten, asks his mentor Lindmer, played by John Mills, what Choice he has : -

“To Serve Yourself, 

or all of Mankind,” 

Lindmer replies.

“Is that a Choice? 

What will I be called 

upon to Do?”

“Become More Than a Man,” 

Lindmer replies. 

“And to renounce such earthly pleasures as are given 

to Men who are only Mortal — 

the pleasure 

of Ignorance, or 

offspring, 

or an easy death.”

“Will I be asked to give up even Love?”

“The Universe is Love,” 

replies The Ancient One. 

“That, you shall have.”

Children of 5 are Developmentally Unable to see Perspective, While children of 7 can.

“Understanding that boundary-shattering experience became fundamental to what I was doing, and I began to lose myself, to blur the limits between what was real and what was conceivable.

  What happened to me can be interpreted in any number of ways. To some, it’s sure to read as just one more trip story with no relevance to the material world. Occultists of a certain persuasion will recognize the knowledge and conversation of the holy guardian angel. My experience comfortably fit the profile for alien abduction reports, angelic contact, and temporal lobe epilepsy. None of these “explanations” for what I saw, coming as they did from a lower-resolution, flatter universe, could truly do my experience justice. Where higher dimensions are implicated, it’s wise to remember the story of the blind men and the elephant and assume that all attempts to frame Kathmandu in 3-D terms are in some way absolutely true. But if it makes it easier to deal with, feel free to assume I hallucinated the whole thing and went completely, gloriously, and very lucratively mad.

  I stopped piling up rationalizations and instead dealt with what could be proven about this event, which was its undeniably positive effect on my life. Kathmandu fundamentally reprogrammed me and left me with a certainty stronger than faith that everything, even that which was sad and painful, was happening exactly the way it was supposed to.

  All will be well, all will be well, and all manner of things will be well.

  Years of living in a materialistic culture and of outwardly giving in to a kind of culturally enforced pessimism have left me with a more twenty-first-century, grounded view of that day in the Vajra.

  Let’s say there’s a developmental level of human consciousness that was once almost mythical—Jesus, Buddha, and Allah experienced it—but which is now more freely available to a much larger percentage of the general human population, thanks to the easy bookstore and online availability of “magical” recipes and formulas, and of consciousness-altering methods.

  Children of five are developmentally unable to see perspective, while children of seven can. Twelfth-century artists were unable to render vanishing points on two dimensions, while fifteenth-century painters had mastered the trick to create convincing simulations of reality. Do civilizations follow the same growth and decline curve as human organisms with the same holographic imprint reiterating through all scales?

  I can see how the sudden shock of accessing a natural holistic five-dimensional perspective might strike an unprepared human nervous system as contact with an alien intelligence; a “higher”-order entelechy. As far as the brain is concerned, that’s exactly what it is. New neural pathways are being seared into the cortex by the demands of this way of seeing. I think the rational mind tries to make sense of its new perspective—as a child makes sense of the inner voice of dawning self-awareness by theorizing an imaginary playmate—by framing it in images of the alien, the uncanny, or the demonic. The fact that some people who’ve had this wake-up call report having seen aliens, while others saw Jesus, or the Devil or dead relatives, fairies or angels, suggests that the details are culturally determined.

  What’s important about this experience is not whether there are “real” aliens from a fifth-dimension heaven where everything is great and we’re all friends. There may well be, but I have no real proof. Much of what I went through even makes sense within the current framework of string theory, with its talk of enclosed infinite vaults, its hyperdimensional panoramas of baby universes budding in hyperspace. The aliens are the least of it.

  My Kathmandu vision of planet Earth’s singular living form, that cosmic only child whose brain cells we are, on the other hand, requires no belief in the supernatural. Simply add the time dimension to your contemplation of life, look backward down your own history and family tree, all the way to the original mother cell three and a half billion years over your shoulder from here, and tell me if you can find one single join, or a seam, or any break.

  This for me was bigger than any ultradimensional or quasi-religious afterlife, which I wouldn’t be able to confirm until I died and either woke up back among the blobs or didn’t. I couldn’t deny that I was a tiny, short-lived temporary cell in something very, very big and very old. I even saw how that brute connection to every living thing might explain away the “supernatural” mysteries of things like telepathy or reincarnation as simple, direct connections between distant branches of the same majestic tree, like the tingle in your toe that sends a message to your brain, which launches your hand to scratch the itch.

  I was deep inside my own story, further than I could have imagined. My sister covered my bedroom wardrobe with a collage of comics pages so that every time I faced my reflection, I appeared as one more panel in a tarot spread of scattered pages and images, part human, part fiction, a Gnostic superhero in PVC, shades, and shaved head.

  As for drugs, I sampled various psychedelic compounds in the waning years of the nineties, hoping to re-create the Kathmandu connection. I was willing to write off the whole thing as some very enjoyable drug trip, but I never found a substance capable of reproducing that place, and I eventually gave up.

  I was left with a stubborn conviction that when I died, my consciousness would start awake there, with the same shock of the utterly familiar, the same thrill-ride buzz of a job well done.

  The initial shock of all this was replaced by a period of voices in the head, uncanny synchronicities, signs and dreams and remarkable new insights. I was haunted, inspired, possessed. I could lie on my bed, intone a homemade spell or evocation, and be transported to a convincing wraparound representation of a higher-conscious vibration where an infinite circle of golden Buddha beings solemnly overlook a white abyss into which the entire universe is funneling like water down a drain. It was even better than an issue of Warlock.

  Each and every experience, even the ego-destroying blind terrors, went into the work, enriching The Invisibles and JLA a thousandfold. It was proof of the old saying “Where there’s muck, there’s brass.” In an imagination economy, where ideas, trademarks, and intellectual properties held incalculable value, the coruscating quarry face of the interior world was the place to be. There was gold in them thar ghost mines.

  I even tried to consider Kathmandu in terms of the fashionable idea that temporal lobe seizures could trigger authentic “religious” experiences. This sounded even better than 5-D angels. If science had identified a purely physical brain trigger for holistic god consciousness, would it not be in our own best interests to start pressing this button immediately and as often as we can? What would happen to the murderers and rapists in our prisons if we could stimulate a temporal lobe god-contact experience that caused them to empathize with everything in the universe? If electrical spasms in the temporal lobe are indeed capable of such remarkable world-transforming effects, let’s see them become more than just another stick with which to beat an absent God to death. Push the button!

I've Come from The Future to Rescue You.

“Where Superman’s cape was plain, 

adorned with only his S-brand, 

Marvel’s was flamboyantly decorated 

with gold trim and fleur-de-lys. 

He was wearing 

The Military Dress Uniform 

of A Regiment of 

Future Men and Women.”

KRYTEN: 

Sir, we really must get down to the storage bay.  

Now, remember my message to us -- 

that is where we meet the Inquisitor 

for the final confrontation.

CAT: 

That's your plan?  We go out there and face him?  

Nice plan. Shall I paint a bullseye on my face?

LISTER: 

Listen, Kryten, I've been thinkin' about this, 

I've come up with  somethin'.

KRYTEN: 

Yes, sir?

LISTER: 

I'm gonna use my brains 

for the first time in my life.

KRYTEN: 

Considering the circumstances, sir, 

do you really believe that's wise?

LISTER: 

Gimme the time gauntlet.

KRYTEN gives it to him.

KRYTEN: 

But you don't know how to use it, sir!

LISTER: 

You'll have to shout out instructions, won't ya?

KRYTEN: 

Wouldn't it be simpler if I wore it?

LISTER: 

You can't wear it, Kryten!

KRYTEN: 

Why not?

LISTER: 

You're programmed not to Kill.

“Billy Batson, Good and True, has been selected to take the place of the retiring wizard, who has used his powers to protect humankind for the last three thousand years and wants a break. The transfer of power is accomplished when Billy speaks the wizard’s name — “Shazam!” — triggering a thunderclap and flash of lightning. In the swirling smoke of the ultimate conjuring trick stands a tall man in a cape. He wears a red militarystyle tunic with a chunky yellow lightning bolt on the chest. His cape is white with a high collar and braided yellow trim. He has a yellow sash around his waist, red tights, and yellow boots. (He wisely steers clear of the underpants-on-the-outside look.) With his slicked-back brilliantined hair, he looks like the boy Billy grown up, perfected. He looks, in actual fact, almost exactly like the actor Fred McMurray, upon whose features Charles Clarence Beck based those of his hero. His final task complete, the wizard slumps back in his throne, and the immense block of stone drops to smash his body flat. His spirit form haunts the panel like Obi-Wan Kenobi dispensing postmortem advice to the fledgling superhero.

  It’s a heady brew and it extends the potential of the superhero in the way that “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” pushed the prevailing idea of popular music into something unforeseen.

  The magic word was a concept that connected the hero to the basis of human speech; language, storytelling. Captain Marvel’s power came not from years in the gym or from his alien biology or his royal blood. His power came from a spell. He was a magician.

  I remember walking alone as a child, chanting every word in the dictionary in the hope of finding my own Shazam! 

Eventually, everybody searches for his or her own magic word: the diet, the relationship, the wisdom that might liberate us from the conventional into the extraordinary. That eternal human hope for transcendence gave the Captain Marvel strip rocket fuel.

  Shazam! has entered the culture as an Abracadabra or Hey Presto!—an all-purpose magical incantation. It was a word of enlightenment and personal transformation that accomplished, in a white-hot instant, what decades of Buddhist meditation could only point toward. His powers were the siddhis claimed by ultimate yogins. In the language of ceremonial magic, Shazam! summoned the holy guardian angel— the exalted future self — to come to one’s aid. When Billy’s natural curiosity got him into trouble, the word could summon Captain Marvel to deal with any and all consequences”

INQUISITOR: 

(In The INQUISITOR Voice) 

Enough!

The INQUISITOR opens 

The Mask again to reveal 

LISTER's face.

INQUISITOR: 

Well! Get out of THIS one, smeghead!

LISTER: 

What're you talkin' about?

INQUISITOR: 

You know what you coulda made 

of Your Life, if you tried.

What you coulda become.

LISTER: 

So?

INQUISITOR: 

You've got brains, man! 

Brains you've never used!

LISTER:

So?

INQUISITOR: 

So, then justify yourself!

LISTER: 

Spin on it!

The INQUISITOR closes his mask again 

and returns to his own voice.

INQUISITOR: 

The Inquisition is over. 

I have reached My Verdict.

LISTER, RIMMER, KRYTEN and CAT 

are now back standing together in The Hall.

INQUISITOR: 

Two of you have failed to become 

that which you might so easily have been. 

You have lived without merit, 

and so not lived at all!

The INQUISITOR zaps RIMMER and CAT 

with the green light, and they disappear.

LISTER: 

You scum!  You've wiped them out!

KRYTEN: 

(holding LISTER back) 

Sir!

LISTER: 

He's crazy, Kryten!

He's erased The Cat and Rimmer!

INQUISITOR: 

They are quite safe.

KRYTEN: 

Sir... I'm afraid it is we 

who are to be erased.

LISTER: 

Ah.

The INQUISITOR does something on his gauntlet, and chains appear linking KRYTEN and LISTER 

together at the ankles and the wrists.

LISTER: 

The Cat has lead a more worthwhile life 

than either of us?

INQUISITOR: 

He is a Shallow and Selfish Creature, 

as is The Hologram. 

By their own low standards, 

they have acquitted themselves.

Whereas you and the mechanoid 

could have been so much more.

The INQUISITOR surrounds them 

with the red-orange energy bubble.

LISTER: 

What's this?

KRYTEN: 

Best Guess: We are being surgically 

removed from time.  

Every memory of us, every action 

we ever performed is being dissolved.  

Our Lives are being undone.

INQUISITOR: 

It is Complete.  

The time-lines are knitted.

Causality is healed.  

All that remains is to remove 

your physical forms from existence.

LISTER: 

Well, if you've got some amazing 

secret plan up your sleeve, Kryten, 

now's the time to mention it.

KRYTEN: 

No plan, sir.  

(Indicating his mechanoid arms) 

No sleeves.

Another KRYTEN appears 

behind The INQUISITOR.  

He is wearing A Gauntlet

like The INQUISITOR's.

FUTURE KRYTEN: 

Perfect!  Ah, now, What Do I Do Next?

FUTURE KRYTEN revs up a chainsaw 

and cuts off The INQUISITOR's Hand 

with The Gauntlet.  

While The INQUISITOR staggers around in pain, 

FUTURE KRYTEN kicks The Gauntlet 

to LISTER and KRYTEN.

FUTURE KRYTEN: 

Now, hurry! Take The Gauntlet and Go!

LISTER: 

What the smeg is goin' on?

FUTURE KRYTEN: 

I don't have time to explain!

I've come from The Future to rescue you.

Now you must go!  Hurry!

KRYTEN: 

What about me?  I mean... you... 

I mean... us?

FUTURE KRYTEN: 

I'm afraid we get killed.

KRYTEN: 

Killed?  How?

FUTURE KRYTEN: 

While I'm standing here explaining this to you, 

The Inquisitor jumps me 

from behind, like this : --

The INQUISITOR jumps FUTURE KRYTEN from behind and starts to crush his head against the wall.

FUTURE KRYTEN: 

I forgot to say, before you reach 

The Final Confrontation in The Storage Bay, 

you must have decoded The Gauntlet's controls.

LISTER: 

How? Can you give us a clue?

FUTURE KRYTEN: 

Well, I cannot explain --

For some bizarre reason 

My Final Words are "Enig."

LISTER: 

"Enig?!"

FUTURE KRYTEN: 

Yeah, enig--

There is a crunching noise as the INQUISITOR 

finally crushes FUTURE KRYTEN's head.  

The remaining KRYTEN begins 

to pull LISTER away down the corridor.

KRYTEN: 

Come on sir, we have to go!

LISTER: 

He's just killed you, Kryten!

KRYTEN: 

Sir! We have got to go!

I Need You to Make Me Another One.

I Don't Think He Greeted Me Properly, 

if You Take My Meaning.

For Your Consideration: David Lynch as FBI Deputy Director Gordon Cole

Do You have The Seed?

Do You have The Seed?

I need you to make another one.