Tuesday, 16 February 2010

1879 Three violent Fantasy adventures: Babylon 5, Thunder Point and Codename Wild Geese

It is Monday 16th February and again I had an interrupted night going to bed at 12.30, sleeping for no more than an hour and waking restless, getting up, writing, playing games on the computer until 4 am before returning to bed and a good sleep until 8,30, getting up to put out the rubbish wheelie bin and the environmental box piled high with empty cans of vegetables and Pepsi cola, returning to bed for a good hour. I have had some cereal and will have a coffee soon. 11 am approaches after playing a long round of 1 million points Luxor Majong to reach 11 million points.

Writing up the first three episodes of the 4th season of Babylon 5 I realised that they make a good introduction piece as both Commander Sheridan and Security Chief Garibaldi return from the dead. I know the feelings associated with such a situation only too well

As previously written at the end of the first episode of the fourth season The Hour of the Wolf 401 we learn that Sheridan has survived somewhere deep inside the planet Z’ha’dum, used by the Shadows as their home planet and where he has lit a fire and is confronted by an old man who asks to share the fire and has a devil like appearance! Because, rather than in spite of, the retreat of the Shadow craft from around the space station, the other worlds and races start to relax and allow their warcraft to return home thus preventing Ivanova and Delenn leading an all out attack on the now vulnerable Z’ha’dum after the reported Thermo nuclear explosion.

In his message to Delenn, before departing for the planet, Sheridan explains that in his flip to the future when engaging with Babylon 4, he had been warned by Delenn not to go to Z’ha’dum, as he has also been by Ambassador Kosh, but he suspects the reason for being able to foresee the future is to have the opportunity to try and change it. While confirming his love for Delenn who had became understandably anxious about the arrival of his wife, he adds that he has a duty to try and change what happens and avoid the destruction of Centauri Prime, also witnessed during his time travelling, and of other worlds and their people if he can.

Delenn and deputy Ivanova who is now operational head of the independent space station, together with telepath Lyta who comes to see the replacement of Kosh and who is then asked to stand down, decide to go on a mission to Z’ha’dum in the White Star to find out what happened to Sheridan having received accurate information that there was a thermo nuclear explosion on the planet and that two of the bombs brought to protect the base by G’Kar are missing. Above the planet they become mesmerised by a force from below but fortunately clever Lennier has applied a fail safe device which if he fails to button press, the ship his jump gate moved away and this is what happens thus linking with Lost.

Londo Mollari has been recalled home to become an adviser to the new Emperor who he quickly finds out has become more vain and psychopathically mad than he remembers of him, believing that he is destined to become a God even if this means his planet and half the universe are killed and destroyed at the behest of the Shadows. Mollari then learns that the Emperor has agreed to a request from the Shadows to make the planet their home and they arrive in force, Mollari summons Vir to return home to help him kill the Emperor. Vir is reluctant.

During a period when the remaining members of the Babylon 5 War council are in mourning over the loss of Sheridan, Lyta visits Ivanova and Ivanova asks Have you ever heard of the Hour of the Wolf ? “My father told me about it. It’s the time between 3.00 and 4.00 in the morning. You can’t sleep, and all you can see is the troubles and problems and the way your life should have gone, but didn’t. All you can hear is the sound of your own heart. I’ve been living in the hour of the wolf for seven days, Lyta, seven days. The wolf and I are now on a first name basis. In times like this my father used to take one large glass of Vodka before bed. To keep the wolf away, he said. And then he would take three very small drinks of vodka, Just in case she had cubs while she was waiting outside. It does not work.”

For me the Hour of the Wolf in the terms stated by Ivanova remains an important aspect of my life which I welcome as it reminds of who I have been so that I can write effectively about the previous experience of my life for public and private interest. I use whisky, not to fend off the wolf but occasionally to fend off the cold, cold of the head and cold of the environment. Some years I invest in a bottle of single malt. This is for pleasure. This remind of one of the great songs of Billy Holiday, Set em up Joe, its three o’clock in the morning. For me the Hour of the Wolf can happen at any time. The night is creative time when the unconscious filters into the semi conscious of waking and where as a child I was terrified but since early adulthood I have slowly learnt to make the beast into a pet.

In the Search for Garibaldi (402) G’Kar comes across evidence of the Starfury which Garibaldi used when he joined the fighters defending the space station from the expected second Shadow attack. G’Kar investigates and is helped out in a fight by Marcus and they discuss their motives before Marcus gains more information, and G’Kar insists on investigating further alone. Marcus reluctantly agrees. Before he can leave, G’Kar is captured by those who recognise who he is and return him as a prisoner to Centauri Prime for the bounty.

Delenn has been undertaking a fast purification ceremony as part of her mourning for the loss of Sheridan, and Franklin, of all people, warns her of the course she is taking, given that she has become more human than Minbari and needs energy for the fight ahead. His words have influence.

Londo talks with the captured G’Kar and explains to him how he will die at the hands of the Emperor in a long torturing death but offers him a way out if he helps him to get rid of President. G’Kar agrees on the understanding that his people will be free from Centauri rule. London agrees to this. London appears genuinely concerned at the plight of G’Kar

Commander Sheridan has talked with his companion, Lorien, trying to work where he is, alive or dead or as the old man suggests in between. The old man then discloses that he is not just one of the Old One‘s but the original One and says that Sheridan has a piece of a Vorlon, Kosh, inside him. He explains that Vorlons can break off pieces of their consciences and put these into other organisms. He tells Sheridan that he needs to stop questioning, being afraid of death and uncertain of his role and just being and that is the way out an forward. He then emphasises that dying for something is easier that living for something and Sheridan completes the jump into the void calling our for Delenn. He is that seen at the feet of the old man, presumed dead, but is he?

In the third episode The Summoning (403) there are partial answers to the what happened to Sheridan and to Garibaldi, as Ivanova and Delenn organise their remaining forces for an all out attack on Z’ah’dum, against the mounting concern of the other planetary systems.

G’Kar is tortured twice to the point of death because he will not scream out in pain and Londo persuades him to do so otherwise he be killed and his developing plans to use G’Kar to help kill the President will fail. Londo is whipped by an electronic whip of increasing intensity where no one survives forty lashes. Londo reaches 39 before he cries out and the President satisfied honours his agreement to give G’Kar to London for his previous good works. The reluctant Vir, pleading that their must be another way to rid the country of the President, now agrees with London that he must be assassinated.

The deputy security chief follows up news of the whereabouts of Garibaldi’s craft and he attacks the freighter on which it has been located which unexpectedly blows up after a life pod breaks free. This contains the body of Garibaldi which appears to be brought to life just when it is retrieved by the Space Station recovery team. There is the implication that something has happened to Garibaldi who back on the station is unaware that he has been missing for two weeks, that Sheridan is missing presumed dead and the alliance has broken up with the departure of the Shadows from outside the station.

Ivanova has been giving herself a good talking to and learning Minbari. Delenn and Marcus hide their amusement at her incomprehensible efforts and she agrees to Marcus accompanying her on a mission to investigate what appears to be report of one of the First Ones is on the move. During their expedition they discover a time right in which thousands of Shadow craft have assembled.

At the space station Lyta is asked by Delenn to try and find out from Kosh’s replacement what the Vorlons are up to. Lyta is reluctant because her connection with the Vorlon has become Sadomasochistic and at one point he appears to have killed her for complaining about his behaviour and attempting to read his mind. She informs Delenn that it is they have become expendable in the battle between the Vorlons and the Shadows. Ivanova returns from her expedition to find there is a secret open gathering of protect against the proposed attack on Z’ah’dum led by two Ambassadors from the non aligned worlds. Just as it looks as if they have won, Sheridan appears with Lorien from a mystery craft which has over ridden normal entry procedures and driven straight into a landing bay. Sheridan is able to change opinion proving that those who believe Z’ha’dum is invincible and a planet from which no outsider returns is wrong. He gives a stirring speech about uniting to rid the universe of the Shadows for the sake of the people and their children’s children.

It is confirmed that the Shadows have abandoned their previous commitment to protect the younger worlds from the Shadows and that as a consequence of all out war between the two ancient races a whole planet of three million beings has been disintegrated with echoes of the Hitchhikers Guide and the obliteration of earth to create a new space highway.

I watched had an odd novel and film concept in which in the final days of the Third Reich, Hitler entrusted to his aide Martin Borman with a case in which it is suggested were documents which would ensure Hitler’s plan would be continued after his death The film, Thunder Point is based on a novel in the Sean Dillon series by Jack Higgins in 1993. The novel suggests that Borman had indeed left Germany but the U Boat in which he travelled had been sunk in the West Indies. A former British intelligence officer has maintained a search for the missing documents which were said to have implicated the former King and Duke of Windsor in the plan and when the document was discovered and brought to British intelligence in the UK he is killed in a faked accident.

There have been several novels and films of this genre, treasure hunters for sunken vessels, usually in the Caribbean so the locations can be picturesque, and the women beautiful and flaunting their assets. The men appear to have considerable means, often an expensive boat, and hiring private planes to over view an area is also no problem. In this instance the man has accumulated a huge debt from his bank and is danger of losing his isolated forest and lake Canadian home because he plans to sell the case to the British government for £1 million in order to hide the fact that the former King who became the Duke of Windsor was implicated in the Nazi ideology and the great plan to conquer and then rule the world

Unfortunately the British intelligence official is in fact a secret member of a Nazi organisation. This is not so preposterous as other aspects of the film given the extent to which the Communists were able to recruit a number of British agents into being double spies over a long period. It is has always struck me that with the capitalist establishment anti communist rather than fascist, the possibility of extreme ring wing sleepers going undetected was there with support for South Africa the obvious example. In the USA there was the support for various fascist states, notably for the Afghanistan, so called freedom fighters against the Russians.

The British double agent hires, an expendable former IRA operative who he rescues from execution for his freelancing activities in the Balkans, to find the case which is now missing and where it is thought the dead man’s ward will know its whereabouts. This is one of a number of incredulity widening aspects because the hired man is then hunted by other Nazi organisation employed operatives when he attaches himself to the ward who is hostile to all aspects of the situation and the kind of life led by the former IRA man but she is drawn to him and relies on his protection when several attempts are made to force her to reveal the whereabouts of the case, something which she does not know.

here is situation upon situation of implausibility with deaths and much physical violence before the case is located and then lost to the Nazi organisation. Her adopted father has given her a letter in the event of his death and contain a clue to the whereabouts of the case. Unfortunately he has left another cryptic message in her locket which she has placed on top of the coffin at the burial. In the locket the message refers of a relative, a nun who died previously and is buried in a vault at the convent. The man had visited he convent, gained access to the convent vaults and prized open the stone which means her name and closed again without attracting the curiosity of the sisterhood and similarly the ward and her new protector are able to do this!
In the last part of the film the papers are burned after they have been faxed to the last survivor of Hitler’s contemporary aides who inhabits Washington suggesting a sequel. The ward is killed but the IRA man lives to fight other adventures.

The whereabouts of Martin Borman was known for several decades after the War and there was much speculation and alleged sighting as well as claims as when and where he had died. DNA tests involving relative does appear to have laid this mystery to rest although given the extent to which individuals are relocated for the cooperation with governments, and the extent to which others of their ilk have been able to secretly survive, nothing can be certain.

The action takes place in the West Indies, in London and in Canada where the former security man was based. The Winter Olympic Games are being held in Canada for the second occasion but I have failed to become interested so far.

An even worse film about mercenaries is Codename Wild Geese. The similarity between aspects of the two films is remarkable. The men are hired to destroy a shipment of drugs belonging to a ruthless Thailand drug General within his stronghold defended by an army described as rapists and murderers. The pit of the get away helicopter is released from prison two years early because he is the best in the business but unfortunately although the raid is moderately successful with only a few loses, one of the group is a double agent and sabotages the helicopter so they have to make their way home on foot. They come across a mission within the ruins of a church reminding of various Mexican bandit films, the Magnificent Seven rather than the Dirty Dozen in which the priest hides white girl reporter take hostage for random and a wounded and dying mercenary, while they go off to blow up train as it slows down to cross a bridge (over River Kwai style) on its way to collect another drug horde from a second storage compound. After the success but further loss of life the reduced group return to the mission to find everyone killed except the priest crucified and dying and the girl hidden away with the body of the dead comrade. This fuels their resolve to destroy the second compounds but before they can achieve this objective they discover that their link man is in fact a baddie and in the pay of the man who hired them with the full knowledge the British and USA authorities. Basically the man operated the second compound in competition and delighted at the removal of their revival they are horrified to learn the decision to proceed to their accumulated supply and set out to stop the remaining members of the group which are reduced to the leader, the girl and the pilot. They find a small helicopter which has a kind of flame throwing device which is used to destroy the compound and the remaining guards as well as the operational baddie. The hero returns to kill the man who employed him and the British and Americans official unofficial coordinators congratulate on a job which worked out far better than expected and the group leader and pilot got off to fight another box office adventure. There was one moment in the film when the project administrator at the training camp causes the wrath of some of those involved by checking on the next of kin to receive the £30000 payment in the event of their deaths. The irony is that the money had come from drug trafficking.

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