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Thunderbirds - The Beginning

Unread postPosted: Fri Aug 04, 2006 9:07 pm
by zero-x
Firstly, if anybody can be bothered to read all this, I salute you. It's a story idea I've been toying with for a bit of a re-imagining of how Thunderbirds started out. Perhaps how I would have made the movie instead of the 'Frakes way'.

EDIT: I wrote this little idea down last year and haven't proof read it since, so if there are a few glaring errors, please point them out! :oops:

Should I bother actually writing this story? Is it a good idea? Comments most welcome.
:)

2045: Astronaut Jeff Tracy is commander of the NASA Lunar mission, the first manned mission to the Moon since the Apollo days. The journey back is supposed to be routine as they approach the Earth’s atmosphere. He is conversing over the subspace radio with mission controller Roger Holmes and mission scientist Professor Hiram Hackenbacker. Suddenly, there is an explosion as the rocket engine sparks.

A fire blazes through the capsule and as the two other astronauts try to put it out, Jeff dons an EV suit and opens the hatch, under instructions from Hackenbacker. As the capsule travels at breakneck speed entering the Earth’s atmosphere, he clambers out towards the engine and must re-wire parts of the engine.

The capsule enters the Earth’s atmosphere and flames lick up around the craft as he tries desperately to fix the wires as Hackenbacker relays the instructions. He does so at the last minute and the re-entry rockets fire, but already in the atmosphere, he cannot get back into the capsule, so he lets go of the craft and free-falls down to Earth, only just managing to release his parachute… He lands with a bump and watches as in the sky some miles up, the capsule gently floats down to a safe landing. Against all odds, Jeff has survived, and he looks towards a sign at the airbase he has landed in: Thunderbird field…

2065: Jeff Tracy is a changed man. Tracy Buildings is a large complex, the office buildings for billionaire Jeff Tracy’s construction business. Jeff sits lonely in his office during a meeting. His accountants are going through projections for the next year, and everything shows they will achieve an even greater profit margin. He starts to ignore their words and glances at the photograph of him and a beautiful woman on his desk. The woman is his wife Marie Tracy…

He drifts off into a flashback and sees himself standing at London airport in the terminal. Marie is with him, stacks of cases behind her. The two embrace and bid each other good bye for the time being… Jeff must stay in London for a business meeting but Marie must leave to look after their five sons. Jeff watches as she boards the Fireflash plane and it pulls away from the terminal. It starts to take off, but there is a sudden failure in one of the engines, and the plane comes crashing down and erupts into a burst of flames…

Jeff is ripped back to reality by an alarm on his desk. He hits a button and an ageing Professor Hackenbacker appears on screen via a video link. He says he has to show him something that might be of interest to him. Jeff jumps at the chance to leave the meeting and puts Andrew Basil in charge until he returns. The grounds beneath Tracy Buildings open up and Jeff’s private jet rises up, then hurtles along the driveway and rears up into the sky and flies off into the distance.

Tracy Island: a beautiful tropical island located somewhere in the Pacific Ocean. There are three main structures that are built into the rock faces of the island: Tracy Villa houses the main living quarters and a large lounge including an office section. Leading out from this down a large spiral staircase is a large outdoor swimming pool. The Round House library is located to the left of the Villa and is a huge building containing hundreds of books and a huge reference library on computer. The third structure is the observation building which contains indoor swimming pools and badminton courts as well as other recreational areas. It overlooks the Island’s long runway which is lined with palm trees.

Jeff’s jet lands down on this runway and he rushes into the lounge where he meets Professor Hackenbacker, along with his son, whom everybody calls ‘Brains’. Brains lives on the island along with Jeff’s sons Scott, Alan, Virgil, Gordon and John. Also on the island are Grandma Tracy, housekeeper Kyrano and his daughter Tin-Tin.

Hackenbacker shows schematics to Jeff of a revolutionary new tunnelling vehicle – The Mole – that he has designed that Jeff might be interested in for his construction business. Jeff is eager and immediately agrees to test one of them out for his company’s mining operation in Liverpool, building the start point for the Atlantic Tunnel, due for completion within the next fifteen years.

Jeff also says that he might be interested in it for another project he is currently working on that is nearing completion: International Rescue.

Just then, Alan and John announce that they have to leave. Jeff nods, and the couch they are sitting on descends into the floor. Beneath them is a large network of huge hangar bays and tunnels that form an intricate network. Alan and John are carried beneath the Round House. Minutes later, the huge red rocket ship Rescue 3 blasts through the hole in the Round House and hurtles into the sky…

Jeff explains to Hackenbacker that International Rescue are now ready to go into action to save lives all over the world. Just then, a message is received from Rescue 3 and one of the five portraits on the wall of each of Jeff’s sons changes to a video image of Alan. He reports that they are now leaving Earth’s atmosphere.

Rescue 3 flies into space and approaches a fantastical structure in Earth orbit – it is Rescue 5, a huge space station capable of receiving or intercepting distress calls from any part of the world. Rescue 3 docks with the station and John boards it, activating the complex computer-controlled systems aboard it for the first time. Rescue 3 then heads back to Earth, leaving John on the station.

On Tracy Island, Hackenbacker announces that he is to return to England to oversee the final preparation of the prototype tunnelling machine.

Later that night, Kyrano is cooking dinner when he suddenly collapses. His muscles fit violently and his eyes roll into the back of his head… He starts muttering to himself…

Miles away in the Malayan jungle, there is an old forgotten temple. Within it is The Hood, a super-villain who is the half-brother of Kyrano, who he shares a special telepathic link with. He uses this link to rape Kyrano’s mind and find out when International Rescue are to begin operating. He also finds out about The Mole, and decides it would be an excellent device to help him gain even more money…

Kyrano recovers, but remembers nothing about the psychic bond…

Later that night, everybody on Tracy Island is awoken by the sound of John calling from Rescue 5. A fire has broken out at a large viewing tower in America and four people are trapped at the top. It is only a matter of time before the tower collapses…

Scott moves fast into the cockpit of Rescue 1, and the swimming pool besides the Tracy Villa retracts. The sleek Rescue 1 zooms out from within, igniting the night sky with light. Virgil then slides down into Rescue 2, a gargantuan green machine that collects pod 3 – one of 6 pods that contain different specialised rescue gear. The cliff face beneath the viewing platform sinks into the ground and Rescue 2 rolls out as the palm trees lining the runway fall aside. A ramp lifts Rescue 2 skywards, before it powers into the night air. Jeff tells Brains that this will be the moment of truth for the machines that he designed.

Rescue 1 arrives in America and lands. Scott assesses the situation and tells the police not to fear and that he will help. He launches Rescue 1 again and attaches steadying cables to the swaying tower. Rescue 2 then arrives and lowers a rescue capsule down with Gordon on it. He climbs into the top of the tower and pulls the four people to safety. The capsule moves away just as Rescue 1’s cables snap and the tower comes crashing to the ground. The trapped people are left with the police and both Rescue vehicles fly off into the night…

Foxleyheath, England, is the location of the beautiful mansion of Lady Penelope Creighton-Ward, a close friend of Jeff Tracy. She is served dinner by her butler, the cockney ‘Nosey’ Parker. Suddenly, the tea-pot sounds an alarm, and Jeff Tracy’s voice is heard coming from it. He announces that he is coming up to visit before they go to see The Mole in action.
Jeff lands and Penelope shows him the newspapers relaying the news from America the previous night. Jeff asks if Penelope is still sure she wants to be the London Agent for International Rescue, and she replies with the affirmative, even though she knows it will be dangerous. Parker then shows them the way to the garage where they board FAB 1, a shocking pink Rolls Royce limousine packed with gadgets.

Parker drives them up to the building site where they meet with Professor Hackenbacker and are shown The Mole drilling machine. Jeff is impressed, but Penelope asks if it comes in pink. Penelope says she must leave for an important lunch she is having with the Prince, whilst Jeff and Hackenbacker go to the control tower to watch The Mole in action.

Meanwhile, The Hood walks onto the huge underground construction site and knocks one of the workers unconscious. He takes his uniform and fashions a mask for himself based on the worker’s facial features, then descends into the mine. He goes off into a far corner and plants one small device, then plants another in a different section of the site.

But then, one of the workers realises he is an impostor and raises the alarm as a fist fight between then breaks out on a gantry. The Hood survives, but knocks the other worker off the gantry to his certain death. Alarms whirr out all through the site and The Hood tries to make a desperate escape. He sets off the devices and there is a massive explosion within the tunnels of the construction site, bringing the huge structure down. Hundreds of people are trapped, including Jeff and Hackenbacker in the control tower which has set on fire.

Jeff remains conscious and calls for International Rescue to come and save them, but insists the lives of the workers trapped in the burning building site are the priority.

Rescue 1 and Rescue 2 arrive on the scene. Scott assesses the situation and decides that the Firefly machine must be used to first stop some of the fire before any rescue can take place. Virgil pilots the fire extinguishing machine and manages to put some of the external fire out and goes in to rescue the workers at the top level. The Hood, amidst all the chaos, manages to take photographs of the occurrences, knowing how expensive they will be…

Aboard Rescue 2, Brains looks at the schematics for the building site and realises there is no way that they are going to be able to get to the workers deep underground using the machinery they have at their disposal.

Scott then comes up with the solution: The Mole. Whilst Virgil battles to put out the fire on the external buildings, including the control tower, Scott heads to the Mole, but finds The Hood within, now trying to steal it and take it away from the site for himself. A fight breaks out, but the Hood manages to escape. Scott takes control of The Mole and contacts Penelope, asking her to pursue The Hood as he leaves the site. He takes The Mole into the burning rubble and begins to bore down into the destruction – it is a true baptism of fire.

Virgil returns to Rescue 2, having done all he can with the Firefly. He and Brains then agree to try and get into the control tower in order to save Jeff and Hackenbacker. They take advanced hydraulic cutting gear and fire-fighting equipment with them.

Meanwhile, in the control tower, Jeff is drifting in and out of consciousness but Hackenbacker is trapped beneath a burning stanchion and is completely unconscious. Jeff tries to haul him clear, but another explosion in the already ablaze room knocks him out as well.

Scott manages to bore down deep into the heart of the construction site and piles some of the injured workers into The Mole, but there are some who can’t make it in another chamber, and it looks like the roof of the construction site is going to collapse soon. Thinking fast, Scott manages to pass breathing equipment through to them and tells them to prepare, as they will know what to do when it happens… He then takes the rescued miners up to safety.

Virgil and Brains fight against all odds through a burning stairway to get to the top of the control tower… and once they reach the control room, the entrance has been blocked in. Virgil uses special laser cutters to try and break through all the burning rubble…
Once he has offloaded the miners, Scott takes control of Rescue 2 and tells Gordon to go into Rescue 4. He flies Rescue 2 out over to the Liverpool docks and releases its pod into the waters. The pod door opens and Rescue 4, the small yellow submarine dives into the sea.

Gordon pilots the craft to move towards the site of the disaster, and then fires three missiles at the wall of rock he is faced with using heat-sensitive equipment to locate where the trapped miners are. Immediately, the rock is blown away and the divers with breathing gear on are thrown out into the sea where they float up onto the surface and swim to the shore to safety…

Meanwhile, there is another tremendous explosion and the large construction site collapses in on itself… The control tower is on the verge of collapsing into this burning crater… Virgil and Brains manage to break into the control room and Virgil drags Jeff out into safety and then returns as Brains tries to help release his father from beneath the stanchion. Hackenbacker opens his eyes and shares a tender moment with his son as Virgil realises they can’t get him out from within in time. Hackenbacker tells Brains to save himself, but Brains is distraught at leaving his father… Just as the control tower is about to collapse, Hackenbacker’s eyes shut for the first time and Virgil and Brains must leave… They escape just as the tower collapses into the ground with a tremendous explosion.

Fire tenders arrive on scene as Scott lands Rescue 2 behind Brains, Virgil and Jeff as they watch the destruction before them. Brains mourns the loss of his father. Scott and Gordon emerge from Rescue 2 and join the others. Jeff says that Hackenbacker had once saved his life. Brains says that Hackenbacker had given him a life.

Meanwhile, Lady Penelope and Parker in FAB 1 speed down the motorway chasing The Hood’s stolen car. Penelope suggests The Hood might have got some pictures of the International Rescue vehicles and that they must be destroyed to keep secrecy intact. Parker activates a special radio-wave that wipes the film clean, and then activates a machine gun that emerges from the grille at the front of the car. As they drive along a suspension bridge, he fires at the car’s tires, and it skids and swerves along the road. The door is flung open and in an instant, the car crashes over the edge of the bridge and crashes into the river deep below.

FAB 1 drives off, but the Hood is still alive, clinging to the bottom of the bridge and cursing International Rescue… He will return…

Later that night, it is quiet on Tracy Island. Brains is in Rescue 2’s hangar and inspecting The Mole, which will now be used for International Rescue’s missions. It is his father’s last great achievement.

As the Tracy boys relax in the lounge, Scott suggests that International Rescue needs a hook – a nickname – and asks what people think. Jeff agrees and remembers the name of the RAF base he crash-landed in all those years ago. From that point onwards, they become Thunderbirds…

Unread postPosted: Sat Aug 05, 2006 11:12 am
by Sage
Sounds really promising idea :)
Sure, go for it.

Might be a good idea to check through the annuals and such to get all the background details as they are in canon; e.g Jeff's wife is named Lucille.

Unread postPosted: Sat Aug 05, 2006 9:28 pm
by hazel
A nice start. Just a couple of points right off - first of all, I agree with Sage: Jeff's wife's name was/is Lucille in all fanfic that I've read. However, I'm not sure whether that's fanon or canon. However, it seems to be the majority vote.

The second point, and rather more important, is that someone on the outside of a spaceship during re-entry is going to be fried to a crisp. It takes more than a spacesuit to withstand the temperature generated by travelling through the atmosphere. Jeff would know this.

Unread postPosted: Sat Aug 05, 2006 10:18 pm
by zero-x
Sage wrote:Might be a good idea to check through the annuals and such to get all the background details as they are in canon; e.g Jeff's wife is named Lucille.

Thanks, I didn't know this. My knowledge of the world of Thunderbirds is based soley on watching the TV shows/movies and reading the Complete Book of Thunderbirds, etc - they're the only resources I have available easily to hand. :)

Perhaps the idea of him actually fixing the outside of the capsule while it's re-entering the atmosphere is a bit far fetched* - okay, very far-fetched - but I'm sure there've been stories of people doing orbital sky-dives (Star Trek Generations?). Perhaps Jeff could fix the capsule, but runs out of time to get in just before re-entry begins so he has to orbital skydive?

I dunno, I'm no astronaut. :lol:

Thanks for the comments!

* Rocket to the sun, Martian rock-snakes, a store where you can buy every product known to man, light-up eyes... :wink:

Unread postPosted: Mon Aug 07, 2006 1:34 pm
by LadyP
I couldn't possibly comment, of course; but it all sounds so exciting... I shall be sure to watch out for it.

Unread postPosted: Tue Aug 15, 2006 3:58 pm
by zero-x
Image

Unread postPosted: Tue Aug 15, 2006 5:32 pm
by chrisbishop
Zero-X - this is ONE MEAN POSTER!

Is this yours? If so, have you considered a career in marketing and advertising? They could use you at Granada... for New Captain Scarlet :twisted:

Unread postPosted: Wed Aug 16, 2006 11:59 am
by zero-x
chrisbishop wrote:Is this yours? If so, have you considered a career in marketing and advertising? They could use you at Granada... for New Captain Scarlet :twisted:

:lol:
It is mine, yes.

Thunderbirds - The Beginning

Unread postPosted: Tue Feb 27, 2007 11:09 pm
by Race
That's a cool fic there

Unread postPosted: Fri Mar 09, 2007 9:48 am
by Captain Indigo
zero-x wrote:I'm sure there've been stories of people doing orbital sky-dives (Star Trek Generations?).


They were definitely mentioned in Voyager (a favourite pasttime of B'Elanna Torres when she was in her vaguely suicidal phase), and there are quite a few mentions of orbital skydiving in recent Star Trek fics, but the sport requires a suit that's got more safety features than a regular EV suit and is something that is WAY beyond our meagre twenty-first century technology.

It probably won't ever be possible outside the realms of science-fiction (the physics is all wrong), but within those limits, twenty-fourth century is feasible but twenty-first just isn't.

Sorry :(

Unread postPosted: Fri Mar 09, 2007 8:27 pm
by shaqui
Considering it was written by Alan Fennell, and had its genesis in one of the 1960s Extras, surely this:

http://www.technodelic.pwp.blueyonder.c ... mplete.htm

- is about as canon as it gets?

:?

Unread postPosted: Sun Mar 11, 2007 2:43 pm
by zero-x
Captain Indigo wrote:
zero-x wrote:I'm sure there've been stories of people doing orbital sky-dives (Star Trek Generations?).


They were definitely mentioned in Voyager (a favourite pasttime of B'Elanna Torres when she was in her vaguely suicidal phase), and there are quite a few mentions of orbital skydiving in recent Star Trek fics, but the sport requires a suit that's got more safety features than a regular EV suit and is something that is WAY beyond our meagre twenty-first century technology.

It probably won't ever be possible outside the realms of science-fiction (the physics is all wrong), but within those limits, twenty-fourth century is feasible but twenty-first just isn't.

Sorry :(


So I've killed Jeff in the first scene?! :shock:

Unread postPosted: Mon Jun 16, 2008 4:42 pm
by Intensity Angel
Sounds really cool and It had me on edge. Nice how you wrote about what happened to Jeff and how he rememberd the name of where he landed and used it to name the craft.

Unread postPosted: Mon Jun 23, 2008 4:46 am
by TRK
Looks pretty good; I just wish you'd gone with the TV version of Brains though; the movie version was just all wrong.

Unread postPosted: Sat Jan 31, 2009 9:53 pm
by Colin
One other thing; Jeff's wife would not have been on Fireflash; it's maiden flight actually took place during 'Trapped in the Sky'
Call it something like Hyperfire