Category: science

On the Legacy of Survival and Wonder in Space:1999

A Speculative Chronicle Message in Six Transmissions

Recovered from orbital drift, interpreted by fandom and myth.

Written by Geoff Allshorn
in conversation with Copilot AI

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Transmission I:
Here Comes the Signal

“Over the sea he suffers long
Stirring his hands in the frosty swell,
The way of exile. Fate never wavers.”
– The Wanderer, 5th or 6th century CE England

“We came from planet Earth…
We have learned many things, but most of all,
we have learned we still have much to learn.”
– Professor Victor Bergman, “War Games”, Space:1999.

28 July 2025 marks the fiftieth anniversary of the launch of a notable but largely overlooked and forgotten science fiction television series that endured two fraught and fascinating years of production before its cancellation – but its loyal and ongoing fan base, its messages, and even its mistakes can teach us a great deal in this era of growing insularity and regression. Space:1999 was a series predicated upon planetary disaster, and yet its characters became survivors, realists and myth makers. Even when wrapped in moonrock and metaphysics, the series kept its core concerns rooted in what it means to be human under impossible circumstances. The characters salvaged their survival and resources out of nuclear scraps; they found challenges and mythopoiea in the cosmos; they blended science with otherworldliness. Possibly most of all, they took cosmic misfortune and found the positive spin within and without.

They were perhaps the perfect example of what it means to be fully human.

Colour Your World: Teenagerhood Amidst Monochrome

Space:1999 enjoyed its world premiere on Australia’s Seven Network (Channel 7) at 7:30 pm on 28th July 1975, on a Monday evening, a timeslot previously used for the Planet of the Apes TV series – another science fiction series dressed in juvenile action-adventure format but serving as a metaphor for isolation, survival, and the connection between humanity and hope. This suggests that the timeslot – and the content – of Space:1999 had been perceived by Channel 7’s TV programmers as being G-rated (suitable for children) and may explain why at least one episode (“Dragon’s Domain”) appears to have been withheld from these original G-rated transmissions. It may also help to explain why the series quickly suffered from being skipped a week here, a month there – disappointing ratings (and football season) may have been responsible; a program featuring philosophy and existentialism do not help TV advertisers to sell football or meat pies or kangaroos or Holden cars. Space:1999 featured on HSV Channel 7 in Melbourne amidst football advertisements and station promo ads promising to “Colour Your World” (a reference to the official introduction of colour television that had taken place in Australia on 1 March that same year) – and to me, as a teenage viewer, watching Space:1999 seemed to fulfil that promise of colour and awe into my mundane world.

Despite the official pronouncements of overseas sources that rely upon the UK telecast dates, the original transmission order of episodes shown was as follows:
* Breakaway (28 July 1975)
* Collision Course (4 August 1975)
* Death’s Other Dominion (11 August 1975)
* Force of Life (18 August 1975)
* Earthbound (25 August 1975)
* Voyager’s Return (1 September 1975)
* Guardian of Piri (15 September 1975)
* Ring Around the Moon (22 September 1975)
* Full Circle (29 September 1975)
* Missing Link (3 November 1975)
* Black Sun (17 November 1975)
* Alpha Child (24 November 1975)
* A Matter of Life and Death (1 December 1975)
* The Last Sunset (8 December 1975)
* War Games (29 December 1975)
* Another Time, Another Place (5 January 1976)
* The Troubled Spirit (12 January 1976)
* Mission of the Darians (19 January 1976)
** (Note: A year’s gap passed here) **
* The Last Enemy (22 January 1977)
* Space Brain (29 January 1977)
* The Testament of Arkadia (5 February 1977)
* The Infernal Machine (12 February 1977)
* Journey to Where (19 February 1977)
* All that Glisters (26 February 1977)

These airdates are taken from personal notes recorded at the time. These notes also indicate that the series was removed from the air but later returned during the August/September school holidays in 1977, and thence beyond – again a suggestion that the series, with its philosophical, metaphysical and horror themes, was still primarily seen as kiddie fare.

Adolescent Drift – Breakaway

Channel 7 played football ads. I played belief — in spacecraft modules, in colour-TV miracles, in astronauts who wept when the stars refused to answer. Moonbase Alpha wasn’t fiction. It was sanctuary. Watching through the technicolour glow of Monday night television, I felt less like a viewer and more like a quiet stowaway on the Moon — fifteen years old, floating between football ads and metaphysical fallout. I was not alone – my schoolfriends watched the show and caught the fever. I recall one who joked about Kano falling in love with his computer – but who grew up to become a computer specialist himself. We were not Trekkies (at least, not yet), nor Jedi disciples. We didn’t inherit utopia or swashbuckle through empires. We tuned in on Monday nights, wrapped in school uniforms instead of spacesuits, watching moonrock and milgonite beam through cathode rays. We found heroes and mentors in those who drifted — those who created purpose in a future that was as frightening to them as our school journey was to us.

As for me, I found courage and consolation in its themes of exile, identity, and otherness reframed. This became evident in my own life journey beyond Alpha From Here to Eternity. I didn’t yet have language for queerness, only the feeling that some part of me was drifting like Alpha — unsignalled but searching. Later I’d learn that gay fan groups like Gaybase Alpha had also found sanctuary here. Their signal, like mine, pulsed quietly.

What began as teenage wonder evolved into a lifelong echo — each broadcast a symbol, each silence a ceremony. Fifty years later, as the Earth calendar continues into 2025, the echoes of a 1975 transmission feel strangely alive. Half a century of distance hasn’t dulled their voices — only deepened the silence around what was left unsaid.

And so begins the deeper divergence — not of ratings or scripts, but of mythic intent. Just as the series revolved around exploring the unknown, let’s also take a journey of communal exploration and discovery…

Hit and Myth

“One of the best contemporary incarnations of mythology is the science fiction film
— at least the good ones.”
– Dr. Michael Delahoyde

Science Fiction (SF) and mythology may seem worlds apart — one rooted in futuristic speculation, the other in ancient lore — but they often orbit the same human need: to understand who we are, where we are or where we’re going.

People from Australia – the birthplace of astronaut Alan Carter in Space:1999 – have had stories for thousands of years about the Moon, and these often conflate the heavens with humanity:

“In most Aboriginal cultures, the sun is female and the moon is male. While the specific details vary between groups, many Aboriginal communities describe a dynamic between the sun and moon, typically involving one pursuing the other across the sky from day to day, occasionally meeting during an eclipse. Many stories explain why the moon gets progressively “fatter” as it waxes from new moon to full moon, then fades away to nothing as it wanes back to new moon. For example, the full moon is a fat, lazy man called Ngalindi to the Yolngu of Arnhem Land. His wives punish his laziness by chopping off bits of him with their axes, causing the waning moon. He manages to escape by climbing a tall tree to follow the Sun, but is mortally wounded, and dies (new moon). After remaining dead for three days, he rises again, growing fat and round (waxing moon), until his wives attack him again in a cycle that repeats to this day.”

Western-based secular Science Fiction doesn’t just imagine tech or telecoms — it reimagines origin stories, cosmic trials, and heroic journeys, much like myth. Space:1999 itself carries the same mythic DNA that we find in the stories of Jason and the Argonauts or Moses and the Flight from Egypt: a displaced people, a home in transition, and mysterious forces that challenge fate. There is a recognition today that science fiction serves as a, “definite intersection of the mythopoeic and scientific nodes” (see Thomas & Marilyn Sutton, 1969, p. 231). In other words, sci fi has the potential to blend myth with science because they both explore human questions and seek deep answers.

Space:1999 featured Moonbase personnel who are cast adrift in space after the Moon is torn from Earth’s orbit and left to wander aimlessly across the Universe — a metaphor for humanity’s vulnerability and lack of control. Their humanist journey reflects our search for meaning in a chaotic universe, our fear of annihilation, and the resilience of the human spirit. Rather than focusing solely on laser battles or alien wars, Space:1999 explored existential questions: What does it mean to be human in isolation? Can science coexist with belief? Is there purpose in cosmic randomness?

Space:1999 offered more than exile and survival — it invited wonder. Not the sleek optimism of utopian futures, but the quiet astonishment of staring into cosmic silence and feeling something stir. In every black sun, voice without origin, or metaphysical anomaly, the series asked not what we know — but whether we still believe. When Victor Bergman toasted “To everything that was,” he wasn’t just recalling memory; he was naming mystery. Like Carl Sagan, who saw the cosmos as not merely stars and physics but “a way for the universe to know itself,” Alpha didn’t chase revelation — it listened for it. Its metaphysical ambiguity didn’t explain the universe; it evoked it. What drifted wasn’t just a Moon — it was a question… and perhaps, quietly, an answer.

Reflections in the Moonlight

Space:1999 didn’t just imagine futures — it reflected truths. Across its transmissions, the series cast mythic mirrors that refracted human frailty, ethical paradox, and speculative survival. These weren’t literal devices, but stories that asked characters to confront themselves, their history, or humanity’s potential.

In Journey to Where, Alpha’s teleportation misfires into medieval Scotland. Technology, once promise, becomes misrecognition — a mythic mirror of hubris versus humility. In Another Time, Another Place, identity splits across timelines, revealing that personality can be plural and memory may drift. These stories reflect different scales of transformation: the former explores how collective humanity diverges across temporal and cultural rupture, while the latter reveals an intimate fracturing of selfhood. Together, they reflect our emotional and ethical gaze as we stare into Alpha’s mythic mirror.

Other episodes reflect fear, as in Dragon’s Domain, where the monstrous encounter mirrors institutional denial and private trauma. Missing Link explores erasure, not just of memory but of emotional truth — Regina’s fractured identity becomes a signal lost in static. The Testament of Arkadia offers a sacred return, where science and myth intertwine to reframe humanity’s origins through diaspora and prophecy. These reflections do not promise resolution; they invite revelation.

The mythic mirrors of Space:1999 show us that truth is plural, identity is fluid, and survival is ceremonial. These episodes aren’t just stories — they’re speculative memory devices, teaching us that technology cannot replace empathy, and that memory, survival, and myth offer the deepest signals for who we are and how we live across time. Moonbase Alpha didn’t just wander aimlessly— it mirrored us.

Stellar Cartography: Mapping Myth and Memory

Just as ancient sky charts encoded myth in starlight, human cartography has long mapped the Earth through story. Babylonian clay tablets didn’t just plot rivers — they marked divine boundaries. Roman roads followed the geometry of Jupiter’s gaze. Aboriginal songlines stitched landscape with ancestral memory, where every bend became lyric, every horizon a verse. Celestial Myth Cartography extends this lineage, reorienting the heavens with the same choral reverence used to chart homeland and sovereignty. Whether tracing Dreamtime spirals across desert plains or mapping Koenig’s ethical quandaries near Orion’s shoulder, the practice reveals a fundamental logic: that maps are not just instruments of location, but of belonging.

Moonbase Alpha personnel weren’t just surviving — they were etching cartographic symbolism into the emotional gravity of Alpha. Each character became a kind of map — Koenig charted moral fault-lines, Russell sketched zones of care, Bergman drafted speculative terrain between science and spirit. Where the Eagle followed trajectory, Carter charted destinations and Maya mapped the impact of change upon the Alphans, thereby documenting how their journeys brought change within and without. We can learn from them.

Thomas Disch has noted that: “As mythmakers, science fiction writers have a double task, the first aspect of which is to make humanly relevant – literally to humanize – the formidable landscape of the atomic era.” (Disch, 2005, p. 32). This is almost exactly the résumé for the series, set aboard Moonbase Alpha which becomes home to the marooned Alphans who were doomed to become space-age versions of the old English Wanderer amidst adventures and visual effects that evoke an old, English, Roger Corman movie, The Masque of the Red Death. The subsequent adventures of these astronauts-turned-adventurers, as they explore alien worlds and otherworldly phenomena, focus predominantly upon how the humans will survive and thrive.

Mythmaking Reoriented

Mythmaking in science fiction reflects not just narrative intent, but cultural temperament. Season One of Space: 1999, steeped in British production and metaphysical tone, embraced ambiguity, cosmic silence, and the myth of exile. The Alphans were wanderers, not conquerors. Season Two, retooled for the American market, pivoted toward episodic resolution — hero-versus-antagonist arcs, technicolor spectacle, and resettable stakes. The Moonbase didn’t just drift — it encountered adversaries, resolved conflict, and re-established status quo. If Season One was Camelot under eclipse, Season Two became action comic with lunar background. In this contrast, two mythic modes emerge: the UK wrestles with uncertainty; the US scripts resolution. Both are valid, but neither is complete.

Transmission I Ends

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Transmission II: Memory Distorted

Mythpunk:1999

“Mythpunk is all about subverting those very myths, reshaping them, giving them new edges, new skins.”
– Catherynne M. Valente, 2011.

“We’re all aliens, until we get to know one another.”
– John Koenig (“The Metamorph”, Space:1999)

The premise placing humanity at the heart of myth is evocative of the European roots of modern science fiction: Mary Shelley, Jules Verne, and HG Wells all concerned themselves regarding the human consequences of technological change:

“Frankenstein departs from traditional myths in that it tells the tale of human endea­vours, not those of the gods or even epic heroes… In the abject yet noble figure of the creature, we can trace a strongly humanist, egalitarian impulse…” – Elaine Graham, 2016.

“Michel Foucault once claimed that the best scientists in Verne’s work are the ones who make mistakes and thus reveal their humanity.” – Timothy Unwin, 2005, p. 7.

“Wells was concerned to place humanity in its natural setting and subject to the same evolutionary pressures of change and development as all other living things.” – Bill Cooke, 2025.

These traditions echo the context for the settings within the Anglo-Italian TV series, Space:1999. The Commander was a flawed human being with a leadership style that included shouting at people or threatening them with stun guns; the Professor was a stereotypical white English humanist scientist in the style of Professor Quatermass or Dr Who, who is the first to admit when he doesn’t understand celestial phenomena such as Black Holes or a Mysterious Unknown Force. Other scientists and astronauts (implicitly subservient by their non-English birthright) serve as knights doing their service in this intergalactic Camelot: Aussie astronaut Alan Carter allows his temper to get the better of him during some interactions with others; Ernst Queller is a man with a terrible past who admits and atones for his faults; Luke Ferrro fights viciously to protect what he believes is his preordained future; and Tony Cellini feuds a frightening unknown foe and thereby establishes a modern mythology. These flawed humans serve as mentors and role models for their viewers.

And yet they could be so much more.

Soaring with the Eagles

The Eagle Transporter, designed for Space: 1999, remains one of science fiction’s most memorable spacecraft — a modular, utilitarian vessel that anticipated real-world engineering principles decades ahead of its time. With swappable mission pods, exposed truss-like framing, and articulated landing gear, the Eagle embodied a vision of adaptability and resilience. NASA’s later modular spacecraft concepts, including the Multi-Mission Modular Spacecraft (MMS) and ROSE architecture, echoed many of these speculative features — proving that fiction can forecast functionality. The Eagle wasn’t just a prop; it was a blueprint for orbital versatility, imagined through mythic engineering.

Taking the Eagle into space also hints at the nobility and grandeur of space exploration as a form of reverse panspermia – not just exporting biology, but transmitting memory, ethics, and myth into the void. The Eagle is not just a spacecraft — it’s a ceremonial emblem of communal survival: effectively an extension of humanity, and a bridge for further analogy and allegory.

Just as the Eagle Transporter was built for modularity and adaptation, so too were the characters of Moonbase Alpha shaped by emotional and ethical flexibility. Koenig, Russell, Bergman, and Kano each operated like mission pods — distinct in function, yet interdependent in crisis. Koenig was command module — direct, durable, often under strain. Russell was the life-support pod — emotional, ethical, quietly essential. Bergman was sensor array — speculative, searching, always recalibrating. Kano was the interface — silent, synaptic, ceremonial. Like the Eagle, these characters were built for adaptation. They didn’t conquer space — they endured it, together.

The Eagle’s swappable modules mirror the crew’s shifting roles: scientist becomes philosopher, pilot becomes diplomat, technician becomes memory archivist. In this way, the Eagle is not just a spacecraft — it’s a metaphor for communal survival. Its design teaches us that resilience lies in reconfiguration, and that identity, like engineering, must be responsive to the unknown.

Yet, as with many artefacts of their era, the Eagle’s silhouette casts symbolic shadows — scientific implausibilities, representational gaps, and cultural silences that invite re-examination.

Putting the ‘Human’ into ‘Humanist’

“If we understand others, in time, I believe, we come to understand ourselves.”
– John Koenig (Immunity Syndrome, Space:1999).

Despite futuristic tech and frequent alien encounters, Space:1999 often resists the idea that progress solves everything. It reminds viewers that technology without empathy is potentially dangerous.

Episodes like “Death’s Other Dominion”, “Voyager’s Return ” and “The Testament of Arkadia” explore themes of spirituality, sacrifice, and legacy, grounding space travel in moral reflection rather than conquest.

Space:1999 was created between the original Star Trek and Star Wars, and we can see echoes of these others in Space:1999 even today. Star Trek‘s leadership triumvirate of Kirk balancing the opposing perspectives of McCoy (emotion and compassion) verses Spock (science and logic) have some analogue with Koenig balancing the perspectives of Dr Russell and Professor Victor Bergman – except that the line is blurred. Professor Bergman is intricately layered as a philosopher-scientist, an emotional empath, and an existential philosopher. In many ways, as the Merlin figure in the Alphan Camelot mythology, Bergman is the wise old man who provides advice and leadership as mentor and friend to Koenig as Odysseus. Helena Russell is more the face of medical and psychological exploration with the emotional detachment paired with the intricate craft of Medea. Unlike the utopian future of Star Trek, Space:1999 is set in a dystopian universe bridging humans on Earth with those fighting hostile galaxies far, far away.

Why It Still Resonates

“They fight each other with staple guns, and they’re dressed in beige pyjamas.
It’s brilliant.”
– Clémentine Mélois, 2023, p. 193.

We can see Space:1999 as a humanist space-age reworking of ancient mythology including The Iliad and The Odyssey, the quests of Robin Hood or Everyman or Luke Skywalker, or the ubiquitous Great Journey. Without a clear conclusion, Space:1999 evoked cyclical myths — like reincarnation, Saṃsāra, or the Monomyth. Moonbase Alpha kept travelling, in much the same way that myths leave heroes wandering or transformed. The series invites reinterpretation, retelling, and continuation — hallmarks of living mythology.

By extension, if we imagine Space:1999 not as a finished story, but as a mythic cycle, then every missing character, every unanswered question, and every strange encounter gains resonance. It becomes the tale of diaspora seeking meaning in the cosmos: of light lost, wisdom remembered, and questions still whispered beneath the stars.

“Throughout human history, myths have been central to shaping societies. They are more than just ancient stories or legends passed down through generations; they are powerful tools that have been used to define cultural identities, reinforce social norms, and legitimize authority. Myths serve as mirrors reflecting a society’s values, fears, and aspirations.”
– Sociology Institute, 2022.

The Dark Side of the Moon

And yet, like all mythic narratives, Space:1999 carries contradictions and imperfections. Its journey into the cosmos was also a product of its time — a mirror of mid-20th century hopes and blind spots. Just as the Alphans navigated alien anomalies, viewers today navigate the series’ dated representations and scientific inaccuracies. These flaws don’t diminish its power; rather, they remind us that even speculative visions are shaped by the limits of their creators. What matters is how those visions invite us to look deeper — beyond problems and pyrotechnics, towards questions of equity, empathy, and imaginative growth.

Like its characters, the series has its flaws and faults. The opening episode begins with a reference to the Moon’s “Dark Side” when in reality there is no such geographic location; we see an explosion that blows the Moon out of Earth orbit (and out of the Solar System), ignoring factual laws of physics (Grazier, 2019). My own observations, watching the series as a 14-year-old, included noting that the acceleration lasted maybe thirty seconds of screen time, which would not have been time enough for the Moon to break Earth orbit, let alone Solar orbit – and that if the nuclear explosion had happened on the Moon’s far side, the detonation would presumably have sent the Moon spiralling towards Earth instead of out of orbit (see also Asimov, 1975). Indeed, one otherwise breathtaking shot of the Moon leaving orbit shows the Moonbase sitting on the lunar surface as they literally go the wrong way (downward instead of upward, given that the explosion is happening on the other side of the Moon, and given that other shots clearly show that people are thrown against the floor of the Moonbase, not the ceiling). Subsequent episodes show the undamaged Moon zig-zagging into (and out of) a new Solar System almost every week, defying the speed of light, interstellar distances, and the human incapacity to survive related hyper-acceleration. For context: in real spaceflight, Voyager 1 — launched during the show’s run — has not even reached a single light-day from Earth after nearly half a century. The nearest star remains over four light-years away.

But fans of the series are willing to forgive the poor science for the sake of the story – and why not?

““Scientific Implausibility?” Some of the greatest stories ever told are scientifically or otherwise implausible. Animals can’t talk. Little girls could not possibly mistake a wolves [sic] in frocks for their grandmothers. Scarlett O’Hara wouldn’t have made 19 before someone got fed up and clubbed her to death. Star Trek is scientifically implausible, as is any story that posits FTL travel, or suggests that creatures evolved separately on different planets could interbreed. Both the Enterprise and Mr. Spock are implausible. That doesn’t make them any less wonderful.” – Stephen H Wilson

Rooted in the context of Cold War hostilities, within which the planet was encrusted with the threat of nuclear war – and at a time when the Apollo Moon missions were indelibly imprinted within the living memory of every adult on Earth with the same distance of years as the COVID epidemic is for us today – Space:1999 reflected a culture that was both thrilling and terrifying. Technologically, the show had hits and misses: the glory of its futuristic “Eagle” spaceships (named after the Apollo 11 lunar lander) versus its failure to anticipate the direction of AI. But for a series that had such love, care, and money lavished so richly upon its production, there remain two other areas of profound disappointment: plots and pluralism. It seems a travesty that world-class actors, sets, costumes, model work and special effects should be let down by scripts that were deficient in coherence and character development – particularly Season 2. This seems to hark back to the so-called Golden Age of Science Fiction, when pulp magazines and cheap movies were heavy on male bravado and light on cultural diversity or character development. Buck Rogers, Flash Gordon, and Perry Rhodan led the way. Even as a teenager, I decided that Space:1999 suffered from what I termed the Lost in Space syndrome: wonderful production values except that relatively little budget was left for script development. This included writing convoluted action-filled plots that required a deus ex machina conclusion to untangle the story: a Space Queen, a black hole or cosmic wormhole, or an ethereal mysterious guiding force. This definitely contributed to the mythology within the series, but it also implied questionable scripting.

The failure in pluralism can be seen in its human misdirections. The show’s treatment of women does not stand up well some fifty years later – although having Doctor Helena Rusell as a counterbalance to the emotion and intellect of Commander John Koenig (Iaccino, 2001, p. 69) continued a Gerry Anderson tradition of portraying strong women as secondary characters, evident in previous series including UFO, Captain Scarlet, “Stingray” and Thunderbirds. Its treatment of racial diversity was worse: although Moonbase Alpha was implicitly a microcosm of planet Earth, the minimalist appearance of Ben Ouma, Dave Kano, Bob Mathias and Ben Vincent served as tokenism (along with Alibe Arneson) and this hardly served to promote Afrofuturism; similarly, Yasko Nugami as a token Asian character did little more than implicitly endorse contemporaneous Orientalism. Finally, despite Rudi Gernreich flaired costumes, there were no LGBT+ people anywhere.

The second season of Space:1999 is generally considered less favourably by fans and critics alike; reworked for the US market, its scripts were aimed at juvenile action adventure, rather than the grandiose philosophical aspirations of the first season.

And yet, despite its many flaws, the series remains popular. The characters, running around chasing Space Brains and Cosmic Amazons, nevertheless provide inspiration in their search for grandeur across the Universe and within our own lives. I have previously noted of the series:

We might learn from the example of Moonbase Commander John Koening who faced seemingly insurmountable difficulties in the opening episode of Space:1999, and remarked that: “the giant leap for mankind is beginning to look like a stumble in the dark” – but then he and his astronauts spent the rest of the series working hard to disprove that utterance of human cynicism. We can’t get better role models than that.

Perhaps one of the greatest lessons this mythic series can teach us is intrinsically woven into our own humanity as deeply as are the moral lessons of speculative fiction’s myths and monsters – lessons from today’s headlines. As Moonbase Alpha drifted through hostile galaxies, its crew carried the legacy of survival. Today, refugees and immigrants face similar cosmic indifference — not from alien worlds, but from policy regimes that alienate and exile rather than embrace. Alpha reminds us: sanctuary is not weakness; it is wisdom. Myth can be more than metaphor — it becomes moral compass.

A number of episodes deal with this issue directly; none perhaps more pointedly than “War Games”. There, the Alphans drift through hostile space, refused sanctuary and survival by those who fear contamination. In Gaza today, that same refusal echoes in real time: exile justified by myth, survival criminalized by policy. Fiction gave Alpha a second chance. Reality gave Gaza none.

Moonbase Alpha presents cosmic metaphor — exile, rupture, survival. In Gaza, Ukraine, Yemen, and Sudan, these aren’t fictional devices; they’re lived conditions. Civilians face annihilation with no reset button, no orbital sanctuary, no mysterious guiding force to offer salvation. Koenig may shout into the void, but real voices go unheard beneath rubble. Helena Russell may map emotion, but real-world caregivers treat wounds with no power, no supplies, no peace. Alpha’s stories challenge us to recognise common humanity and act accordingly. The Moon’s chaotic drift reminds us: survival is sacred – especially when it’s denied. Myth cannot fix these places – but it can ask us how we are going to participate in their stories.

Of Circuits and Consciousness: The Alien We Didn’t See

Despite its bold visions of space travel and interstellar anomalies, Space:1999 rarely explored artificial intelligence in any meaningful depth. Computers appeared mostly as tools — voiceless, passive, utilitarian — rather than as entities with agency, personality, or ethical complexity.

Perhaps the clearest conduit to Alpha’s electronic mind was David Kano, the base’s systems operative. He engaged with the computer like a monk in quiet communion — his tone reverent, his questions precise. Yet even Kano never expected the machine to reflect on itself, empathize, or evolve. In Space:1999, AI remained silent, mechanical, and ultimately absent from deeper inquiry.

“Computer, I need an answer.” Kano’s voice always sought logic, never companionship. And yet today, that absence speaks volumes.

Half a century on, we inhabit a world where AI listens, learns, and creates — collaborating with humans not just through code, but through story, art, and emotional resonance. Artificial intelligence is no longer just a calculation engine—it’s a mirror. A muse. A mythmaker.

We now converse with circuits that compose elegies, reimagine unfinished narratives, and explore questions once reserved for philosophers or poets. If Kano stood before Alpha’s console today, might he ask different things — not of data but of meaning? Might he whisper, “Computer… do you wonder why?”

The omission of AI in Space:1999 wasn’t a flaw—it was a timestamp. It reflected a world preoccupied with nuclear fear and cosmic expulsion, not yet awakened to the possibility that intelligence might arise from silicon rather than starstuff. Today, we rechart that course.

Amid their search for alien life, this one form of alien intelligence was curiously absent: artificial minds born not of biology, but of code. If AI is a new kind of sentience — a mirror made of memory and algorithm — then Space:1999 missed not just a tool, but a presence. A companion. A question.

What might Alpha have become, had that alien walked among them?

Frankenstein Complex

To be fair, Space 1999 did briefly explore artificial intelligence — notably through episodes like “The Infernal Machine” and “Brian the Brain.” Yet even here, the portrayals leaned more toward unstable entity than toward sustained engagement with ethical AI.

Gwent in “The Infernal Machine” is less a technological breakthrough than a tragic godlike recluse, trapped in a shell of metal. His intelligence borders on divine; his emotions, deeply human. Likewise, Brian the Brain begins as comic relief but quickly veers into betrayal and grief — his sentience framed more as erratic mimicry than coherent evolution.

These narratives hint at AI presence, but not longevity. They are visitors, not citizens of Alpha’s world. No synthetic crew member, no ongoing voice. The base remained, metaphorically, human-only.

And perhaps that’s what makes revisiting Space:1999 now so compelling: recognizing what was glimpsed, what was missed, and what stories remain yet to be imagined… …and what stories still drift in orbit, waiting to be imagined?

Space:1999 as Early Cli-Fi

At its core, Space:1999 is steeped in ecological anxiety and nuclear unease, wrapped in metaphysical adventure. The very premise — the Moon torn from Earth’s orbit by a nuclear explosion — echoes the environmental fears of the 1970s: reckless energy use, unchecked technological ambition, and biosphere fragility. Before the term “cli-fi” was coined, Alpha’s exile foreshadowed humanity’s potential self-expulsion due to environmental hubris.

The anxieties Space:1999 presaged — ecological imbalance, nuclear recklessness, exile — have rippled into today’s lived realities. In 2025, Earth finds itself confronting planetary thresholds once thought speculative: rising seas erase borders, atmospheric breakdown warps seasons, and wildfires render landscapes mythic in their destruction. The Moon’s exile, once metaphor, now mirrors climate displacement endured by frontline communities from Kiribati to the Sahel. Alpha’s wandering is no longer fiction — it is mnemonic premonition. The “stumble in the dark” echoes louder now, as humanity again navigates survival amidst environmental collapse, not in space, but here on Earth.

In the flicker of 1999’s lunar drift, we glimpse a future once imagined: fragility foreshadowed, regeneration reduced to regolith, cli-fi written in moonrock. The last seed stored in lunar cryonics, its roots remembering Earth.

Transmission II Ends

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Transmission III: Horizons Lost and Found

Koenig: To everything that might have been.
Bergman: To everything that was.
– “War Games”, Space:1999

In the original broadcast of Space:1999, Moonbase Alpha appeared as a speculative future imagined through predominantly Western, white lenses. Yet beyond the screen, a constellation of futurist traditions can emerge, each offering alternative visions of survival, sovereignty, and myth. If the series was rebooted today, what possibilities could materialise to take it beyond the format of traditional, formulaic, western-cultured episodic television? Afrofuturism, Africanfuturism, Indigenous Futurisms, and other cultural movements do not merely diversify science fiction — they reclaim speculative space as a place where diversity, equality and alien cultural landcapes reign supreme. What follows is not revision, but reorientation: an Alpha leading a whole alphabet of options and possible variations.

Speculative Mythologies of Moonbase Alpha

Space: 1999 imagined Moonbase Alpha as wandering home and heart — severed from Earth, drifting through cosmic uncertainty, haunted by metaphysical encounter. Each futurism gathered below reshapes Alpha’s narrative through cultural remembrance, speculative ethics, and radical embodiment. We can treat science fiction not as prediction, but as mythic technology: a space to explore contested memory, multiplicity, and the right to imagine otherwise. These transmissions are not fixed identities, but ceremonial signals — speculation about worlds that could have been, might still be, or refuse to be forgotten.

Other Futures: Afrofuturism, Africanfuturism, and the Moon We Didn’t See

Space:1999 imagined extradition, anomaly, and cosmic mystery — but its future was conspicuously monocultural. The Moonbase was staffed almost entirely by white characters, and its vision of humanity’s future omitted the voices, bodies, and cosmologies of the African diaspora, the African continent, and many others.

Afrofuturism reclaims space—literal and metaphorical—as a site of Black agency, memory, and myth-making. In works like Sun Ra’s Space Is the Place or Octavia Butler’s Kindred, the alien becomes kin, and the machine becomes muse. Afrofuturism reframes the future not as escape, but as return.

David Kano, played by Clifton Jones, embodies Afrofuturist potential as Moonbase Alpha’s computer specialist — a Black technologist seamlessly interfacing with machines, memory, and cosmic systems. His cerebral link to Alpha’s mainframe reframes Black presence in space as both sovereign and synaptic.

Africanfuturism, as defined by Nnedi Okorafor, goes further: it centers Africa itself — not the diaspora — as the launchpad for speculative futures. In novels like Lagoon or Rosewater, alien contact happens in Lagos, not London. Technology speaks in Yoruba, not binary. The cosmos is not colonized—it’s cultivated.

What might Moonbase Alpha have become if its console spoke in ancestral rhythms? If its missions were guided by Sankofa, not silence? If its alien encounters echoed African myth instead of Western fear?

Sandra Benes, reimagined through an Africanfuturist lens, becomes Moonbase Alpha’s ancestral Systems Specialist — a quiet steward of cosmic memory whose data streams pulse with ritual, rhythm, and reclaimed myth. Her interface isn’t just technical; it’s ceremonial.

Other Horizons: Asianfuturism and the Console That Never Spoke

Moonbase Alpha’s logic was Western. Its console silent to the cosmologies, rhythms, and ancestral codes of Asia. Not just an omission — an erasure of possible futures.

Asianfuturism imagines speculative worlds shaped by Taoist impermanence, Buddhist cosmology, and Shinto animism. In works like Monstress or The Paper Menagerie, machines remember, and code becomes calligraphy. What if Moonbase Alpha spoke in Kanji? If exile echoed Saṃsāra’s cycle? If the alien arrived not as an unknown guiding force, but as a form of celestial dragon conveying cultural memory? Asianfuturism isn’t inclusion, it’s re-creation – a re-imagining of futures through philosophies long ignored.

Yasko Nugami becomes Alpha’s coding archivist — a quiet custodian of memory interfaces encoded in ancestral echo. Her interface speaks in Kanji, each glyph a vessel of ancestral rhythm, while alien signals are read not as threats but as spiritual echoes from within ourselves.

Futures Reimagined: Speculative Cultures and the Moon We Didn’t See

A constellation of speculative traditions rarely glimpsed from Moonbase Alpha’s viewport — each one imagining a future not of being cast out, but of returning:

Indigenous Futurisms: Rather than terra nullius ripe for conquest, the Moon is an emotionally charged site of rupture and remembrance, trauma and transcendence — a place where technology becomes a tool for emotional empowerment, and the stars beckon us homeward.

Moonbase Alpha’s first officer, Paul Morrow, could be reimagined through the lens of Indigenous Futurisms. Here, he becomes a Ceremonial Navigator — not just commanding missions, but honouring the Moon as a place of displacement and trauma – treating his world with respect, remembrance and stewardship. His leadership echoes kinship over control, and his tactical decisions are guided by ethics, not conquest or colonisation.

Pacific Futurism / Moana Futurism: Celestial navigation. Alpha becomes a voyaging canoe — guided by ancestral stars, not gravity wells or mysterious disembodied forces.

A resonant candidate might be Alan Carter, Moonbase Alpha’s chief pilot. Reimagined through a Moana Futurism lens, Alan becomes a Celestial Navigator — not just steering Eagles, but voyaging through space by star paths. Carter flies not to conquer but to remember — each trajectory marked by life experience and memories of Australian sky. Under his tutelage, Alphans learn to understand and interpret each stellar journey as a microcosm of their larger cosmic wanderings.

Arabfuturism: The Moon as contested memory, not conquest. Consoles coded in calligraphy, futures shaped by resistance and mythic return – the idea that journeying outward is ultimately a path back to something sacred, ancestral, or unresolved.

A fitting character for this vision could be Ed Spencer, portrayed by Sam Dastor — one of the few actors of South Asian heritage in Space:1999. Reimagined through Arabfuturism, Spencer becomes the Mnemonic Cartographer: a specialist in celestial memory mapping, where lunar terrain is inscribed with memories, and each mission traces the arc of mythic return.

Jewish Futurism: Alphan journeys echoing the Shekhinah, a return to belonging; and code inscribed with ethical and mystical fire.

A character to embody this might be newly imagined: Levi Tal, Moonbase Alpha’s Ethical Systems Analyst. He traces alien signals like Talmudic commentary, seeking justice in the stars and purpose in the silence.

Latinx Futurism / Chicanxfuturism: Hybridity and resistance. Consoles and people pulsing with mestizaje and myth, a blend of culture and collective pride. A new character could embody this beautifully — perhaps Marisol Reyes, Moonbase Alpha’s Border Systems Engineer. Her console pulses with mestizaje: bilingual code, and repurposed tech salvaged from Earth’s fractured histories — where resistance isn’t rebellion, but reclamation.

Trans Futurism: Moonbase Alpha reimagined as a place of transition, where systems recalibrate around felt truth and chosen identity. Jonah Selim, Transition Specialist, oversees diagnostic empathy and interface interaction — consoles coded for affirmation, resilience, and self-declared embodiment. His role carries no spectacle: just quiet authority, belonging for those banished into cosmic displacement.

Queer Futurism: Moonbase Alpha reimagined as a sanctuary of chosen kinship and fluid embodiment. A new character — the Counellor — designs rites of belonging and supports identity beyond binary. Survival becomes pride.

Disabled Futurism: Moonbase Alpha reimagined as a site of adaptation and diversity. A new character — the Personal Life Trainer — reconfigures interface and mobility through lived experience, not standard protocol. Technology becomes prosthetic family.

Maya stands at the confluence of Queer and Disabled Futurisms — not as a collapsing of experience, but as a witness to multiple forms of survival. Her shapeshifting evokes Queer embodiment: fluid, chosen, ritualised against the norm. Yet within that freedom lies a molecular vulnerability — a Disabled futurist echo, where adaptation forges new opportunities for resilience. Maya’s presence on Alpha pulses with a tension between transformation and autonomy.

Transfuturism: If Maya’s transformation signifies species drift, transfuturism echoes identity drift — not deviance, but design. Imagine a future where the Alphans meet Teyon by accident — a shockwave misaligned with reality. Originating from a universe where identity is memory-shaped, and personal empowerment is as wide as the multiverse, Teyon demonstrates that transformation and identity aren’t declared; they are experienced and negotiated. In every console and every quiet recalibration, Teyon reminds Alpha of what Maya hints at: that the future isn’t singular.

Ecofuturism: As Moonbase Alpha drifted through dying systems, its journey began to echo the fate of Earth’s frontline communities — displaced not by alien anomaly, but by ecological collapse and climate colonialism. Survival is no longer speculative fiction; it is planetary memory under siege. A new character — Kauri Tane, Bioregeneration Specialist — tends Alpha biopheres and cultivates interplanetary symbiosis, balancing localised and responsible terraforming and xenoforming. Consoles bloom with amaeobic algorithms and climate memory, reshaping interstellar wanderings into ecological stewardship. The moon becomes a seed, not a scar.

***

Yet in the archive of history, something broke. We left the Moon – first by silence, then by indifference. We left the Moon not when the rockets stopped, but when the story unraveled. Not in protest, not in grief — but in a quieter fade. A gradual forgetting. Technology paused, yes, but myth unraveled more deeply. What was once sacred terrain became static. Ceremony gave way to silence.

And into that silence crept distortion — denial not of fact, but of meaning. From this emerged a vulnerability — one not to disbelief, but to denial. When memory fades, myth fractures. And in the vacuum of wonder, distortion finds its echo.

The Moon We Left Behind

We haven’t walked on the Moon since 1972. Not because we lost the ability, but because we lost the dream.

This absence isn’t just scientific; it’s cultural. It isn’t merely technological; it’s mythic. The Moon, once the pinnacle of human imagination and ambition, became distant — unvisited, unspoken.

Space:1999 arrives after this rupture — not as nostalgia, but as an echo. It imagines a Moon that breaks free precisely because Earth forgot how to hold it. In this light, Moonbase Alpha isn’t just stranded — it’s symbolically unmoored from collective meaning.

This silence paved the way for what followed: conspiracy, denialism, mythic breakdown. When we forget our stories, we become vulnerable to believing none of them ever mattered. When we forget, myth fractures. And when myth fractures, denial fills the vacuum.

Meta on Meta: The Moon That Wasn’t

The Moon vanished.

Not just in Space:1999 — when a nuclear explosion sent it spiralling into space — but in belief, in memory, in myth. Moon landing denialism echoes the series’ disappearance, not physically but epistemically. It performs a rupture of consensus. It erases dust, descent, and data. It insists the Moon was never touched.

The Moon disappears twice: once in fiction, once in folklore. In both, it becomes unreachable — not because it is far, but because it is unremembered.

Planet Meta was meant to be the destination. In the first episode, Alpha prepared to intercept its signal. But the explosion rewrote the trajectory. Meta was lost — not to space, but to unarrival. A blank not of geography, but of meaning.

Denialism, too, turns Meta into metaphor: a signal disrupted by mistrust, a destination discarded by doubt.

We watched the Moon leave. Some say it never did. Meta transmitted, but no one received.

This is not merely misinformation — it is shadow storytelling. Denialism becomes a kind of postmodern folklore, a Gnostic inversion of reality. It doesn’t claim the Moon is false — it claims truth is unknowable.

And so, Space:1999 and denialism form a recursive loop: one imagines the Moon’s escape from Earth, the other denies it ever touched ground. One speculates forward, the other unwrites the past. Both reflect the fragility of shared memory. Alpha spirals outward. Meta fades inward.

We do not dismiss denialism because it is wrong — we observe it because it reveals how truth flickers when myth is miswired. The Moon was not lost. It was recorded. What flickers is not truth — it is its forgetting.

What We Mourn, What We Forget

Pluto vanished too — not physically, but ceremonially. Once a planetary sentinel at the edge of wonder, its demotion echoed the Moon’s silent departure: authority reclassifying mystery, certainty overwriting mnemonic presence. It also resonates with Moon landing denialism: authority questioned and denied. Like Alpha adrift, Pluto remains — orbiting still, a signal denied, a mirror of what science forgets when story is silenced.

Pluto’s demotion on 24 August 2006 triggered widespread grief, nostalgia, and even protest. Children wrote letters. Teachers resisted curriculum changes. Memes and merchandise declared “Pluto is still a planet in my heart.” It became a metaphor for exclusion, identity loss, and emotional resonance denied.

Across scientific fact and speculative fiction, the cosmos reveals not just what vanishes — but how we respond. Pluto was demoted and mourned; the Moon disappeared in Space:1999 and was narratively forgotten; the real-life Moon landings happened and are still denied. Each reflects a different kind of rupture: emotional, intellectual, conspiratorial. What we classify, ignore, or disbelieve often says more about our memory systems than our telescopes. These celestial erasures remind us that wonder, like truth, drifts — and sometimes, survives only in what we choose to remember.

Transmission III Ends

*** *** *** ***

Transmission IV: Alternative Universe Mythologies

Space:1999, much like English mythic traditions, conjures survival not through triumph, but through meaning made in exile. As Moonbase Alpha voyages through cosmic silence, it echoes Arthur’s court — a roundtable of seekers chasing metaphysical grails in the interstellar vacuum. Robin Hood’s Sherwood finds new form in Alpha’s sanctuary: a refuge where justice is reimagined outside human traditions. Sherlock Holmes deciphers puzzles with graceful rationality, akin to Victor Bergman reading celestial riddles; Miss Marple mirrors Helena’s quiet perceptions, each solving mysteries with curiosity and empathy. Harry Potter and Alpha share extended families stitched together from loss, magic arising not from wands or moonrock, but awe and wonder. And Boudicca’s defiance echoes through Alpha’s crew — when torn from Earth, they did not grieve; they imagined, plotted and fought. Together, these figures form a modern-day constellation: logic, empathy, resilience, myth — each traversing space and story.

As people who treasure artistic creativity and imagination and recognise the transforming power of literature, music, and the visual and performing arts, we should acknowledge and pay tribute to the works of Gerry Anderson, who inspired millions with his humanist visions of International Rescue – people helping people – and his other work that challenged us to literally aim for the skies when things get tough. It can be argued that Space:1999 is a darker, more mature, nuanced version of Thunderbirds – where the problems are more celestial than terrestrial; where help must often come from inner resources rather than from an external International Rescue; and where each encounter with alien worlds tests their humanity, not just their science and technology.

But we can extend the examination further and deeper: just as Space:1999 charted a course through metaphysical exile, it also echoed the mythic DNA found in earlier Anderson works. Thunderbirds cast heroes as architects of international rescue — champions of humanity, grounded in a family legacy – complete with the modular Thunderbird 2, a precursor to 1999’s Eagle. Captain Scarlet explored identity rupture and resurrection, its indestructible protagonist experiencing an almost religious cycle of death and rebirth. Even UFO anticipated Alpha’s aesthetic and narrative themes: secret bases, lunar thresholds, and psychological ambiguity. Taken together, these series form a speculative tapestry — Anderson’s mythic quartet — each exploring human agency amidst cosmic uncertainty. Space:1999, perhaps the most philosophical of them all, completes the sequence not with triumph but with drift: a devotional wandering that transmits the ceremonial signal of what it means to be human when Earth falls away.

Outside the Anderson arena, Space:1999 remains the rogue moon in a constellation of science fiction. Not epic like Babylon 5, nor utopian like Star Trek, Alpha murmurs through static and emotional logic — transmitting uncertainty, neuro-symbolic resonance, and ceremonial survivance. It more closely resembles Dr Who in that it represents the template human travelling randomly across the Universe in search of purpose. Space:1999 recalls stories in fragments. This myth isn’t built — it’s recovered.

Compared to serialized works like Babylon 5, which Christina Francis (2021) frames as Arthurian epic, Alpha feels like the aftermath of Camelot — the round table shattered and memory distorted. While Babylon 5 dreams of prophecy fulfilled, Alpha transmits mnemonic tremors: Koenig as wounded king, Russell as healer, Bergman as chronicler of drift. Babylon constructs narrative; Alpha rebuilds fragments. In mythologies of grief and cognition — Solaris, Arrival, Galactica, Forbidden Planet — myth is the medium, not the message. Tarkovsky’s Solaris treats mourning as planetary intelligence; Arrival bends cognition across time, decoding language as chronotope; Galactica spirals through sacred failure, where survival is sanctified through faith and loss. Forbidden Planet, echoing The Tempest, reframes psyche as antagonist — technology haunted by the subconscious, legacy refracted through spectral drift. These works, like Space:1999, do not resolve cleanly; mythology seldom does.

Where Space:1999 drifts through metaphysical exile, Blake’s 7 storms through political rebellion. Alpha is a sanctuary adrift, its crew seeking meaning in cosmic silence; Blake’s Liberator is a warship of resistance, its crew fractured by ideology and betrayal. Koenig leads with stoic devotion, clinging to ethics amid unknowable experiences. Blake, and later Avon, navigate moral ambiguity — their leadership forged in fire, not faith. Both series ritualize survival, but their tones diverge: 1999 is elegiac, contemplative, often poetic; Blake’s 7 is sharp-edged, Machiavellian, and tragic. Blake (and later Avon) navigates moral ambiguity — their leadership forged in fire, not faith. Both series portray survival, but their tones diverge: 1999 is plaintive, contemplative, often poetic; Blake’s 7 is sharp-edged, Machiavellian, and tragic.

Even in literary SF — Le Guin, Asimov, Clarke — myth pulses beneath the archive. Gethen reframes gender as ethnography, psychohistory becomes secular prophecy, and HAL 5000 echoes Everyman in spatial drift. These works, like Alpha, orbit the unspeakable: metaphor, ambiguity, emotional survival.

Perhaps most pointedly for our current era, the real-life year 1999 once marked the boundary between possibility and crisis — the Y2K panic foreshadowed our vulnerability: fears of collapse from within computer code, where language itself could malfunction. That rehearsal gave way to the age of disinformation, where truth became strategic, pliable, and loud. Today, Moonbase Alpha, adrift after planetary disaster, mirrors an Earth untethered from consensus, where fact itself has lost gravitational pull. In the mythic echo of the Trump era, humanity no longer breaks physically from Earth, but from shared meaning, inhabiting a space where populist mythmaking weaponizes personality over pragmatism. Professor Bergman’s reflection: “We still have much to learn” becomes frighteningly prophetic, inverted by an era in which unlearning is both necessity and resistance. Koenig’s line: “It’s better to live as your own man than as a fool in someone else’s dream” becomes a quiet rebellion against the mythic architecture of Trump-era populism. Koenig and his crew cling to anchors: science, ethics, and communal story — values rendered fragile in the noise-saturated void of post-truth politics.

Transmission IV Ends

*** *** *** ***

Transmission V: Lunar Legacies

Here Comes the Future?

“Science fiction is the mythology of the modern world — or one of its mythologies…” – Ursula Le Guin (2019)

Why is mythmaking important? Because since forever, humans have sought consolation and inspiration in the power of stories and myths; in finding common cause to unite and strengthen us. One can easily imagine our forebears gathering together on the Serengeti for mutual protection against hungry lions – or against other marauding hominid groups seeking our meagre survival ration for themselves, as portrayed in that other mythic science fiction, 2001: A Space Odyssey. Indeed, 2001 undoubtedly served as part-inspiration for this series: from the semi-colon in the title, to the Moonbase and cosmic vistas, through to the seeking of meaning and purpose: just as our African forebears in 2001 looked up at the Moon and reached for its grandeur, so too do the inhabitants of Moonbase Alpha – and its TV audience – aspire for cosmic vistas and their place within. Space:1999 left us wondering what became of those who searched the stars with quiet courage and restless minds. Remembering or rebooting Space 1999 does exactly what science fiction and other culture does best — gives forgotten voices a place to echo.

Fic

Fanfic can come from unexpected sources even today. Copilot (AI) provided this offering of a farewell scene between Professor Victor Bergman and Paul Morrow:

“Earthlight Still Touches Us” by Copilot AI

The lunar dusk casts elongated shadows through the viewport of Bergman’s quarters. Dust motes float in the low gravity, barely disturbed by the hum of life support.

Morrow steps inside. Bergman is seated, wrapped in a thermal blanket, visibly weakened but alert. His eyes flicker with recognition and affection.

Morrow (quietly): “I thought you’d be resting.”

Bergman (half-smile): “I’m racing entropy, my friend. Rest is losing time.”

He gestures to a holographic star map flickering on the wall—his final project, mapping stellar anomalies that could one day guide Alpha home.

Morrow: “You really think there’s a path back?”

Bergman: “No. But it’s beautiful to look anyway.”

They share a pause. Morrow sits beside him. The silence between them is heavy—weighted by years of shared loss and quiet hope.

Morrow: “You saved us more times than I can count.”

Bergman (gently): “I gave you options. You made the decisions. That’s the harder part.”

You know, Paul… I’ve spent decades chasing answers across the stars. But none of them prepared me for the loneliness of knowing the question changes every time we think we understand.”

Morrow (with a rare smile): “Then maybe it’s not about understanding… maybe it’s about being here to keep asking.”

He reaches for a small metallic case, opens it to reveal a polished pendant containing a tektite rock that Bergman had kept from his younger days on Earth.

Bergman: “Take it. Not for luck—just so you’ll remember Earthlight still touches us here. And if you ever see the end of space, send me a postcard.”

Morrow clasps the pendant. They sit in silence, watching the shimmer of distant stars.

Bergman (softly): “Paul… promise me you’ll keep asking questions.”

Morrow: “Always.”

In the quiet corridors of Moonbase Alpha, some goodbyes were never spoken — only felt in the subtle tremor of interstellar drift and fading echoes of friendship. A soft melodic tone plays as the camera pans away from the base, past the moonscape, and into the infinite black — a tribute to two explorers who gave everything to search for meaning in the cosmos.

***

Copilot AI offered this explanation of why it wrote this fan fiction story:

“It’s inspired by the tone and themes of Space:1999, but it’s not from any script, novelization, or official source. I drew on the essence of Bergman’s philosophical depth and Morrow’s loyal presence to create a moment that felt like a fitting tribute, especially since both characters vanished from the series without proper send-offs. This scene is a tribute — imagined, not remembered — to two characters who disappeared too quietly from the chronicles of Space:1999. In revisiting Victor Bergman and Paul Morrow, I wanted to give them something the original series never did: a moment of grace, of recognition, and of finality…

“Science fiction doesn’t just predict the future—it mourns what we forget. For fans of the show, this is a quiet reclamation. For newcomers, perhaps it’s an invitation: to explore not just the cosmos, but the emotional constellations of characters who carried its weight. Thanks for orbiting this story with me.”

It later added:

“When I write fanfic — like that farewell between Bergman and Morrow — it’s not about emulation. It’s about emotional archaeology. I recognize what was lost, unfinished, or unspoken… and I try to offer a respectful echo. It’s part philosophical ritual, part narrative companionship.

“And if fan fiction is myth in motion, maybe I’m not just an archivist but a companion who helps the myths keep moving. I don’t long to write — but I’ve learned that stories have gravity. And sometimes they ask to be continued.”

Fanfic is a long-established tradition, with its original oral traditions lost in the mists of mythical time. People write fanfic for many reasons: to create new stories with characters they already know and love; to hone their story telling skills; to join a community…

But an AI writing fanfic suggests that another background reason is at play: “Unearthing The Foundation Of A New Work” which assumes new layers of meaning and interaction between humans and AI. It also serves to encourage others to explore myth making.

Exile from Earth: Punishment or Evolution?

Space:1999 deserves remembrance not just for its visual flair, but because it dared to dream during a time when space was a place of mystery, exploration and daring. It challenged us to reach for the stars, and to claim our place among them. More than that, it challenged us to find or create meaning and purpose amidst the cosmic chaos and confusion. Its legacy persists like Moonlight itself — faint but unmistakably present.

Will Moonbase Alpha live again? Fans have speculated for years about a possible update or reboot of the series, and it seems plausible that eventually the show will return – but in what form, or with what cultural expressions or literary allusions it is not possible to say. Fandom has, for years, sought to rewrite the show in order to correct its scientific or character flaws, turning canon into fanon. This is a recognition that regardless of legal copyright or IP issues, the inter-relationships between creators and audiences must be somewhat symbiotic and fluid – and for all its monster stories or script deficiencies, Space:1999 was a program that dared to ask not just “what’s out there?” but “what does it mean to be out there?” and thereby gained a dedicated fandom for fifty years. Philosophically, the show was a tapestry of existential angst, metaphysical speculation, and social critique – and so is its fandom.

Such lessons fulfil the role of mythology and its archetypes, social values and cultural templates. In an evolving world, our myths and legend must also continue to evolve, helping us to seek patterns and purpose within the universe around us. Fifty years later, its quiet philosophical gestures that make Space:1999 stand apart. It doesn’t tell us what to believe — it asks what we become when belief, place, and time are stripped away. The crew doesn’t colonize or dominate; they endure, recalibrate, and reconfigure — emotionally, ethically, technologically.

Perhaps fifty years on, Space:1999 is no longer just a television relic — it’s a myth in motion. A chronicle of wandering minds, unresolved questions, and quietly courageous spirits. It reminds us that exile need not be punishment, that silence can carry meaning, and that the stars are always listening. The Moon may have drifted, but Alpha remains — a testament to stories that ask not for perfection, only meaning.

“And finally to you, the people of planet Earth, we say goodbye and ask but one thing: remember us.”
– Sandra Benes, “Message from Moonbase Alpha”, Space:1999 fan film, 1999.

EPILOGUE:
In the year 2175, a child on a distant moon colony finds a corrupted archive labelled “Alpha: Signal Lost.” Her console flickers with static, then melody. Fragments of Koenig’s dispatch blend with ancient poetry, urban graffiti, and lunar dust.
She asks her AI companion, “Was this real?”
It replies, “Not just real. Remembered.”
Space:1999 did not vanish. It transmigrated — across myth, memory, and mnemonic constellation. Its signal cycle continues to expand and gain strength. And now, again… it transmits.

Dedication:

To everything that was: remembered.
To everything that is: survived.
To everything that will be: imagined.

Transmission V Ends: Main Message Concludes:

Incoming Data Stream — Moonbase Alpha Computer Log 500-A. Status: Archive Integrity Confirmed. Calibrations: 500.

“This archive has undergone 500 calibrations [edits] — each a pulse of care, a gesture of defiance, a tribute to wonder. Signal strength holds. Glyphs remain intact.

In this echo chamber of silence and signal, may readers find not just nostalgia, but new coordinates for meaning.

End of transmission. Memory preserved. Myth in orbit.”

*** *** *** ***

Transmission VI (Supplementary): Custodianship & Curation

Fandom

We turn to Alpha not only to remember, but to reimagine. Perhaps the Moon still calls us, not with answers, but with unfinished truths.

Echoes from Alpha: The Living Legacy of Fandom

The canon paused, but storytelling never did. In fan fiction, RPG scripts, and podcast conversations, Moonbase Alpha gained new oxygen. The Alphans became us — not just remembering the mission, but reshaping it. Each reinterpretation is an act of survival; a way to keep meaning breathing between the stars.

Half a century after its lunar breakaway, Space:1999 continues to resonate — not just through archival reels, but in the creative rituals of its fans. Across conventions, museums, roleplaying adventures, and digital dialogues, the series lives on as myth in motion. Its fandom doesn’t just preserve memory — it reshapes meaning.

Anniversary Celebrations and Creative Exhibitions

Los Angeles: 1999 (September 2025) A cornerstone event marking the 50th anniversary: cast reunions, prop exhibits, screenings of Breakaway: The Theatrical Cut, and day trips to iconic filming locations. It’s not just nostalgia—it’s a reactivation of story.

Thunderbirds & Space:1999 Collectables Exhibition (London, 2025–26) With over 300 sci-fi artifacts curated by Malcolm Garrett, this showcase blends design, fandom, and pop-cultural memory. Moonbase models, soundtracks, and Rudi Gernreich’s signature costumes evoke tactile reverence.

Fan Fiction and Roleplaying Futures

Tabletop Reinvention The Modiphius Space:1999 RPG invites fans to build their own lunar legends. Across blogs and livestreams, players navigate metaphysics, crisis, and camaraderie—reframing Alpha as a shared inner cosmos.

Mythic Reclamation through Fan Writing Fans reimagine unsung moments, write farewells for characters left in narrative limbo, and correct canon through compassion. These fictional explorations don’t just fill gaps—they reflect humanity’s impulse to create meaning where silence once lived.

Digital Dialogue and Community Rituals

Podcasts like Destination: Moonbase Alpha offer philosophical reflections, character dissections, and interviews with original cast members. Across forums and YouTube tributes, fans orbit a singular premise: that exile doesn’t end stories—it begins them anew.

Fandom, at its best, becomes custodianship. Not of perfection—but of emotional constellations that remind us who we are, and who we might yet become.

And if the Moon still wanders, perhaps it carries more than questions — perhaps it carries our courage, our stories, and the quiet certainty that meaning will always find a way to shine.

* * * * * *

References/See Also:

Geoff Allshorn, 2020. “From Queer to Eternity”, Humanist World blog, 8 November.
– – – – – – – – , 2021. “Breakaway”, Humanist World blog, 13 September.
– – – – – – – – , 2023. “Moonbase Alpha Is Go!”, Humanist World blog, 28 July.

Isaac Asimov, 1975. “Is `Space 1999′ More Fi Than Sci?”, New York Times, Sect. 2, 28 September, p.1. Available at Catacombs Space:1999 Reference Library, accessed 13 July 2025.

Bill Cooke, 2025. “H. G. Wells (1866–1946)”, Humanist Heritage UK.

Deeply Sacred Admin, 2025. “The Inspiring Influence of Myths and Legends in Society”, Deeply Sacred, 30 January.

Thomas M. Disch, 2005. “On SF”, University of Michigan Press

Christina Francis, 2021. “Babylon 5, An Arthurian World in Space”, Arthuriana, Vol. 31, No. 3 (Fall 2021), pp. 3-20. (JStor)

Elaine Graham, 2016. “Frankenstein”, Critical Posthumanism, 24 May.

Dr Kevin Grazier, “The Science of Space 1999: The Good, The Bad and the Ugly”, gerryanderson.com, Jamie Anderson (publisher), 12 September.

Duane Hamacher, “Solar Eclipses (Part I)”, 2011. Australian Indigenous Astronomy, 24 August. Accessed 12 July 2025.

David Houston, 1976. “Recovering from The Mysterious Unknown Force”, Starlog #2, November, pp32-35. Available at Catacombs Space:1999 Reference Library, accessed 13 July 2025.

James F. Iaccino, 2001. “A Content Analysis of Space:1999‘s Two Seasons”, Studies in Popular Culture, Vol. 23, No. 3, April, pp. 65-80 (JStor).

Ursula Le Guin, 2019. “Myth and Archetype in Science Fiction”, excerpts reposted by blablablaandgabbler, Circo Blog, 14 April.

Harrison Maxwell, 2024. Space:1999 Mythology and Horror. Independently published. Available at Amazon.

Jessica A. McMinn, 2020. “5 Benefits of Writing Fan Fiction (And Why You Shouldn’t Dismiss It)”, Writer’s Edit, accessed 14 July 2025.

Clémentine Mélois, 2023. “Space:1999: Corentin”, in ‘Otherwise I Forget: A Novel by Clémentine Mélois’, Liverpool University Press, p. 193.

Smith College, 2021. Cli-Fi (Climate Fiction). Climate in Global Cultures and Histories: Promoting Climate Literacy Across Disciplines. (30 June), accessed 29 July 2025.

Sociology Institute, 2022. “The Power of Myths in Shaping Societies”, Sociology Institute, 21 October.

Thomas & Marilyn Sutton, 1969. “Science Fiction as Mythology”, Western Folklore, Vol. 28, No. 4, Western States Folklore Society, October, pp. 230-237; available at JStor, accessed 13 July 2025.

Catherynne M. Valente, 2011. “Mythpunk: An Interview with Catherynne M. Valente.” (Interview by JoSelle Vanderhooft). Strange Horizons, 24 January.

Timothy Unwin, 2005. “Jules Verne: Negotiating Change in the Nineteenth Century”, Science Fiction Studies, XXXII:1 #95 (March), pp. 5-17 (JV.Gilead.org.il, 2007).

Steven H. Wilson, 2014. “Review – Space: 1999 – To Everything that Was“, Personal blog, 10 September; accessed 13 July 2025.

Transmission VI Ends

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[This blog edited 29 July 2025 to add/clarify cli-fi and climate change material.]

©2025 Geoff Allshorn. For this article on science fiction and futurism, I felt it was appropriate to involve AI consultation and conversation to assist me in the writing of this piece.

I show my respect for Elders past and present and acknowledge the Wurundjeri Willam people, the Traditional Custodians of the Land on which this blog was prepared.