ALL SCI-FI

[Bud Brewster]

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On the previous incarnation of All Sci-Fi I posted some ideas for several sequels to Beyond the Time Barrier that had a lot in common with both Buck Rogers and the comic book character, Adam Strange.


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The Adam Strange comics were about an archeologist working in Peru who is suddenly teleported by a "Zeta-Beam" to the planet Rann, several light years from Earth. On Rann he meets a gorgeous gal named Alanna and her father, Sardath, who explains that the Zeta-Beam was transmitted from Rann to Earth, and its effect on Adam will only allow him to stay on Rann until it wears off, after which he'll be transported back to Earth.

While he's on Rann, Adam Strange learns that the planet is being threatened by aliens, and he joins their fight against them. During this time, he falls in love with the lovely Alanna, and he learns to use their advanced technology — such as their snazzy weapons and jet packs.

Lucky guy, eh?


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But eventually he is snatched back to Earth when the Zeta-Beam wears off, and Adam Strange becomes desperate to return to Rann. Fortunately, he knows that the Zeta-Beam is periodically transmitted to Earth, and Strange is able to calculate the exact time and place on Earth where the beam will arrive, thus allowing him to journey back and forth between Earth and Rann.

How does all this related to Beyond the Time Barrier?

Actually, there are quite a few similarities between Beyond the Time Barrier and the Adam Strange series. In both stories a man is transported instantaneously to an advanced civilization, meets a wise leader and his beautiful daughter, falls in love with a girl who wears sexy "futuristic" outfits, learns of a dire threat to their society, and then . . . is suddenly compelled to return home.





Robert Clarke even gets to a wear cool-looking spaceman outfit and a helmet.





A sequel to Beyond the Time Barrier would be easy to concoct, and the movie sets it up perfectly. The film ends with Robert Clarke successfully convincing the authorities that he has in fact returned from the future, and that the tragic events which lead to the plague which threatens mankind can be avoided.

It also establishes that Clarke's aircraft, the X-80, is capable of traveling through time under the right conditions, and that these conditions can be calculated and repeated, even to the point of selecting which direction through time he travels! (They explain how this is done in the movie, and it damn near makes sense. )







So, after changing the history of the future society and preventing the plague, Clarke could actually return to the future and visit the new, healthy, and technologically advanced civilization he saved from extinction.

One nice benefit to rebooting the future is that he prevents the events that lead up the death of Darlene Tompkins' character.





When he arrives in the "new future" — Hallelujah, she's alive! Furthermore, she and her people would no longer be sterile deaf mutes, doomed to extinction. The plague never happened. That's the good news.

Ah, but the bad news is that in this timeline Darlene never met and fell in love with Clarke. So, he would have to win her love all over again — which he would, I promise, because this is (A) a movie, and (B) my story, and I'm a sucker for romance.

So, here's how the sequels (note the plural) will play out in this epic series of science fiction adventures.

Clarke makes several journeys back and forth between the present and the future, like Adam Strange and his periodic visits to Rann. And why, you may ask, would Clarke go back and forth? Ah, that's the fun part!

Having already saved mankind with the invaluable knowledge he brought back from the first trip, Clarke goes into the future a second time so he can return with advanced technology and more valuable info about future events that need to be altered or avoided. By doing this, he gives the folks back home a brand new advantage to make the future even better in all kinds of ways.

Then he hops back into his good old time-traveling X-80 a third time (or better yet, a more advanced aircraft designed specifically for the task) and goes "back to the future" to see how the third timeline he created has turned out.

If things are working out well for mankind — mission accomplished! He pats himself on the back, loads up on even newer technological advances based on a future which had a head start on the previous one, thanks to the fact that prior to his return he "upgraded" the present with his technological gives from the future!

That means the technology from the future be brings back the second will be even better than what he brought back the first.

So, Clark kisses Darlene good-bye (assuming he's successfully seduced the little darlin' yet again!) and heads back to 1960 to start round four of this crazy time-looping strategy for mankind's advancement.

Ever time he goes into the future to see what effect his gifts of knowledge in the present have caused in the future, he'll either see an even more advanced civilization — or he'll discover something more like what happened in the first movie, another disaster that needs fixin'.

Dramatically speaking, this is a gold mine, because every time he arrives in the "new improved future" Darlene won't know him from Adam (the guy in the Bible, not the guy in the comic book), and he'll have to win her tender young heart all over again if it wants to continue the romance.





However, Robert has an ace in the hole, because his true love is telepathic (a characteristic we just have to let her hang on to in every new times line), and we can indicate that it's even stronger in the "improved" future without that nasty plague around anymore. So, Robert can tell her to read his mind and download his memories of their past relationship, thus causing a form of telepathic "speed dating" that puts these two young lovers in the fast lane on the road to romance!

And he can do this every time he shows up in the future!

It makes for one helluva "long distance relationship", and I'd love to write the script for this series of imaginary movies.

The only problem I see with this idea is that at the end of Beyond the Time Barrier poor Robert looks like THIS, for reasons that aren't made clear in the movie.





But hey, I'm a science fiction writer, which means I have God-like powers in my own fictional universe. So, figuring out how to make Robert young again and preventing this unpleasant fate from happening ever time he makes one of his temporal jaunts is a big part of the fun in doing this kind of thing!

For example, suppose he aged rapidly because of his exposure to the radiation that caused the plague in the future. The scientist in 1960 can't restore his youth and health. But a group of them want to journey to the future the way Robert did and find out if present-day efforts to avert the plague were successful. They decide to take Robert along because they hope that medical advances in the "new" future might be able to help the guy who saved mankind.

Seems like the least they could do under the circumstances, eh?

Thankfully the plan works and Robert gets a new lease on life from the advanced medical facilities in the future he helped create with his warning about the plague. In doing so the team from the present realizes that taking back advanced medical knowledge will be a boon to mankind.

And thus begins the 'round robin series of time traveling trips which causes mankind to leap forward technologically each time knowledge from a more and more advanced future is given to the folks in 1960!

And yet all this progress is made without mankind actually having to move forward in time past the two points in the timeline in which Beyond the Time Barrier takes place!

Wild idea, eh?

I hope we'll have a good turn out for this movie tonight at All Sci-Fi's Friday Live Chat, because I've been psyching myself up for this all week long!
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)