[Sticks]

Notes on Episode 14

Overconfidence of villains
It has always been a staple of fiction that the villain always explains his dastardly plan to the hero, because he thinks he has defeated him anyway. As I try and do with my more contemporary output, I steered away from that convention, but I had the protagonist guess the plan anyway.

The illegal [strike] Chemical [/strike] Biological Weapon
In the original 1988 story, the illegal weapon was a nerve agent that could be vaccinated against. In 1993 I thought it would be more realistic if it were a biological weapon instead, after all how can you inoculate against a chemical weapon?

Well actually, this is what genetic modification of crops is all about; a plant is genetically modified so it will be resistant to a certain herbicide. That way the manufacturers of said herbicide can tell the farmer that if they plant their gm crop, they can use their product with impunity and not damage the crop.

Of course plants are easier to manipulate than humans and a lot quicker, so maybe a biological weapon is more realistic.

Incidentally, chemical and biological weapons are now considered illegal in international law.

Army Marines?
OK I made an error in 1993, I admit it. Marines belong to the navy, not the army

Effect of being hit by a machine pistol
In this rewrite I had the classic error of what happens when someone is hit by automatic gunfire. Are they physically thrown by the bullets hitting them? The answer is no, and this was demonstrated by the TV programme Myth busters. This is to do with the conservation of momentum. If a bullet could throw someone backwards, then by the law of conservation of momentum the shooter would also be thrown by the recoil.

Influence of Air Wolf
The shoot out scene with the helicopter was inspired in the 1988 original by the 1980’s TV series Air Wolf, the original series with String that is.

Differences between the 1988 and 1993 resolution
In the 1993 rewrite, Sam for a split seconds gets the weapon system to the hover car on line. In the 1988 version the way the helicopter was taken out was a bit more elaborate. First in the 1988 version, the heroes were in the mythical and non existent Black Wing attack helicopter, but like the hover car, the weapons systems were locked out by a password. Second in order to effect the shooting down of the bad guys, it involved the use of hastily modified signal flares. One flare would be used to draw of a missile, and then it would burn out before being hit by the missile. Next another flare was sent on a trajectory so that the missile would pick it up, but in trying to home in on it, the flare would end up behind the bad guy’s helicopter resulting in the helicopter being shot down.

Evacuation procedure
I can not believe I had got this right; the character’s Sam and Steve do not inflate their life jackets until outside of the vehicle. This is correct procedure, as told to me when I recently flew in a helicopter because the boat to take us home from Lundy Island could not sail due to weather conditions. Back in 1993, I had never heard this instruction.