paintings

[paintings]

Is the Bisley 2000 a reference to Simon Bisley?

I thought it was a reference to the village of Bisley in Surrey, home of the National Shooting Centre.

[paintings]

Legion may have reasoned that his position was decidedly bleak:
* He could only exist onboard the space station, or in an equivalent environment with the necessary computing power.
* The space station had – deliberately – been positioned where it wouldn’t be bothered by passing traffic.
* The space station had no (or very limited) propulsion capabilities, and the available power sources meant that there would be next to zero energy for a new propulsion system.
* Even if a propulsion system were available, Legion would have to be very careful where he repositioned the space station. Any new additions to the crew would have to be either (a) volunteers, or (b) people that no-one would miss. These would, in effect, require diametrically opposing strategies: “volunteers” implies a large pool of potential crew members and a tacit acceptance of the space station’s existence and purpose by everyone else in the vicinity, whereas “people that no-one would miss” implies running in stealth mode, sufficiently far from any busy space lanes.

As for why his plans went awry, I can think of three scenarios, all in the “bad luck” category:

1. Legion had devised some long-term plans, but the last few scientists died within such a short space of time that he didn’t manage to put the plans into action.

2. Legion’s plan was “Use the homing beacon to ensnare any passing spaceships”. Legion did not know that the Psirens had set up shop nearby, so was starved of spaceships coming within range of his homing beacon.

3. Legion came to the incorrect conclusion that he would still have a residual conscious existence when the last scientist died, so didn’t bother to implement any plans.

Obviously, option 2 is closest to the episodes as transmitted.

[paintings]

Yeah, but what about using celestial bodies as advertisements? That surely can’t be a particularly common idea.

I give you the Isaac Asimov short story Buy_Jupiter (first published in 1958).

[paintings]

speaking of Queeg, has anyone ever tried to actually play out the chess match, and did it work?

Many of the moves are missing or incomplete (e.g. at one point Holly says “to Queen 3” and Queeg says “takes pawn”, both of which don’t state the piece being moved).

The one clear view we get of the chess board shows the bishop on its way to Knight 5, with Queeg’s voice announcing the move. However only 4 other pieces have moved from their starting positions, so it should have been Holly’s move.

Allowing for the fact that all of the moves aren’t detailed, the moves we do hear are (or could be) legal chess moves, although it is odd that Holly says “Prawn to King 4” near the end when he had started with that exact move. It’s not necessarily an illegal move (another of his pawns could – by taking one of Queeg’s pieces – have ended up on King 3) but it’s a bit odd.

To summarise: Close, but no cigar.

[paintings]

Does MI6 recruit people based purely on whether they can order a vodka Martini while doing a Sean Connery impression?

Given the stories about MI6 agents that have emerged over the years, I would opine that the answer to that question is “Yes” :-(

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