Perhaps "Outland" Would Be A Better Choice
More accurate, if rather more confusing. You see, Conrad has been putting himself in the shoes of the General Manager of mining outpost Con-Am 27, which is the setting for said film, and which means we get to use pictures from it. Art!
Given that the film is over 40 years old by now, a little reprise is in order. Our Sean stars as a Federal Marshall, sent out to do a tour at the mine on Jupiter's moon Io, which is a private enterprise run by Con-Amalgamated. The GM, Sheppard, is of course - obviously! - an evil corporate hack interested only in the bottom line. To this end he is having drugs smuggled in that boost personal productivity to unheard of levels, making lots of profit all round.
The slight side-effect of going completely hat-stand after 10 months of said drug's ingestion was probably glossed over by the dealers. Art!
The film wasn't a hit at the time with either critics or audiences, but has since acquired cult status. "Heavy Metal" serialised it with artwork by Jim Steranko and I'll see if I can dig up an image or two. Art!
I'm not sure if we get an explanation why Sean gets sent to Con-Am 27; perhaps his predecessor cracked up or was gotten rid of? The former is just as likely as the latter, because Hyam's* Io is a hellish place to live and work. The lethal atmosphere would kill you by decompression at the same time it poisons you. There is no handy trip back to Earth if you get terminally home-sick, because the shuttle that travels between the Jovian moons and the space station is on a strict schedule. If there's any bad blood between miners or staff or the Federal guards, tough, you're all stuck together in a giant pressure-cooker. Art!
Conrad wonders if GM Sheppard and other Con-Am staffers weren't sent to Io as a punishment of sorts; "Do three years on the armpit of the solar system and we'll get rid of the fraud and embezzlement charges". You can't imagine many people volunteering for duty there, even on big wages. Art!
Conrad's not sure if this plot point is explained. We are supposedly in the 21st Century yet our hero is tooling around with an ancient pump-action shotgun?
But of course, Crazy Horse. Consider that a shotgun is jolly good for un-aliving people at short ranges, yet it's comparatively low-velocity shot, especially if consisting of lead pellets, will not pierce structural members inside the mine.
Okay, I'll now grace Sheppard's predecessor with a name: Young. He would doubtless have greeted the previous Marshal with a hearty handshake, a happy hello and heaps of honesty.
YOUNG: Take a seat, Marshal. Coffee?
MARSHAL CALLAGHAN: No, thanks.
YOUNG: Good, I restrict myself to one pot a week. Ekes it out. You'll have read the briefing docket at least ten times on the trip here. Allow me to fill in a few gaps. <points to window> I left the shutters up so you can see what a hellhole Io is.
CALLAGHAN: So you're all cooped up in here, twenty-four seven?
YOUNG: Yup. The boys blow off steam and you guys get to keep it reined in. I got two personal rules I won't have broken.
CALLAGHAN: No hurting the company whores and no drugs, presumably.
YOUNG: <frowns> We call them 'Professional Companions', Marshal and yes, I won't tolerate any of them being harmed. You catch anyone abusing them, I give you a free hand. The other no-no is sabotage.
CALLAGHAN: Who on earth would sabotage - it's where you live!
YOUNG: We've caught guys with explosives twice. Pretty obviously corporate sabotage. Strange thing is, they never made it back to Earth alive.
CALLAGHAN: What about smuggled drugs?
YOUNG: It happens, I can't deny that it doesn't. There's only half a dozen of you and the average shuttle cargo amounts to four or five hundred tons of supplies.
Why would Con-Am put up with Federal security on their property? Simple, they don't have to pay them. Remember, it's all about the bottom line.
There you go, the end product of Thinking Time whilst walking Edna. O and it cropped up on Quora, too, which I took as a sign.
Multiple McGuffins!
Yet another sidebar from "The Daily Beast" and this time a couple of the mystery tat objects are readily identifiable. Art!
That first one is a bulldozer, we both got that. It's remote-operated, too, so you can annoy other people at a distance. Okay okay okay, I cheated and looked up Items Two and Three. Item two is a portable soldering gun, and Item Three is something to do with tyre valves. Item Four is a miniature engine, because how many times have you been standing in the queue to pay for your weekly shop and been struck by the thought that, if only they sold miniature engines! because I desperately need one.
A Disgustrous Day
Unsurprisingly, Edna was a tad reluctant to venture beyond The Mansion's threshold this morning, thanks to the cold dank skies from which rain doggedly poured. The weather is so bad even the local livestock is wearing coats. Art!
This was taken during a break in the rains, just so we're clear.
"City In The Sky"
The Americans are unhappy. Their fuel plant keeps getting sabotaged, it seems. Yet surely not! Meanwhile, back in outer space -
CHAPTER NINE: Out of the Blue
Terry’s reaction when he stepped out of the TARDIS was exactly the same as Ace’s had been, which is why she passed him a spare straw boater of the Doctor’s that had been picked up for this very purpose. He squinted and winced, having had a rapid ultraviolet bath to prevent any terrestrial infections being carried aboard the sphere.
‘Wow!’ he gasped, looking upwards, then at the transparent strip, back
down to the inner surface, at the north and south polar regions. ‘This is like a dream!’
Ace looked at him coolly.
‘Don’t speak too soon. Everyone
up here would gladly trade places with the people in New Eucla.’
She led the awestruck young man across the tired plastic paths, heading
for
Davros wasn’t in, so she tried the central Common Room, which seemed to
be a big meeting hall, lots of tables, chairs, screens and microphones. A knot of people huddled around one table,
working on digital screens and unaware of who the new arrivals were.
‘Er – hello,’ tried Ace, making all six look up in surprise.
‘You’re the girl from Earth,’ stated one. ‘You’ve come back?’
Surprise.
The Tautology Of Time And Tithes
A pithy little story from Quora here. All of you who have been office slaves know how coffee (or tea, in the case of Conrad) helps the workplace function, unless management muck things up, as they did here.
Original Poster said that they and their colleagues were all being docked $20 to pay for coffee, which had always been free up to that point. This, I assure you, is some chinless waffle-bottom thinking how they can do over the employees and make money for the company. Art!
NO EXCEPTIONS
At least two-thirds of employees brought in their own drinks and resented this new policy. So, they continued to bring in their own drinks and also made - and left untouched - several cups of coffee per day. Coffee expenses tripled.
The $20 deductions were halted and instead a pay-as-you-go coffee machine got installed, charging $1 per cup. Art!
Since the machine took in far less money than it cost to hire, it, too, was gone after mere weeks.
The office reverted to the old free coffee policy and everyone was happy again, no exceptions. Except the bottomhole whose idea it was in the first place. Imagine! messing with such a basic office functionality as staff coffee.
Finally -
I should whisper this, or put it in really small font, but it seems the weather outside is improving slightly. Let's keep it between ourselves, shall we? Don't want to scare the sun away.
* Peter Hyams, the writer and director
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