Earthsearch: Mindwarp
128K stereo
Earthsearch: Mindwarp is a 3 part radio series based on the Mindwarp novel by James Follett. This new series was first broadcast on BBC7 from 1 to 15 April 2006 and the episodes were 45 minutes long.
While it has only a loose connection to the Earthsearch series, it sets the stage for it, and contains many familiar plot elements and character traits.
The series was produced by Big Finish Productions who are also noted for their range of Doctor Who audio dramas. A number of Doctor Who actors appear in Mindwarp including Colin Baker (the Sixth Doctor), Nicholas Courtney (Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart) and India Fisher (Charley Pollard). Coincidentally, Mindwarp is also the title often given by fans to one of the segments of The Trial of a Time Lord, a Doctor Who serial featuring Colin Baker as the Sixth Doctor.
Story
Ewen and Jenine live in the domed city of Arama, a space surrounded by rock. The people of the city believe that the universe consists purely of rock, with embedded space.
The city is at war with an enemy called Diablo, made up of the people who deny the word of the G.O.D. - a supreme being who controls everything in Arama. Ewen and Jenine are selected to train as Technicians – responsible for maintaining the machines that Arama needs to function. They are sent to the Centre for early training, where they learn mechanics. They share a room with an older student called Deg. Ewen has dreams about being in a vast blue dome. He tells Jenine about his dreams, but she shrugs them off. One of the staff at the centre – Technician Father Dadley – tells Ewen about another student who had similar dreams. His name was Simo Belan and he vanished before he completed his training. One night, after another dream, Ewen decides he wants everyone to see what the blue dome looks like and sneaks out of the room during the night. When he returns, he awakes the others to show them what he has done. They see their Chief Technician – Dom Asta Tarrant – trying to break into the control room, where he manages to shut down the lights, an action which results in them breaking. His roommates tell him he will be caught, be he has other things on his mind. He goes to visit the father of Simo Belan to find out what happen to him, but while he is there, he is arrested. Ewen is sent to prison where he is visited by his mother and brother who come to say goodbye. Ewen’s brother, Tarlon, is due to begin military service, but that is not why they come to say goodbye. A news report said that Ewen was being tried for desecration – a crime punishable by death. When Ewen is sent to court, his roommate, Deg, who manages to both get Ewen off the major charges of desecration and blasphemy and embarrass the Chief Technician, represents him. Ewen is about to be sentences when Caudo Inman, First Citizen of Arama, enters. Just as the judge announces that Ewen should be sentences to five days community service, Inman cuts in and doubles the sentences to ten days. At a party to celebrate, Deg reveals that his Great Uncle, a retired lawyer, supplied his defence. Ewen’s community service turns out to be military service. On his last night there, Ewen decides to infiltrate the Diablon camp. He is almost discovered and shoots a Diablon guard. When the others do not help the injured guard, he rushes over, only to discover that the guard is in fact his own brother. They both think each other is working for the Diablons. Ewen works out that the army is just where Arama sends the people they do not want in society.
During their studies they find evidence that the rock above the city does in fact come to an end, and that there is a large amount of open space above it.
Eventually they manage to leave the city, and find themselves on the surface of the Earth. They discover that Arama is actually a training centre for interstellar missions to discover new habitable planets.
Having passed the unwitting test of Arama (escaping to the surface), Ewen accepts the position of commander of the next Challenger mission.
The Challenger 3 mission is launched, and work starts on the project that will lead to the Earth being moved to a new solar system (see Earthsearch).
Cast
Ewen - Leon Parris
Jenine - India Fisher
Caudo Inman - Colin Baker
Kally Solant - Michele Livingston
Dom Asta Tarant - Andy Coleman
Father Dadley - Nicholas Courtney
Deg Calen - Neil Henry
Tarlan - Mark Wright
Simo Belan - Neil Roberts
Minor Characters
Newscaster - Sara Wakefield
Young Tarlan - Julian Richards
Inman's Computer - Romy Tennant
Mr. Belan - Steven Wickham
Policeman - John H. Elson
Chairman of the Court - Steven Wickham
Diablon Guard - Alistair Lock
Earthsearch I
128K stereo
Earthsearch: A Ten-Part Adventure Serial in Time and Space science fiction radio series written by James Follett. It consists of ten half-hour episodes broadcast. It was first broadcast on BBC Radio 4 between January and March 1981. There is also a novelisation by Follett of the same name. The series has been released on cassette and audio CD Since 2003 it has been re-broadcast, several times in the Seventh Dimension science fiction slot on BBC 7 and its successor BBC Radio 4 Extra.
Main cast
Commander Telson - Sean Arnold
Sharna - Amanda Murray
Darv - Haydn Wood
Astra - Kathryn Hurlbutt
Angel One - Sonia Fraser
Angel Two - Gordon Reid
Other cast (across the series):
Commander Sinclair - Christopher Scott
Simon - David Bradshaw
The Sentinel - Alexander John
George - John MacAndrew
Helan - Judy Franklin
Emperor Thorden - John Bott
Thail - Graham Faulkner
Spegal - Stephen Garlick
The Custodian - Eve Calfe
Fagor - Sion Probert
Krol - Michael Spice
Dren - John Webb
Lenart - Jane Knowles
Tandor - Pauline Letts
No. 41 - John Church
Episodes
Planetfall
First Footprint City
Sands of Kyros
The Solaric Empire
The Pools of Time
Across the Abyss
New Blood
Marooned
Star Cluster: Tersus Nine
Earthfall
Story
Three crew-generations previously, the Starship Challenger - a vast ten-mile-long survey vessel – was launched from Earth on an interstellar mission to search the universe for an Earth-type planet to colonise. This has been unsuccessful, and the ship’s once enormous crew-count has now been reduced to four. Telson (the ship’s Commander), Sharna, Darv and Astra are the third-generation crew- the only survivors of the disastrous Great Meteoroid Strike which seriously damaged the ship two decades previously, killing the entire second-generation crew and rendering large areas of the ship “uncontrolled” and inaccessible to its electronic systems.
From infancy, the four third-generation crew members (now in their early twenties) have been raised by robots and by the Angels – mysterious unseen beings who run the ship and who only manifest as disembodied voices. Darv, the most skeptical and enquiring of the crew members, suspects that the Angels are merely computers; but the others consider them as “Guardian Angels” and work entirely under their guidance.
With no suitably colonisable planet found after over a hundred years of searching, a crew-vote is taken and the Challenger sets a course for the return to Earth. Darv, while exploring one of the uncontrolled zones, finds a survey recording of an Earth-type planet called Paradise. As is standard procedure, the crew enter suspended animation in order to prevent ageing and possible death during the many years of journey time.
Unrevealed to the crew, the Angels (who are the ship’s control computers; their name being an acronym of ANcillary Guardian of Environment and Life ) have their own agenda. They desire absolute control and mastery over any colony resulting from the mission. To this end, they covertly engineered the apparent accident which killed the second-generation crew (who would otherwise have ended the mission before the Angels wanted it to end) and have kept the third-generation crew sexually immature and innocent via drugs and disinformation in order to keep them more tractable. However, their machinations have begun to backfire already. Their requirement of a minimum human crew of four to man the Challenger’s control room requires the Angels to work mainly via suggestion and manipulation. Also, the Great Meteoroid Strike damaged the ship and their control over it more than was planned for, including damage to their own memory banks, which in turn deprived them of vital information about the Theory of Relativity. Concerned that Darv may interest the other crew members in what he has discovered about the planet Paradise, the Angels suppress his memories of the survey recording by violent, nightmare-inducing hypnotic manipulation.
Reaching the Earth’s solar system, the Challenger’s crew are horrified to discover that Earth has vanished altogether, with the Moon now occupying Earth’s former orbit. Although the crew locate a large city on the Moon, they are unable to receive any answers to their communications and are unable to leave the ship to explore. This situation is changed when Darv and Astra enter an uncontrolled zone within the Challenger and locate a space shuttle previously unknown to the Angels. Using this, they visit the city and discover the Moon Sentinel, a computerized guardian and archive whom they can question. From the Sentinel they discover that while only one hundred and fifteen years of shipboard time has passed during the Challenger’s entire mission, due to the ship’s use of near-lightspeed travel and the effects of time dilation much more time has passed on Earth – over one million years. During this time, the Earth was removed from the solar system via a tremendous feat of interstellar engineering – desiring to protect the planet from the risk of increased solar activity, the inhabitants of Earth took the planet to orbit another, safer star. The Sentinel does not known which solar system Earth now occupies, but notes that if the Challenger’s crew genuinely are descendants of Earth people they will think as the people of Earth thought, and will find the Earth by following that pattern.
Earthsearch II
128K stereo
Earthsearch 2: A New Adventure Serial in Time and Space is a BBC Radio 4 science fiction series written by James Follett, comprising ten half-hour episodes broadcast between January and March 1982. There is also a novelisation by Follett under the title Earthsearch 2: Deathship. The series has been released on cassette and audio CD, and has been rerun several times on BBC Radio 4 Extra beginning in 2003. It is a sequel to Earthsearch I.
Cast
Commander Telson - Sean Arnold
Sharna - Amanda Murray
Darv - Haydn Wood
Astra - Kathryn Hurlbutt
Elka - Jill Lidstone
Bran - Michael Maloney
Angel One - Sonia Fraser
Angel Two - Gordon Reid
Tidy - David Gooderson
George - Stephen Garlick
Solaria - Pauline Letts
Elkeran - Nicholas Courtney
Halston - David McAlister
Theros - John Warner
SA7 - Spencer Banks
Kraken - Crawford Logan
Peeron - George Parsons
Earthvoice - Michael Tudor Barnes
The casting for Earthsearch II featured the return of several supporting actors from the original Earthsearch, playing different roles. The part of George the agricultural android (originally played by John McAndrew) was recast for Stephen Garlick (who had played Spegal in Earthsearch). Pauline Letts (Solaria) had previously played the role of Tandor in Earthsearch.
Story
The story of Earthsearch 2 continues the adventures of the crew of the starship Challenger (Telson, Sharna, Darv and Astra) begun in the previous serial, Earthsearch, which told the story of their quest for their lost ancestral homeplanet of Earth (which had moved to orbit a new and unknown star when its citizens realised their original sun was going to go nova). At the end of the serial, the four crewmembers had chosen to settle on the sufficiently Earth-like planet Paradise and escape the ruthless, manipulative control of the Challenger's megalomaniacal control computers, Angel One and Angel Two. While the Angels departed Paradise orbit to continue the Earthsearch mission (and to achieve their aim of dominating an entire civilisation), the humans began their new life on their new homeworld.
Earthsearch 2 begins four years later, when Telson, Sharna, Darv and Astra have settled into their life on Paradise (assisted by two androids, the agricultural machine George and the argumentative general-purpose service unit Tidy). Both couples now have young children - Darv and Astra have the twins Elka and Savin, and Telson and Sharna have their son Bran. Despite the colonists' embrace of Paradise as home, the lifestyle is proving to be difficult and full of hardships. Sharna's loss of what would have been her second child raises questions about the sustainability of the small colony as well as bringing up differences of opinion on how (and whether) to use the remaining technology and resources (including their surviving planetary shuttle). When Savin is unexpectedly killed by a 'monster' that appears from the sea, the colonists are placed under further strain. Noticing the appearance of an unidentified artefact in planetary orbit, Telson and Darv fly up towards it in the shuttle, to discover that it is an eight-mile long spaceship called Voyager 30 and apparently part of an Earth-originated survey mission.
RAR File 643 meg with Earthsearch Mindwarp, Earthsearch I and Earthsearch II Complete LINK
If you want me to I will replace with separate folders for each series. Please comment if you wish me to do this. They also appear to all be in stereo, please comment. -------------------------------------- R
Replies
Thanks - nice to have a better quality version.
Wow! Thank You Rick.
Everyone is welcome. I was looking to see what was out there on Usenet and I just happened to run into it. I wasn't sure whether to download or not because the group it was on was a Dutch group that has more than it's share of viruses etc. I downloaded, scanned with 2 different virus software and opened it. Then when I saw the bitrate I was ecstatic because the copy had before it was 32K and mono and I didn't even have the Big Finish one. Then a thought hit me, Dutch site, I had better check because sometimes they do funny things with files. I checked to make sure they were OK and then I said to myself, self, you are a damned fool to check because how the hell would they put subtitles on an audio? DUH, did you ever feel totally stupid, well I did. All in all here it is. Please everyone enjoy it I am right now and the sound is good. ----------------------- R
I now feel the urge to watch classic Godzilla Movies Rick.............
Ba da BING!
;-)
Big RAR you have there!
Thanks
Paul
full stereo mix!
Simply BRILLIANT AD! (Listening now)
;-)
Bill, it sounded lie it. I had to check to make sure they were in English. They came off a Pirate site out of the Netherlands. ------------------------ LOL
AVAST MATEY! Dutch Brigands!
LOL
Now that's what you call an epic post!!! The Citizen Kane (Metropolis) of posts. All three are great! Wow
These are some of the BEST SciFi ever MADE!
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