I don't own Space 1999, sadly. Please let me know what you think with constructive criticism.
Immortality's Curse.
The inhabitants of the frozen wasteland of a planet named Ultima Thule were mortal when they appeared and crashed into the planet. Later they would speculate they'd travelled through a wormhole, but because everything happened so fast and most of their instruments were shot to pieces none of the survivors knew how they'd gotten there.
The ice world was virtually impossible for them to live on at first before they discovered the geothermal heaven underground which proved to be a godsend given how they had been depending on what was left of their ship which had already suffered from extreme damage to keep them alive and warm. But they had known they couldn't have lasted. When they finally came to survey the underground caverns and caves beneath them and discovered natural warmth they had discovered a place where they could live and give themselves time to repair their ship and make their escape, and from there they began building a small colony. They had to work every single day to expand the caves and caverns, but as they worked to tap the resources of the planet, they made an unexpected discovery.
They had managed to partially repair the ship's computer and they made a discovery when the scanners ran a check on the constellations so they could get a course for Earth.
Only something went wrong. At first, the human crew refused to believe it, they thought that the instruments were still damaged or that something was wrong with the electronics. But no, they checked and discovered nothing was wrong. They had been stranded on a planet, yes, but they'd been stranded in the 11th century. Somehow they had been thrown back in time, and the few surviving physicists on the ship would later wonder if the phenomenon that brought them to the planet in the first place was a wormhole linking one time period to their home time, in the 1990s.
The latest piece of news completely destroyed their hopes of getting home; they had found the right constellation in the right position in the stars where Earth was, but even if they return, they'd be centuries out.
They were marooned. But the next discovery floored them completely. They were on the planet only for a few months when they realised something that was trivial at first, but it began a whole new host of problems which they gradually became to accept like a melancholic cloud. They were not getting any older. Their ageing process seemed to have slowed down to a stop, and as the years passed they realised they were immortal now and there was nothing they could do about it. With their bodies now immortal their biology no longer saw the point in giving them the gift of children, and so their world became a stagnant place.
Maybe that was the reason they went mad.
Their chief scientist, Dr Rowland was obsessed with discovering how they had become immortal, and he started experiments. The unlucky first volunteer, Jack Tranter was experimented on. The results were a sign of things to come. While Rowlands had centuries to work on his techniques, the long-term effects did not really vary, as the results of his gruesome experiments left the subjects with extensive brain damage. That was bad enough, but since the unfortunate victims were forced to be taken care of by their peers in an underground labyrinth they were even crueller since they had no release. They were locked inside their minds for centuries. Jack Tranter was, admittedly, one of the luckier ones; the less refined experiments had driven the once highly experienced and professional astronaut, known for his judgement and skill into a madman who was more insightful than people thought.
Regardless of his shortcomings and questionable morals, Rowlands worked long and hard on trying to expand the influence of the colony. Work soon commenced on the construction of a spaceship more powerful than the Neptune probe that brought them to the planet.
It took time, but they had time to spare.
The scientists and engineers who'd survived the crash and became immortal and were left alone by Rowland's insane experiments spent centuries refining their knowledge of space travel. They launched probes out into space, experimenting with newer and more powerful engines that were less heavy than the rocket technology they'd used to lift off from Earth before, and more versatile than the old/new Eagle technology they'd known.
Centuries passed and the ship eventually took shape after years and years of patient work, research and development, the study of new alloys and new electronics which were far more powerful in processing capability than the electronics of the ships and probes they'd known on Earth. But it was lacking a nuclear energy source, with that their interstellar ship would be capable of traversing the stars for centuries fuelling the spark which started off the hydrogen fuel ramjet engine and more advanced Queller drive engines.
And then one day, they spotted the moon.
When Rowlands recognised Moonbase Alpha, he thought all of his hopes for interstellar expansion had come true.
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