The Production GuideScript To Screen: Black Sun
by Martin Willey
The Production Guide
One aspect of George Bellak's original scenario for the series was the character of Computer. Computer would not only communicate by speaking, it would argue and debate as a distinct personality. None of the early scripts developed this idea, except for David Weir, and it didn't make it to screen. The sequence in the script for Black Sun involves Computer locking Koenig, Bergman and Helena in their rooms. It recalls the computer HAL in 2001: A Space Odyssey, probably another reason it was cut, but some of the dialogue survived and is used between Koenig and Bergman while they await their fate alone in Main Mission.
31.
Still intercutting-
BERGMAN
It wants us incommunicado. Don't worry
about it. But I've been working on some
calculations, and I've got an incredible
result.
KOENIG
Incommunicado? Why?
BERGMAN
It's obvious. See - I wanted analyses of
previous dangers we've faced and come through.
Bit of a long shot, but... Anyway, friend
Computer pointed it out - A statistical
impossibility.
KOENIG
What are you talking abut?
BERGMAN
Probability statistics analysis.
KOENIG
Probability...? Will it get us out of here?
There's a thousand urgent matters to see to.
BERGMAN
Stuff and nonsense. There's nothing to do
that isn't being done. Listen to me. I fed
programmes to the computer for probability
figures for every danger we've been through.
Of course, the totals are cumulative. Well,
the improbability of our having survived at
all - never mind time after time - comes to
within a whisker of being infinite.
HELENA
What's this got to do with - ?
BERGMAN
Now, any improbability that close to infinity
becomes, of course, impossible. Ergo, we can
not have survived, we must all be long dead.
Yet, here we are. D'you see what I'm driving
at, eh? Mm?
KOENIG
No. Frankly.
BERGMAN
There must be another factor, not taken into
account. A factor the computer and I missed.
But we can prove we missed nothing of that
order. So, that leaves only one possible answer.
32.
Still intercutting -
HELENA
(reluctantly curious now)
What?
BERGMAN
Outside intervention.
KOENIG
You're grasping at straws.
BERGMAN
Someone - something - outside Alpha has
taken notice of us, has taken a hand in our
affairs, time after time, and bailed us out,
saved us. Perhaps, inside the black sun -
HELENA
Who?
BERGMAN
Well, the sheer physical powers involved
show it's supra-human. Supra, not super, in
the sense of not-human, beyond humanity,
alien to -
HELENA
And why?
BERGMAN
Ah. Who knows why? Who can know? A being -
beings - on that level, a cosmic intelligence,
would have unimaginable reasons of its own.
KOENIG
A cosmic intelligence?
BERGMAN
There's no other explanation. By every law
of science we'd be dead, unless -
KOENIG
Professor Bergman. I've heard some weird
and wonderful ideas in my time, but...
Alright, Professor, will you now apply your
non-cosmic intelligence to the rather more
urgent problems of why we are confined, and
how we are to get out.
BERGMAN
You don't know? Oh. Well, the computer
heard we shall have to turn it off. Although
it has no will-to-life, this conflicts with
its prime directive to keep Alpha safe at
all costs. While it tries to resolve the
unresolvable, it confined the people with
authority enough to de-activate it. As to
getting out- Oh, Ouma will see all this and
arrange it.