The Merchandise GuidePanini English album
The Merchandise GuideThe English Panini album is a translation of the original Italian text, and preserves some oddities. There is no mention of Main Mission; here it is "Headquarters" ("Quartier Generale" in Italian). Also following the Italian text, the planet from The Last Sunset is "Antar", not "Ariel".
Breakaway (cards) For years man has been using the Moon as a disposal area and one of the tasks of the staff of Moonbase Alpha is to control these "cemeteries" of atomic waste. One day an expert supervising this work is stricken with a mysterious illness and dies. He is merely the first of many to die and the new commander of the base, John Koenig, assisted by his closest collaborators, tries to discover the cause. But by the time the origin of the illness is located at last, it is too late to prevent the appalling disaster which is about to strike the Moon.
Earthbound (cards) Three men and three women, all apparently lifeless, lie in perspex coffins inside a spaceship which has landed on the Moon. Who are these mysterious space travellers? Where do they come from? What is their destination? The answer will be unravelled when they wake from an artificial sleep which has lasted three and a half centuries. They have left a dying planet after their spaceship has been programmed to reach the Earth. Their aim is certainly shared by everyone on Moonbase Alpha and someone will even be prepared to threaten the existence of the whole base as long as he has the chance of taking advantage of this incredible opportunity...
The Black Sun (cards) An incredibly strong gravitational pull which attracts everything, even light-this terrible threat is a black sun, menacing the Moon as it enters its orbit. Bergman studies a new anti-gravitational defence system which would allow the base to pass the black sun without disintegrating, but everyone knows that this remedy is unlikely to succeed. Koenig uses the computer to choose six people to leave the Moon on an Eagle in search of a new world. The others can only wait in a state of anxiety. In the end what should be the final moment of life will be transformed into a voyage beyond time and space, a voyage into the supernatural, perhaps to the boundaries of man's greatest question: who are we, where do we come from?
Matter of Life and Death (cards) At Moonbase Alpha new hope is kindled for the space exiles. The Moon has approached Terra Nova, a planet which seems to sustain forms of life similar in every way to those on Earth. Terra Nova also provides a disturbing experience for Helena: the reappearance of her husband, who she thought died five years earlier on an unsuccessful space mission. Can Lee Russell really be alive? And why does he go on begging of the Alpha personnel not to set foot on Terra Nova? This plea is turned down, however, and Koenig decides to organize an exploratory expedition to the planet just the same. Not even another disturbing event, Lee's inexplicable death, stops him. Terra Nova gives the impression of being a veritable paradise to its visitors, but all too soon it will be transformed into an inferno, bringing Koenig and Helena into contact with the unknown world of antimatter.
Another Time, Another Place (cards) Is it possible that somewhere in space, so far away that our minds cannot even imagine it, there is a world inhabited by beings who are nothing other than duplicates of ourselves? In short, is it possible for a man to live in two different worlds at the same time? And how might his mind react if it were to be faced one day by another self, in another world which he has never seen before? A terrifying experience, which cannot fail to leave a mark on Koenig, Helena and Paul and Sandra ...
Force Of Life (cards) After millennia of history and human and scientific progress, the universe is still full of mystery for man, who keeps on seeking other forms of life, although he cannot imagine how they look. Anton Zoref, just one of many technicians on Alpha who have resigned themselves to live in a wandering microcosm in space, has the adventure of meeting another form of life but he is only the unaware victim of this meeting. He becomes the instrument of cruel force which lives by absorbing heat, and he ends up by losing his own will and becomes a robot, prepared to kill horribly anyone who comes near him. But he will soon become prey to a ruthless manhunt on the part of the whole base, which fears its existence threatened.
Ring Around The Moon (cards) A space probe from a planet which disintegrated two million years ago; Alpha personnel forced by a superior power to hand over highly secret technical data to a power which wants to use them to destroy Earth. Against this enemy Koenig will have persuasion as his only weapon; will it be enough to stop the terrible "creature"?
Missing Link (cards) A world made of light; an old man whose thought is so powerful that a human being can be taken from one planet to another leaving behind only his apparently lifeless body; a girl who discovers new and to her-forbidden feelings; and, on Alpha, a woman who must decide whether to switch off the machine that keeps the commander alive ... Between hideous nightmares and sweet temptations, Koenig is offered a happy, eternal life, as opposed to the dramatic, precarious life on the Moon.
Guardian Of Piri (cards) The computer announces the Moon's entry into the orbit of Piri, a planet in which there seems to be some form of life, but immediately afterwards it begins to transmit a series of incorrect data. A journey by Koenig to Piri and the certainty that only a passive, contemplative life (similar to death) is possible on it are not convincing arguments to stop the inexplicable euphoria that besets the whole base. John is forsaken by everyone and, alone on the deserted base, he feels himself drained of all energy and is about to give up the struggle. But those who are dying on Piri are his friends ... it is difficult to forget all the adventures they have lived through together.
Alpha Child (cards) The birth of a child is always followed by joy and emotion, but on Moonbase Alpha an event of this kind is something more: the symbol of the continuation of life in a world which seems fated to die. But very soon events turn the common joy first into worry, then sheer terror: a mysterious force has entered the child's body and his mother's, and their transformation announces the arrival of numerous, powerful enemies. Ultimately the base will be shaken by the most tremendous battle between spaceships ever witnessed by the human eye.
Voyager's Return (cards) A peril emerges from the past: it is the "Voyager" spacecraft, launched from Earth fifteen years before to collect scientific information on other planets. It is powered by the "Queller Drive", an uncontrollable force capable of disintegrating any obstacle. Koenig decides to destroy the "Voyager" as long as it is still a safe distance from the Moon, but by doing this much information of incalculable value for mankind would be lost. At the base, one man only is capable of deactivating the "Queller Drive". But at this point a new, even more serious threat looms ...
The Last Sunset (cards) Dawn, a sunny day, rain, sunset, starry nights. These words are meaningless on the Moon and Alpha men are forgetting what emotions those things used to arise in them. But one day they all come back again and life on the base changes: the Moon becomes almost as beautiful as Earth. Perhaps it will be possible to live as free human beings, in real houses, with children who would live in a natural environment and not the aseptic light of a space base. Can Alpha men live such a dream and then bear the anguish to see it disappear?
Space: 1999 copyright ITV Studios Global Entertainment
Page copyright Martin Willey