Draft79

THE CONTINUITY was a half-hour American science fiction drama that debuted on the InterWorld television service at 9:00 PM on Thursday, September 11, 1975. Despite the title, the show was in many ways an anthology series that did not adhere to a strict order in time. The titular "Continuity" actually referred to the show's imagined setting, a network of colonized star systems all within forty light-years from Earth. The stars in the Continuity are actually powerful sentient beings, traditionally seen as gods, but they are divided on whether humans should be treated as potential students or as threats.

The show took an approach to religion, race-relations, politics, and morality that frequently upset whole swaths of America, much as Star Trek had done when it premiered nine years prior. Calls to block the show and much of the other content on InterWorld were entirely ineffective, as the Federal Communications Commmission had no juridiction over a technology that bypassed the public airwaves and in fact remained a trade secret of the Astrodynamics Corporation.

The producers of The Continuity broke with tradition by allowing the pilot episode of the new series to unspool at its own brisk pace rather than attempting to introduce everyone in the series and reveal the central issues. Tabaet, played by Raquel Welch, leads the first space flight undertaken by the inhabitants of the world of Kemen. Murray Hamilton played Raziel, a military officer with a bomb capable of deflecting a comet that threatens to destroy Kemen. Richard Mulligan co-starred as Senciner, who is part of Tabaet's crew.

THE CONTINUITY - Season 1 Episode 1: "The Comet"

An aircraft which is both familiar and otherworldly in design rolls to a stop. A truck inches up with a metal arm arched over a flat bed. A gray metal cylinder slides out of the plane. This is grabbed by the truck's arm, which makes the transfer and lays the round on the truck. Attendants strap the load down.

The pilot emerges from the plane and is greeted by two men and a woman. The woman is the one who speaks first, and this all by itself seems to surprise and confuse the aviator.

TABAET: "I am Tabaet. This is Xaphon and Senciner. I know it offends Adanites but they answer to me. So get used to it.

RAZIEL: There's a change of plan. I'll arm the round myself.

SENCINER: Impossible! Look up! There's very little time left!

RAZIEL: I've seen it. But I'm a pilot and you have a simulator.

TABAET: Elyon has dragged his part of this project out until it's almost too late. Our vehicle only holds three individuals. We can't afford any more delay training a replacement.

RAZIEL: It is the unique nature of this type of weapon that a reasonable amount of delay would be totally irrelevant. XAPHON: If you replace one of us, Raziel, it is almost completely assured that you will not return alive.

RAZIEL: Look up! It seems to me you have no other option.

TABAET: All right, damn you. There's no time. You'll replace Xaphon. Mid-flight, don't say we didn't try to dissuade you.

And then Tabaet did look up. A menacing comet filled the sky.

A rocket rises on a massive column of flame in a purple sky. A tenuous shock wave forms ahead of it, then dissipates.

RAZIEL: The onboard computer reports we are now through the region of maximum dynamic pressure.

SENCINER: Thirteen clocks after liftoff and we are still go.

RAZIEL (After some shaking): Engine two through four are out.

TABAET: Raziel that outboard out was too early. Senciner, confirm outboard engines are down.

SENCINER: Affirmative, Lilith, but it's an orderly shutdown.

RAZIEL: You don't see any problem with that though, do you?

SENCINER: Negative, not right now Raziel. The inboard engine is still go, and we both know that's the one that really counts.

TABAET (stabbing switches): Auto guidance initiated.

SENCINER: Telemetry reports the guidance system is now correcting our accumulated eighty ji error.

TABAET (slowing allowing herself a grin): It's working. The little red lines are right back on the little white lines here.

SENCINER: We are now crossing twelve hundred fifty ji in altitude and two thousand two hundred ji downrange.

RAZIEL: Cabin pressure holding at at point six one, which is normal. Senciner, what was the story on the glitching outboards?

SENCINER: It's still unknown why the shutdown was early, but the inboard engine is go, our gimbals are good, trim is good. Coming up on the computer's revised time of throttle down.

TABAET: Standing by for Main Engine Throttle Down Razael: MET-D.

The noise of the ascent engine lessens significantly.

SENCINER: Confirm MET-D, Lilith. And the radar at first glance says we look good on the dynamic ascent hyperbola.

The shrinking globe of Kemen is visible through the windows.

RAZIEL: Senciner called you Lilith a couple of times back there, Tabaet. Did your parents admire the Lilith of the scriptures?

TABAET: I am the Lilith of the scriptures.

SENCINER: It's true. I've seen her fly. Not fly like you fly, Raziel. I mean she herself, her body, can actually fly.

RAZIEL: Lilith hasn't been seen since the days of the dragon.

An exceedingly bright flare appeared on Kemen, near the edge of the sea called Thalury, drawing everyone's attention.

TABAET: That was quick. I hope everyone got away in time.

RAZIEL: What just happened? What was that flash?

TABAET: Asmodeus followed the trail of our vessel back to Menkal and destroyed our launch facility with fire from his own stellar body. He was counting on taking it out with the weapon, but now he has seen that we have gotten underway before it was armed.

RAZIEL: And we're next!

TABAET: No, Elyon will need five days to accumilate enough dark energy to open another shortcut and hit us. Besides, he'll just let the special weapon take care of us, the instant you arm it.

RAZIEL: Then the comet will strike the Slush Zone after all.

SENCINER: The weapon you delivered is a gun-type. Two slugs of uranium are welded togther with a charge of high explosives for a chain reaction. Impact at the comet will do the same job as the explosive charge. So, Raziel, we don't need you after all.

RAZIEL: Asmodeus doesn't need me to arm and detonate the weapon. But you do need me to keep him from doing just that!

Raziel's fingers flew over his controls. The weapon drops away as the rocket accelerates. It is incinerated by the inboard engine. Raziel looks up from the board and glares at his companions as though daring them to retaliate.

SENCINER: Do you feel no obligation to avert the comet strike?

RAZIEL: As I just told you, Asmodeus isn't going to let us do that. He never entertained it. But this way we avoid dying also.

TABAET: Xaphon and Senciner both knew full well this flight was to be a one-way trip. It's a chance to prevent a second Deluge and save the lives of millions. In a way, Raziel, I'm glad you insisted on coming. I am quite fond of Xaphon back at the facility who was displaced at your own insistence, and now he will survive, if we succeed in changing the path of the comet.

RAZIEL: That's impossible now. You don't have the weapon.

TABAET: The weapon was only to cover what we're really trying to do, which is to bring our inboard engine and the comet together.

RAZIEL: What do you mean?

TABAET: Do you think we could carry enough fuel to keep accelerating like this for as long as we have? The inboard is just a big metal bell. The thrust is courtesy of Bat-El himself, fire directly from a sun's belly through a shortcut in reality.

RAZIEL: I'm confused. Why do you need the weapon as cover?

TABAET: Because Bat-El and Binah are going to make the shortcut so fat it will defy belief. It's too early for Elyon or Chemah to know he can do that. You don't reveal your capabilities to the enemy. We are willing to die to protect their secret.

RAZIEL: This is easy for you, with your beliefs, but I know when I'm dead I won't even know that I'm dead or that I ever lived. So I must grasp every additional moment possible!

SENCINER: Are you not aware of the proof of the afterlife that even our most skeptical philosophers accept? Astonishing! Then it falls to me, Raziel, to be your teacher. Things that are verified exist. Things that are not verified, but are at least verifiable in principle, may exist. Things that are not verified may not exist. Things that are not verifiable, even in principle, can not exist. Do you accept those premises?

RAZIEL: I do, Senciner, but only provisionally.

SENCINER: The afterlife is consciousness after death. Consciousness is exclusively self-verifiable. No one else can verify your consciousness and you cannot verify anyone else's consciousness. Provisionally, therefore we can say that the afterlife may exist, because it is verifiable in principle by the person who is conscious of it, if in fact it exists.

RAZIEL: Good.

SENCINER: But if the afterlife does not exist, this is not verifiable, even in principle, because consciousness is required to make any verification. Now: since the truth value of the proposition 'no afterlife exists' is not verifiable, even in principle, and the negation 'the afterlife exists' is at least not excluded, then the afterlife must exist, by the following rule: if not non-A then A.

RAZIEL: Your logic can be used to prove anything. For instance, Our Lady is defined as an Invisible Pink Unicorn in the sky who is verifiable in principle by whoever goes to Her post-mortem.

SENCINER: But She is also verifiable publicly by other people who go to Her, while consciousness is only privately verifiable.

RAZIEL: The IPU is not publicly verifiable by any of our senses. She can only be seen while outside of a living body. .

SENCINER: No! She must have been seen by a living person, specifically, that person who first stated that She is pink.

RAZIEL: Well then! The afterlife must have been seen by that living person who first stated that you go there when you die.

TABAET (looking up from her panel): Senciner, it's almost time. I just wanted to say thank you!

SENCINER: Your Majesty, it was a great honor to serve.

Overhead, the comet is a white peanut growing in a gray cloud.

On Kemen, people anxiously watch. The comet is already illuminated by the two suns of Kemen, but now the heart of it suddenly glows from the impact of the rocket. A massive pillar of light rises from the point of impact. And the comet moves. Slowly at first, but steadily picking up speed, it passes over an Ice Wall that is miles high. Then the sky behind the wall glows blue-white with the impact. The onlookers all cheer. The sound of the impact arrives and knocks them all to their feet.