As an addition to yesterday's Sixteen 12 'Wargames' Episode set post, here's another look at the photos I’ve taken of the Sixteen 12 ‘Wargames’ Special Edition White Mk IX Hawk.
As most Space:
1999 fans will know, the original model Hawk props, designed by Brian Johnson
and built by Martin Bower were originally painted white as per instructions,
but following delivery to the studio it was decided viewers might confuse the
Hawks with the white Eagles during the ‘Wargames’
space battle scenes, so the more familiar orange paint scheme was applied,
although a few pre-publicity photos of the White Hawk did appear.
In spite of
its single appearance, the Mk IX Hawk has certainly proved a fan favourite, and
over time some magazines and comics have given the Hawk spacecraft various
historical back stories relating to the Space: 1999 universe.
Probably the
most notable came from the American ‘Starlog’ magazine during the late
seventies/early eighties, which did champion Space: 1999 at the time. The magazine’s writers concocted an ‘imagined’
detailed history suggesting that the Hawk is a further development of the SHADO
Interceptor from Gerry & Sylvia Anderson’s previous series, UFO, with upgraded Mark 10 Hawks stationed in the orbiting Space Dock, (Starlog
writers christened the dock, Centuri ) until
the Dock’s destruction, as seen in the opening 1999 episode, Breakaway!
While I
don’t really buy into the UFO connection, I do like the idea that the Hawks
operate and are despatched from a space station.
The question
has been asked by some as to why Earth needed a fleet of elite fighter spacecraft. A hint in the series might be in the second
season 1999 episode, The Rules of Luton,
in which John Koenig recounts to Maya how his wife had sadly died during a
terrible global (and presumably a space) war that took place in 1987. At its
end all prejudice was apparently wiped out, and survivors witnessed the rise of
a new and enlightened civilization!
