The Outer Limits : A question about 'The Architects of Fear'

A question about 'The Architects of Fear'

Two things I didn't understand about this story:

1/ What is the monkey for in this story? What is its purpose? Why is it being kept?

Also

2/ Why didn't Culp land near the United Nations like he was told?

Thanks.

Re: A question about 'The Architects of Fear'

I assume that the monkey was used in scientific experiments.There was a malfunction that caused the ship to go off course.

Re: A question about 'The Architects of Fear'

Where did it say anything about a malfunction? I don't remember that in the episode? (Thanks for your reply though).

Paul.

Re: A question about 'The Architects of Fear'

I just assumed there was a problem of some sort causing the ship not landing in the right place.

As for the monkey I'm not sure either. First I thought it was the first successfull "version" of what they were going to turn someone into, but as the story unfolds it doesn't seem to even the slightest resemblance to the "alien". So yeah, I'm pretty clueless about that one as well...

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Re: A question about 'The Architects of Fear'

The fact that he doesn't land where he's supposed to completely invalidates the "moral of the story" of the episode. At the end, the narrator says that scarecrows won't work, only love will, blah, blah, blah. Well, such an assertion could only be made if he HAD landed correctly and the ruse hadn't worked. As the episode played out, there's no telling whether it would have worked or not.

Those who say that 9/11 was a false flag operation, like the Architects of Fear premise, will cite that as an example of the ruse working all too terribly well.

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Re: A question about 'The Architects of Fear'

Watch this episode again, guys. It is pretty clear that the "monkey" is a first-run version of a Thetan, and the reason the scientists believe that they can transform a human into a Thetan in the same way. And the spaceship clearly malfunctions and lands in the wrong place.

The REAL reason the spaceship doesn't land at the UN (other than as part of the motif of the mission going wrong) is that the OL producers simply couldn't afford to shot a scene at the real UN or even an appropriate set meant to represent same, along with the necessary crowds of extras, etc. It just would have been too expensive for a TV production of the time.

But it is quite naive to assume that the response to the arrival of the "Thetan" would have ended any differently at the UN than it did in the woods, since the whole point of the mission was to scare the hell out of people in the first place. And yes, that does mean that the scientists who came up with the plan were themselves naive. That's what the confrontation at the end with Culp's wife was all about.

Re: A question about 'The Architects of Fear'

Your point about the monkey is true. The point about the reason for the non-landing at the UN is partly true, in the sense that yes, the budget didn't exist for a landing, but it is also true that the non-landing gave the show an easy evasion from actually showing how the landing would have played out.


it is quite naive to assume that the response to the arrival of the "Thetan" would have ended any differently at the UN than it did in the woods, since the whole point of the mission was to scare the hell out of people in the first place. And yes, that does mean that the scientists who came up with the plan were themselves naive. That's what the confrontation at the end with Culp's wife was all about.

Well, that was the episode's writers' belief, sure. But it is not "naive" to assume that the arrival would have ended differently. One could script a completely different ending where it worked. One could script anything. Then the opponents of the plan would have been "naive." Short of an actual real-life experiment where such a landing would take place, no one can make any actual assertions as to whether the scientists' experiment would have worked or not. Neither a belief that it would have worked or not worked is intrinsically "naive." Remember: the plan is just a fictional construct in this episode, where every character's behaviour is controlled by writers with an agenda. It doesn't demonstrate anything factually definitive about human behaviour.

And even within the episode, I'd say that the only lesson the scientists needed to take from the results were:

1. Build a better guidance system.
2. We went too small. The invaders would have to be a larger, more powerful force. A single faux-alien is insufficient.

Re: A question about 'The Architects of Fear'

Anything is possible. Obviously THE OUTER LIMITS was built on that concept. But to simply ASSUME that the plan would have worked if only the landing had happened at the UN as planned is, yes, naive.

Re: A question about 'The Architects of Fear'

By that measure, any scientist with ANY premise is "naive." Ben Franklin was "naive" when he flew the kite. (Yes, I know it's an apocryphal story -- I'm using it as an example.) Test and observe is the scientific method. Without the attempt, they wouldn't know either way. The more relevant criticism from the wife would have been something like, "How could you gamble a human life?" And they could have countered with something like, "We believed that the stakes were worth it, as did your husband." And that would have been the stalemate.

Re: A question about 'The Architects of Fear'

I speak about this specific scenario and you speak in generalities. There is no stalemate in this episode, precisely because human beings and not simply "scientific methods" are involved. You believe, as the scientists initially did, that the slightest possibility that the plan could succeed means that the attempt was unquestionably valid in scientific terms. I believe, as the story shows, that the far greater possibilities of failure (as happens in the story) justified questioning the validity of the attempt in human terms.

I actually appreciate what the scientists were trying to do. That is part of what is so outstanding about this episode: these scientists were not evil mad scientists hatching some horrible experiment, but sane, honorable men whose goal was highly commendable. I simply agree with the storytellers here, in that they were naive in failing to appreciate the degree of the risk involved in their plan. Or more importantly, what they sacrificed in their quest.

Re: A question about 'The Architects of Fear'

Thanks for your replies, I appreciate the time you've put into them, but what do you mean by a first run version of a Thetan?

Are we meant to assume that American astronauts have landed on the other planet and captured one of its aliens or what?

Sorry to be so slow on the uptake here, but I'm completely baffled by that alien in this episode! What's going on?

Please explain...really slowly!


Paul.

Re: A question about 'The Architects of Fear'

The "monkey" was the first attempt by the scientists to medically turn a terrestrial creature into one from the planet Theta. Since they succeeded with the monkey, they extrapolated that they could do the same with a human. Which they did.

The episode does not sugggest that astronauts from Earth have actually REACHED Theta, but that they are able from observation to determine what life on Theta would be like.

Re: A question about 'The Architects of Fear'

Oh I see. OK! Thanks for that, I appreciate it.

Paul.

Re: A question about 'The Architects of Fear'

> The "monkey" was the first attempt by the scientists to medically turn a
> terrestrial creature into one from the planet Theta. Since they succeeded
> with the monkey, they extrapolated that they could do the same with a human. > Which they did.

We're in agreement so far.

> The episode does not sugggest that astronauts from Earth have actually
> REACHED Theta, but that they are able from observation to determine what life > on Theta would be like.

I had the impression that the planet Theta was either:
a) a complete piece of fiction
b) a planet observed via a telescope (but otherwise unknown)

Anyone know for sure what the episode said about Theta?

In either case, I think the scientists just imagined/made up what the conditions would be like.

Are scientists **today** even capable of determining what a planet is like without a probe? (I know it's hard to find planets because they are dimly lit compared to the star and small in mass). The planets found so far tend to be pretty big/pretty close to their star. Without a very good propulsion system we're not getting a probe anywhere near a planet outside our solar system.

Re: A question about 'The Architects of Fear'

It's called science fiction. In science fiction you can speculate about an ability to closely observe features on a planet in another solar system even though such an ability does not yet exist in the real world.

But I find it pretty interesting that you don't accept the possibility that the scientists can observe conditions on a planet from another solar system, but you find it perfectly acceptable that they can turn a human being into a fully-functional E.T. complete with spaceship and ray gun.

Re: A question about 'The Architects of Fear'

I agree that the monkey was a dry run for the human-alien surgical process, although I got the impression that the scientists were approximating their alien physiology based on what they knew of the nearest planet their studies revealed as likely to support life, i.e. Theta.

I do think that the last quarter of the story is a bit of a damp squib. It's never explained why the ship goes off course. Like most others here, I assume that the guidance system malfunctioned, but one can't helping thinking it's poor storytelling not to have made the reason plainer. More tellingly, it seems to me that despite everyone's protestations in the final moments, the mission actually succeeds: Culp scares the hell out of the hunting party and vapourizes their car with his ray-gun; I can't see those guys keeping that bit of news to themselves for very long. Yet the results of the confrontation are never alluded to. Again, poor writing robs us of a proper conclusion.

On the assumption (because again, it's never made completely clear) that Culp's mission is to attack the UN, I've always thought that a better ending would have been to have had the hunters shoot him before he had the chance to make any gesture at all, e.g. as he was leaving the ship. That way, humanity would never have known whether he was friend or foe, and the mission would have been truly invalidated.

Incidentally, fans of this story should chase up a novel called "Wild Card" by Raymond Hawkey and Roger Bingham. It's out of print, but if you can find a copy second hand, it's a very clever variation on the same theme with a terrific climax.

"Duck, I says..."

Re: A question about 'The Architects of Fear'


I do think that the last quarter of the story is a bit of a damp squib. It's never explained why the ship goes off course. Like most others here, I assume that the guidance system malfunctioned, but one can't helping thinking it's poor storytelling not to have made the reason plainer. More tellingly, it seems to me that despite everyone's protestations in the final moments, the mission actually succeeds: Culp scares the hell out of the hunting party and vapourizes their car with his ray-gun; I can't see those guys keeping that bit of news to themselves for very long. Yet the results of the confrontation are never alluded to. Again, poor writing robs us of a proper conclusion.
Yes, I strongly agree. The hunting party would likely be dismissed as kooks, but their fear reaction corroborates the scientists' original premise about what might have happened IF the landing had succeeded at the U.N., and the alien had been filmed in clear newsreel footage, with a city full of witnesses -- even if he had been subsequently shot.

And then, of course, his corpse would have been worked over by govt. doctors, who would almost surely NOT have taken it to be a genetic modification but a bona fide alien.

Nothing in the conclusion actually disproves the premise of the mission. The woman's rant at the end, scolding the scientists like schoolboys, is self-satisfying (I'm sure) to writers who think themselves superior to military men, but is not warranted even by the rigged circumstances of the story.

Re: A question about 'The Architects of Fear'

Wow. Talk about cold-blooded. Perhaps the woman's "rant" at the end might have had something to do with the fact that she'd just discovered that those scientists had turned her husband and the father of her unborn child into a grotesque monster. A DEAD grotesque monster, by the way. But I guess it totally mystifies you how that could possibly motivate a long "rant" that lasted for all of ten words.

It's kind of strange how some of you think the WHY of the rocket malfunction is supposed to take priority in this story, but you show a poor grasp of the history of the space program if you think such incidents were either unheard of (certainly in 1963 but even today) or that the possible risk of such malfunctions would preclude undertaking the mission. Every astronaut who has ever gone into space has known that no matter how hard people have worked to prevent it, there has still always been the possibility that their mission could go wrong. Horribly wrong. Even blow-up-on-the-launch-pad wrong. Yet they still climbed into those spacecraft anyway. I always got the impression that the spacecraft in "Architects of Fear" didn't go any further off-target than Scott Carpenter's Mercury capsule did.

And "self-satisfying"? "Superior to military men"? Maybe it escapes you that this story concerned scientists, not military men, and that being "superior" to them simply because you would dare to introduce concepts like human empathy and human compassion into a situation like this might not be such a bad thing.

But most importantly, nothing in the conclusion of this story is SUPPOSED to disprove the "premise of this mission". The scientists are never presented as "mad scientists", but as sane, intelligent men whose goals of ending the threat of nuclear annihilation are nothing but admirable. That's precisely the tragedy of this story, that for the best of reasons these men end up making a terrible mistake. Their goals are never faulted, only the path they have chosen to reach those goals.

Re: A question about 'The Architects of Fear'

What is with you, DD-931? Why does everyone else who discusses these episodes on this board do so calmly and in good faith, politely disagreeing, and seemingly enjoying the back and forth, while you always seem to come in with angry attacks on posters' character or insight? Why not just assume good faith on everyone's part and simply present a different point of view, instead of calling people "cold-blooded," or saying that something "mystifies" or "escapes" them, or that they have "a poor grasp of the history of the space program"?

Perhaps people are none of the things you say, but simply, honestly, have a different read on the episodes.

I didn't see anyone say that space accidents never happened, just that it felt like a too-easy out and dramatically unsatisfying. Maybe it wasn't for you, but it clearly was for some people.

Maybe you didn't find the woman's rant at the end shrill and condescending, but others did.

The scientists didn't turn the husband into a dead monster, but a monster. The death happened at someone else's hands.

You say that "nothing in the conclusion of this story is SUPPOSED to disprove the premise of this mission...their goals are never faulted, only the path they have chosen to reach those goals." But when I say "premise" I AM referring to the path, not just the goal, and as others have argued, the way that the plot is wound up, which avoids a U.N. confrontation, doesn't actually invalidate the path, though the woman's rant and the narrator's conclusion indicates that the episode's writers thought that it did. The path has not been shown to be faulty, because there was never any indication that the scientists thought it was a sure thing, and no conclusive indication that a U.N. landing was either impossible or that it wouldn't have had the desired result. The scientists thought that their plan had a chance of succeeding and a chance of failing, but that it was worth the risk. And nothing in the plot proves that it wasn't. The fellow sacrificed himself, as he expected to, and he knew that he could have died anywhere along the way, including during the transformation operations.

I will discuss these things with you if you debate in good faith and stick to the episodes, and stop casting aspersions on people's character or assumed knowledge.

Re: A question about 'The Architects of Fear'

I just want to get this straight: you cast aspersions on the character of the writers and producers of The Outer Limits, ridiculing their work, calling them "self-satisfied" and having an attitude "superior to military men" (whatever that means), but I'M the "meanie" here? Well, okay. If it makes you feel better, you can see me any way you want. Sounds defensive to me. But I'll let an objective reader (certainly not you OR me) determine who's being more civil and calm here.

Dismissing the wife for daring to object to losing her husband is, indeed, cold-blooded (And again, WHAT rant? She barely spoke! We're not talking about the willingness of the husband to die for a cause, but the willingness of the wife who loved him to see him die), and if you want to assume that is an overall reflection on your character, so be it. In truth, I don't know you, and as is generally understood on these boards, I am only responding to your words, not your entire life. If you want to take it personally, then there's something else going on that you know more about than I do.

The highly talented writers and producers responsible for this fine program are dead now, and unable to defend themselves from your slams on them. But I have the right to stand up for their excellent work, and whether you can bear it or not, I will continue to do it. Just as somehow I'm just going to have to survive the terrible blow to my psyche when you continue to disagree with me.

Re: A question about 'The Architects of Fear'

Oh, yeah, those poor Outer Limits writers must surely be turning in their graves because some viewers taking an interest in their work and criticizing it, 40 years later, finds weaknesses in it. [<-sarcasm] I'm guessing they'd be happy anyone was still giving their shows an airing and thinking about them critically.

You can stand up for anything you like, but maybe if you simply tried sticking to what's IN the episodes, your would either find stronger arguments to defend their work, or you would acknowledge that there are fundamental flaws in even some of the best episodes that could leave some viewers cold. The conclusion of Architects is one example.

Re: A question about 'The Architects of Fear'

I guess that it's a terrible blow to YOUR psyche that I continue to disagree with you. You didn't find weaknesses, just your opinion. But I guess since you regard your opinion as absolute fact, that might explain why you're so traumatized that I would dare criticize what you say.

You are right about one thing, though: it doesn't matter to the creators of THE OUTER LIMITS what you think about their legacy. It seems to escape your attention that I am making no effort to erase your comments from imdb. You may also not have noticed that just because everyone doesn't become a cheering squad for your opinions doesn't automatically define them as beneath consideration. If I didn't think it was valid to periodically go back and reexamine these episodes to see how they stood up, I never would have responded to you in the first place. You have challenged my opinions about "The Architects of Fear", I have reexamined my opinions, and I have responded accordingly to my satisfaction.

Every work of art ever made has left some people cold. That's part of the landscape of being an artist in the first place. But I'm never going to put up with the idea that those criticizing the work are above criticism themselves.

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Re: A question about 'The Architects of Fear'

One possible reason for the so called disappointing ending (space ship not landing at the UN) is that was already done in "The Day the Earth Stood Still." The whole reason for the mission was that the scientists believed that if the countries of the world had a common threat, they'd band together and put their differences behind them which was actually a more desirable outcome than what Klaatu had in mind while striving for the same outcome. I believe that Yvette Leighton's "rant" in the end was only to admonish the scientists for their attempting to play "god" rather than leaving the world to its own devices.
KS

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Re: A question about 'The Architects of Fear'

Very interesting hypothesis, jeberkin. Well worth considering.

Re: A question about 'The Architects of Fear'

Interesting thread.
When I first saw this episode as a youngster I assumed that Theta was a known planet, since one scientist pointed at a star chart showing how the capsule's re-entry trajectory would appear to have come from Theta. Also, at that time I thought that the smaller Thetan was actually an inhabitant that had somehow been captured. Upon re-watching the episode as an adult I believe it was just a test run for the real thing.
There was no reason given for the ship not landing at the UN given, but the scientists watching the radar knew he would return to the lab. Maybe it was programmed to do so as a fail-safe. The lab's location was never given. The only geographical reference given in the episode is from the TV news reporter mentioning the Port Arguello radar station.
It's true, the Thetan struck fear in the dog and hunters, but that quickly turned to anger after the station wagon was destroyed and one hunter shot him in the back. A couple of problems I saw with the plan if he had landed at the UN. How would he communicate? In the lab he had the voice box. Maybe he took that with him. Also, his breathable nitrogen tank looked pretty small. Unless it was a re-breather type he would have suffocated after a short time. It was a suicide mission from the beginning. Even when Allen asked about his probability of success they responded 70% or 80% chance of it working. It was definitely a long shot.
Unfortunately, this plan could never work now. A simple DNA test would show the "alien's" human origin.

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Re: A question about 'The Architects of Fear'

Like space ships are prone, it went off course. I kind of would have liked for him to walk into the General Assembly.

Re: A question about 'The Architects of Fear'

When I saw The Architects Of Fear one Saturday afternoon, I was creeped out SO much. But somewhere in there, they changed the ending because the monster was horrific. It turned out that the alien was that monkey in the cage. Layton's wife always knew that her husband wasn't dead. When the spaceship crashes, Alan Layton struggles and he looked like a twisted and deformed animal. When he, just before dying, made that motion with his finger, his wife who was there knew it was Alan. This episode haunted me for years.

Then, when I watched it on YouTube a few years ago, the ending wasn't even close to the original. Layton had this huge, green creature and that detail ruined the episode for me. I was quite disappointed. Anyone know why the ending was changed?

Even the part where Layton says he was able to talk by just thinking, you could see that cartoon-like, incredibly fake "monster" while they were all still in the lab.

Thanks.

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Re: A question about 'The Architects of Fear'

There was no alternate ending. This is the original and only ending.

The unholy triumvirate:
The Bat, the Trek, the Bond

Re: A question about 'The Architects of Fear'

Why did the "Thetan" vaporize the car? It was an innocent bystander.

Re: A question about 'The Architects of Fear'

Another thing. Everybody knows that the Vulcans, not the "Thetans" were the first extraterrestrials to contact Earth.

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