with the same values and influences. On a cosmic time scale they’re basically the same person. Even the UK hardware scene at the time is part of it. Someone would be designing the ZX Spectrum in the morning, their friend would be writing the word processor software in the afternoon, their cousin would be writing a fanfic of The Tripods on it that evening and their next door neighbour would be writing a game based on that fanfic the next day. It’s a complete ouroboros you rarely get in history. To
the point the BBC Micro computer was even on screen as part of the TARDIS console in the 1980s. Douglas Adams not only wrote Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy but also did a BBC TV and a video game version. You can’t separate any of it. We focus on the technical brilliance of Elite but rarely
on the cultural and artistic side of it. Apologies for the essay but I get really excited about it.
“For decades I was like “I could never make my version of Elite” or “I could never make a game about Metal Mickey” but with Liberation I just threw it all in there and it’s glorious.”
What is it about the sci-fi of that particular place and time that appeals to you? On a production level, I love how simultaneously shit and brilliant it is. If you turn on an old episode of Doctor Who, the roundels (yeah I know what they’re called) are FILTHY... but it’s still a time machine from another world. I find that relentlessly fascinating. All the BBC videotape sci-fi from that period is similar. The Liberator set in Blake’s 7 is literally falling apart by episode 10. The video camera in Survivors is so degraded there’s a green line down the left side of all the footage in season 3. In Star Cops the actors have to pretend to get out of their office chairs in zero-g. It’s an impossible acting challenge but they do it, somehow, rolling sideways with their arms in the air, and their hair messed up.
But I don’t see those as flaws! They’re actually the
hallmarks of invention and passion and imagination and getting-it-done. Blake’s 7, a full space opera with planets and space battles, literally had 50 pounds per episode for special effects (it was budgeted as a non- sci-fi police procedural and had the same VFX budget). Using outside video cameras in Survivors instead of film meant more scenes outdoors, more rehearsals, more varied shots... giving it an energy and look far beyond other shows from 1975 ... and it’s all documented. (Is that a BBC thing? A nerd thing? A British thing?) So that has massive appeal. On a sci-fi level, I like how “hard” a lot of that era is.
There’s a certain integrity to it. Red Dwarf is a comedy but the rules of the universe around aliens and the Jupiter Mining Corporation are quite consistent and persistent. There’s a thinking person’s edge to that era too. It’s
very political. I’m not from the UK so I never had to live under Thatcher but gosh she inspired some great
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