My fave retro SFgirls!

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I just thought that I'd share with you a few of my views on women in retro SF.

Yes, it may be true that back in the old days they were some girls that screemed at the monsters but even then there were a few that would just go and fight alongside the men.

Sorry about the scant info on those lovely (laser) ladies but if you want to find out more about them you'll have look at the films and comic strips (happly they are all comeing back in print)

I know that some of them may at first look out of place but with a little reshuch you'll find that thay all kick space ass!! !!

Here they are.....

1. Wilma Deering. (from Buck Rogers)
2. Dale Arden. (from Flash Gordon, the Alex Raymond version that is so ignore the bimbo inposters)
3. Prof Peabody.(From Dan Dare, note I only count the 1950's/1960's stories as canon)
4.Princsses Leia. (from Star Wars, you crazy fool)
5. Vicki (from Doctor Who, crita 1965)
6. Zoe (from Doctor Who, crita 1968-1969)
7. Sara Kingdom (from Doctor Who: The Daleks Master Plan)
8. 'Number One' (from Star Trek: The Cage)

They are many, many others but I hope that you can think of some others, that I may have missed

Goodbye Till Next Time

Yeoman Rand.
http://www.google.com/images?hl=sv&sour ... eoman+rand

You know that Majel Barret who played #1 in The Cage was the same actress who (as a blonde) played Nurse Chapel in the rest of the series?

She was also the voice of the ship's computer on both ST-TOS and Spock's shuttle computer in the most recent ST movie...and Gene Roddenberry's wife.

Just FYI - if you're a fan of the original series, you probably already knew all that...

For me, it's probably got to be Barbarella (Jane Fonda).

Jane Seymore in the original Battlestar Galactica

There's a few others you forgot to mention, although I certainly agree with Zoe and Sara Kingdom. Seeing since you put in Princess Leia, I'm going to add anything in science fiction up to the end of the 70's, give or take.

*Barbara Wright, from Doctor Who, 1963-65. Barbara is the person who made the Doctor who he is today, more than fellow schoolteacher Ian Chesterton or even the Doctor's granddaughter, Susan. At the beginning, the Doctor was grumpy and aloof, even strongly misanthropic. It was she who stood up to him during the events of The Edge of Destruction when the paranoid old man accused her and Ian of sabotaging the TARDIS, apparently to their death. She berated him about the times the Doctor led them into trouble, only for Ian and Barbara to pull his fat out of the fryer. And it is she who deduces part of what is going on in the end. She then manages to destroy a group of tyrannical brain creatures brainwashing everyone else (The Keys of Marinus), gets mistaken for the reincarnation of an Aztec deity and uses it to try and change history (The Aztecs), not only manages to drive a van right through a blockade of Daleks, but also comes up with a plan to foment chaos in their ranks (The Dalek Invasion of Earth), helps the strategy of the rebel Menoptera, and kills the Animus (The Web Planet), and so much more. In fact, one part of the TV Tropes Crowning Moment of Awesome page for Doctor Who suggests half-seriously that Doctor Who, for those years, could have been renamed the 'Barbara Wright is Awesome Show'.

*Liz Shaw, from Doctor Who, 1970: A cool and controlled scientist, even though she could scream, she also often kept her head on her, even when confronting some of the Doctor's most dangerous foes. In Spearhead from Space, she helped the Doctor kill the body the Nestenes were going to use to conquer the world. In Doctor Who and the Silurians, not only does she confront a Silurian without going mad (she screams, but once, and she's calm and collected afterwards), but she explores the Silurian base with the Doctor, and even helps him trying to cure the disease the Silurians unleash to kill humanity. In The Ambassadors of Death, even after getting kidnapped, she is far from helpless, escaping on her own, then helping another prisoner escape, and then helping the Doctor construct a device to communicate with a group of radioactive aliens. And in Inferno, she helps the Doctor repair part of the TARDIS console, helps investigate the sabotage done to the project by its founder, Professor Stahlmann, who wants to speed up the drilling, and even her facist parallel world counterpart saves the Doctor's life by shooting the alternate version of the Brigadier, who was going to force the Doctor to rescue them.

*Sarah Jane Smith, from Doctor Who, 1973-1976: Okay, so she whinges quite a bit, but one thing that you can say about Sarah is that she takes initiative and gets things done. She organises a commando raid in the Middle Ages to kidnap the Doctor (whom she was suspicious of at the time, having only just met him), proves to a group of people that they aren't on a spaceship but a mock-up, introduces the concept of feminism to a queen of a patriarchal planet, investigates the Think-Tank and SRS organisations on her own initiative, worms her way through maintenance tunnels on a space station in order to get power from one end to another, organises an escape from a rocket silo, shoots a box of high explosives on the first go, controls a robot mummy, disguises herself to save the Doctor from burning at a pyre, does a lot of difficult things while blind...and that's not counting what she does in the new series, or in The Sarah Jane Adventures.

*Leela (no, not that one), from Doctor Who, 1976-1977: Nubile savage, but far from stupid. Leela may be fanservice, but she is also inquisitive, a good fighter, and she understands what is going on, even if it be on her own terms (she once asks the Doctor is taxes are sacrifices to gods, with the Doctor replying that there is a similarity, only paying taxes is more painful). Although she has a disturbing tendency to kill anyone who threatens the Doctor, she is very loyal to him. And in one part towards the end of The Talons of Weng-Chiang, though tied up and about to be murdered, her life force drained to keep the main villain Greel alive, she doesn't scream or sob. Instead, she tells Greel that she will hunt him down in the afterlife and put him through her agony a thousand times over. So unnerved is he that he actually orders her gagged.

*Romana, from Doctor Who, 1978-1980: Romanadvoratrelundar, aka Romana, is the closest companion the Doctor has had to an actual equal. Although she has spent a certain amount of time captured and in peril, she often makes her own way out of it, like faking her death to escape the captivity of the Daleks. And despite her initially cool and haughty demeanour, she often gets better results at getting information out of people simply because she is, in K9's words, prettier than the Doctor. Two actresses played Romana, the second, Lalla Ward becoming Tom Baker's wife for 18 months. Later, she married Richard Dawkins.

*Cally, from Blake's 7, 1978-1981: A young telepath from the planet Auron, Cally was an alien, and a genetically modified one to boot. The last of Blake's crew to join, they found her on Saurian Major, where she was the only survivor of a Federation pogrom against the rebels on the planet. Initially suspicious of Blake, she eventually joins him, and becomes one of his greatest allies in terms of supporting his actions. At turns fanatical, and one of the closest to an actual terrorist on the Liberator, Cally was nonetheless Blake's conscience, especially after she pointed out flaws in Blake's plans and methods. Unfortunately, her heritage made her susceptible to psychic takeover. That being said, Cally is far from a damsel in distress. Even when captured by Blake's arch-nemesis Travis and tortured, she remained defiant.

Thanks 'Quatermass' (or can I call you Bernard or should that be Kerr? As you do seem to remind me of a late rebel...) for reminding me of all the Dr Who Girls that I missed out, as I'll certenly agree they are truely are some of the best girls to apper in the program!! !

Oh and by the way I also happen like Cally, but sadly I was unable to menchen her (along with some other girls) as I had to leave my PC in a hurry.

Just in case you were intersted you may like to take a look at my Blog page (on this very site) as I have put up the first 3 episodes of a (semi) spoof SF saga entitled [i]The Adventures of 'Booster' Jones-King of the Rocket Girls![/i] Although I'm planning to put up a modifed version sometime soon (as they were a few typos and I felt that I needed to change a few minor details in order for some of the later episodes to make better sense) along with the other episodes I think you'll enjoy it as it's very, very funny and well written.

Thanks for all of your replys I hope that you all enjo the story

Goodbye till next time...

I didn't mention any from the 1980s, as you said retro, and implied an upper limit of the end of the 70s, but Tegan and Ace were both pretty bad-ass in their own way. Ace beat the crap out of a Dalek with a baseball bat (albeit one modified into an energy weapon by the Hand of Omega). And Tegan's an Aussie. Between her and the Queensland beach in The Enemy of the World, those are about the most significant Aussie story elements in Doctor Who.

You can just call me Quatermass. I heard of the Quatermass serials before Blake's 7. But I take after Avon in the deadpan snarking misanthrope stakes, although not to the sociopathic levels he does.



That's OK. I would have mentioned Dayna and Soolin, except they appeared in the 1980s. I'm not so sure about Jenna, and Servalan might not count because she's a villain to the core.



I only skimmed it, but isn't one of your characters named after one of Vicki's original names? Lukki? I mean, first Vicki was called Tanni, then Lukki, and finally, Vicki.

Actually, if you'd include literature, I would consider Chani, Jessica Atreides, Alia Atreides and Ghamina Atreides from the Dune series to be worthy of the list. Oh, and Princess Irulan, especially during the events of Children of Dune.

Thanks for looking at my tale I hope you enjoyed it!

Yes you are right 'Lukki Terri' is a named after one of the original (unused) names that Vicki once had.

The reasons why I used it was due to the fact that is because....

1. I just happened to like the sound of it as Lukki (who's become my fave character) is surposed to be a very 'happy go lucky' kid of girl (rather like Vicki often was inspite of her being an orpen) Also (as I'm sure you'd have noticed) she based a lot on the adventure loving girl (with a datsh of a few Hayley Mills characters that I like) from the year 2493 so it's also ment to be an injoke (along with the likes of Dr Lexy Forkov, Jenny Rogers and Xing 'the Sinful')

2. The BBC turned down the chance to use this fantasic name and so thus I had the chance to make use of it!! !!

The reasons why I wrote this story (and it should be clear to any of that can think i.e. the entire site that I do have a few motives)
were to

1. entertan as many people as possible without being modren

2. I've always wanted to write a moralty tale, in this case (among all of the other messages) the main message in this tale is to make a group of (mostly) 'goody goody' (but at the same time never boring) heroes and heroines work in a story written in the 21st centuery for 21st centuery readers.

It also should be made clear that (my view) the best charcters in the story are Stephen Jones (who is the hero and should thus be the characer that all male readers should try to be like) and Lukki Terri (who is the heroine, and thus the character that all female readers should try to be like.) Threfore I hoping that the world will one day be overun by an army of Stephen's and Lukki's and be able to make the world a better place (alhough they will also be fans who'll prefur the other charters I will from time to time try to make it clear that if one wants a happy life, be like Stephen or Lukki) However just for you I'll put in an Avon like charater in just to show that his/her (as the said charcter may be female) kind of life can at times work just as well!! !

Anyway I'll call you 'Quatermass' and if a space rocket ever crash lands in my grans home, or the goverment ever sell us out ot aliens (from space) or if I (or a mate) ever finds a 5 million year old human skull when I working on a building site, or if ever I come across any hippys getting zapped/eaten by an alien lifeform I'll drop you a line!! !

Goodbye Till Next Time.