Perry Rhodan

[Hafen von Schlockenberg]

I see someone has been making CGI animations of the long-running German Space Opera series. Here’s a sample:

More episodes on youtube.

I have to say, they look pretty impressive for fan productions.

[Darkest Star Games]

Looks like there’s a whole movie too.  With I sprekened der lingo…

"I saw this in a cartoon once, but I'm pretty sure I can do it..."

[Shahbahraz]

The mercedes space-ships are pretty cool.

--An occasional wargames blog: http://aleadodyssey.blogspot.co.uk/ --

[Thorsten Frank]

Darkest Star Games wrote:

Looks like there’s a whole movie too. With I sprekened der lingo…

I hope you don´t refer to the nearly 50 years old “masterpiece”….

"In strange grammar this one writes" - Master Yoda

[Darkest Star Games]

Thorsten Frank wrote:

I hope you don´t refer to the nearly 50 years old “masterpiece”….

  Negative.  Just meant that there seems to be a full length movie of the CGI trailer shown above.  Not sure if they are done or not as I don’t understand German.  Would be cool to see!

"I saw this in a cartoon once, but I'm pretty sure I can do it..."

[Hafen von Schlockenberg]

If anyone’s wondering which “masterpiece” is being referred to, here’s the trailer:

Here are parts 2 and 3 of the one I linked to in the OP:

I can’t seem to find the one you mention, DSG; could you post a link?

It’s all very confusing for non-German speakers,  among  whom I count myself. I’m hoping a German Perry Rhodan fan will come along here to straighten us out!

There seem to be several fan efforts by different hands. The ones I posted were from 2014-2016. Here’s a later one by the same people, shown at the 2nd “Perry Rhodan Tage Osnabruck”. No dialog or narration, just 15 minutes of CGI-candy:

From the film, it seems Perry and friends attended the con!

[Thorsten Frank]

Hafen von Schlockenberg wrote:

It’s all very confusing for non-German speakers, among whom I count myself. I’m hoping a German Perry Rhodan fan will come along here to straighten us out!

WHAT? Dear Sir, what are you asking for is like asking for committing Seppukku. Or join a forlorn hope.
It´s like asking for explaining the history and the politics of the Ancient Egypt Middle Kingdom.
Ok, somebody has to sacrifice himself … There goes the evening (and maybe half the night).
And to make that clear: I AM NOT A FAN (I explain the “why” maybe later)
And you are aware that the Rhodan ´verse is larger than Star Wars and Star Trek COMBINED?
I try to keep it brief. (and those who are aware of the background and the story can skip the first paragraphs)

The series

For those who are completely unaware what Perry Rhodan is here´s a small introduction. It all started back in 1961 with an small effort to publish a German Sci-Fi series in a weekly pulp format. Very soon technical drawings  and explanations of the technology and the socio-politics were introduced. A bit later a 4 weekly fan section was added – first letter´s to the editors and later with small fan made short stories. This, the technical background and the ability to shape the universe are the secrets of the success of the series.  And this hasn´t much changed over the last nearly fifty years. Many of those who are writing today for the series started with their fan-made fiction. Later came spin-offs (first the “Silver Books”, which were edited and condensed versions of the 10-20 of the weekly booklets and later seperate (e.g. non story line) booklets and books. Maybe the best of them were the books with the technical drawings – they were in a same fashion like the (later published) Terran Trade Authority books by Stewart Cowley (and yes, I miss them both, the PR TD AND the TTA books). The stories are divided in story arcs called cycles and meta-cycles with generally a hundred issues building a cycle.

The Story

The PR universe set´s the first landing on the moon in the year 1971. Yes, the PR timeline and the real timeline divert in this year. It was the height of the cold war and NATO and the Warsaw Pact are short of wiping each other out (don´t forget the first booklet was published in 1961). Later versions explain the divergence that the Apollo program failed and Apollo 11 never made it to the moon. The project Stardust was NASA´s last ditch effort to make a landing on the moon. (A four man direct approach for those interested). Commander of this mission was the already mentioned Perry Rhodan and his close friend Reginald Bull as 2IC. At chance they stumble over an stranded starship with human-like aliens on board. And, yet better, they are even able to communicate with each other. What a happy coincidence!
The friendly aliens, called Arkonides, are explorers from an once vast but now rapidly declining (and a degenerating population) star empire which ruled once over the whole Milky Way. And even better: they are refugees, dissidents, fleeing from the current ruler, an artifical intelligence.
After agreeing for mutual help our hero returns to earth. But instead of landing, as planned, in the USA, be an hero and happily wait to be reduced to nuclear ash in the near future he choses to land in the Gobi Desert, defect and building his own nation, called “Die Dritte Macht” (The Third Power, a reference to the two superpowers, NATO and WP). Both are pissed of by that and attack. To make it worse, China is joining this nice little furball but all three powers are defeated by the Arkonide ultra technology. The next steps are slowly uniting the nations of Earth, the discovery of pisonic powers (the psionic wielders are called “Mutants” and a Corps of Mutants was created – does this sound familiar to someone???), deciphering the technology of the alien starship and finally building an industrial base were the next steps – this part, sadly, takes only a small part of the story.
Time jump, a few years into the future with the first Earth build star ships the first incursions into the nearer space were made and, again, running into human-like aliens of different kinds – and causing a new problem (or better cause for conflict). The AI regent of has heard of this young humanoid race starting to build their own nation – and decides to bring them under his rule. Well, as humans are, our hero building the Solar Imperium and, of course, himself as Emperor, ahm, sorry, First Administrator (later Grand Administrator) and destroyed the invading fleet.
Meanwhile, he contacted an extraterrestrial superintelligence which gave him a device to keep him young and healthy (he could still die through violence) – called relative immortaility, an ten thousand years old Arkonid remnant who was secretly shaping humanities actions over the ages called Atlan (although immortal) and conquered the nearby space. This Atlan guy was actually the only remaining heir for the throne of Arkon, immortal himself, arrogant and a real cynic (and one of the few interesting characters). Well, as faery tales go (my apologies to potential fans reading this) our immortal heroes befriend and help each other,  Atlan got back his rule etc etc. And if they didn´t have died they happily….

Well, that wasn´t the end of the story. This was just the beginning. Over the story arcs more and more questions did arise. Where do all those humanoids come from – especially if they have all rather large genetic differences. What are all those (unseen) Galactic powers seeming to rush each race at each other like puppeteers? And and and.

And now to the linked videos….

They are directly linked to this part of the stories. The so called Meister der Insel (Master of the Island) cycle gives, at least, partly answers to this question. Our heroes were transported via a massive star gate with their fleet to the Andromeda Galaxy and get most of their questions answered – well, without wreaking havoc in their way (but much less than in the beginning of the series), freeing the enslaved humanoids from their masters, which were called “the evil in itself” by the enslaved, by the way. And they learn of the Lemurians, a human sub clade, originating on Earth, reaching a very high technological level 90 thousand years ago and seeding the Milky Way, Andromeda and a few other galaxies.
I have to admit, this part, of all the story arcs, is really good. One can notice a change in the tone of the stories. In the earlier stories I sometimes had the feeling this was the Wehrmacht winning the Battle for Kursk, the New Roman Empire or Sargon on the move.
And this was all written in the mid sixties. So, we are talking here about many things that weren´t written by then and the TV had such things as Star Trek (and Lost in Space…)  – which haven´t reached Germany yet (as many sci-fi novels, which reached the FRG only since the seventies).
And, many other things changed over the next decade – the rather conservative structured Solar Imperium to the very (politically) anarchistic League of Free Terrans and more later the League of Free Galacticans.
(Fans of Iain M. Banks (hope you are in a better place now) The Culture series will find a lot of similarities between both universes.)
The inrtroduction of the Onion-shell model, in which every entity has one above or below it and the eternal battle between order and chaos and (WH40K fans, you´ve got to be strong now…) the decision of the Terrans to keep order and chaos in balance – neither is better than the other – are the
hallmark of the series over the last twenty years (real time – in universe we are in the 4th millenium). There´s much more. Many transhumans thoughts are already expressed in the sixties and seventies.  The same goes for genetic manipulation and the moralities involved Cooperation between the different life forms above conflict etc etc
And some interesting characters. Like the already mentioned Atlan. Or one of the fans favourites, the “mouse-beaver” Gucky (can be seen roaring in the first linked video) – a small, rodent like, extremely naughty, anarchistic and absolutely anti authotarian alien life form with very strong psionic powers (think of a combination of Darth Vader/Jumper/Graucho Marx)
Those things (and the above mentioned participation of the fans) keeping the series alive.

And no, despite praising the Perry Rhodan universe above to the skies, I don´t really like it – I´m fed up by characters saving the universe constantly (actually the only sci fi universe I could stand in this regard was Babylon5). I´m a Traveller/Firefly/Serenity/The Expanse/Elite (video game) guy.
I tried to read the parallel running Perry Rhodan Neo series (changing the early parts of the universe) but gave up around issue 100 out of the above reasons.

To sum this up I give a few examples of the technical drawings:
a research cruiser of the explorer fleet
https://www.pr-materiequelle.de/riss/risszeichnung/r13_4.htm

Sodom class battle cruiser
https://www.pr-materiequelle.de/riss/risszeichnung/r63_5.htm

Terran battle suit
https://www.pr-materiequelle.de/riss/risszeichnung/r119_4.htm

Heavy space fighter “Spacewolf” (Yes, that´s a later version of the Bf110 in space…)
https://www.pr-materiequelle.de/riss/risszeichnung/r225_4.htm

Arkonid weekend estate (Datscha… (and,yes, civillian)
https://www.pr-materiequelle.de/riss/risszeichnung/r257a_4.htm

Space Port Terrania City (the capital city)
https://www.perrypedia.proc.org/wiki/Datei:PR1081Illu_1.jpg

I hope my “Genglish” was readable – writing so long texts as a non-native English speaker is quite … challenging.

"In strange grammar this one writes" - Master Yoda

[Hafen von Schlockenberg]

Whew! Thanks for taking the time for that thorough recap, Thorsten!

I was really asking specifically about the videos; you’re quite right: asking for an explication of the entire Perry oevre would be like saying “maybe someone will come along to assemble and translate the Royal Library of Nineveh for us”.  RP in German is up to 300,000 pages!

I  should have done some more googling; I  see there are articles about the animator, Raimund Peter, including this one:

http://www.frostrubin.com/mix/rpn_t01.htm

And of course, there are wikis on the Perry series itself.

Yes, definitely World-destroying Space Opera, of the sort produced by the likes of Edmund Hamilton and E.E. ‘Doc’ Smith during the Golden Age of SF. Hardcore SF fans, in the US (and Germany too, apparently) considered them too ‘juvenile’ by the time the series began in the early 60’s. The first 150 or so were translated and published in English by Ace Books, starting about 1969. It’s funny — I picked up some of those back then, but never got around to them; now I can’t: they’re in near-mint condition, but fragile — the perils of paperback collecting.

The Wiki article notes that English-speakers may have a negative impression of the series not wholly deserved, as the early books were targeted at a more juvenile audience; by the 70’s, the books became more adult-oriented. But by then, the translation project was terminated.

Thanks again for the long answer — and the links!

PS: big Firefly fan myself!

 

 

[Darkest Star Games]

Yes, thank you Thorston!  That explains a lot about the overall series.  When I was young I too really loved the great space opera books, cut my teeth on my uncles collection of 50’s and 60’s scifi books, as well as his pulp stuff.  This would have been right up my alley.  But, like you (Thorsten) I am a big Traveller/firefly/Expanse, et.al. fan so my leanings are a little less galaxy destructive.  Pretty cool though that the series has been cranking along for so many years.  Must be a record!

"I saw this in a cartoon once, but I'm pretty sure I can do it..."

[Hafen von Schlockenberg]

More statistics in the wiki article:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perry_Rhodan

Over two billion sales!

I still haven’t found the movie you mentioned — is it assembled from the parts I linked?

There are, for possible gaming interest, paper models available. Here’s one:

http://www.papermodelers.com/forum/alternate-dimensions/26913-perry-rhodan-midway-station-now-available.html

The animator’s “Perrypedia” article says he made some of them:

http://www.perrypedia.proc.org/wiki/Raimund_Peter

[Darkest Star Games]

Hafen von Schlockenberg wrote:

I still haven’t found the movie you mentioned — is it assembled from the parts I linked?

  I only sampled it at various points as it was listed as being over 2 hours long, but it appeared to be of homogeneous style so I assumed the one you linked to was either a small part of it, or done by the same peeps.  No idea what I searched to find it.

"I saw this in a cartoon once, but I'm pretty sure I can do it..."

[Thorsten Frank]

Hafen von Schlockenberg wrote:

Over two billion sales!

Frankly, I doubt a bit those numbers. But they can be possible. Anyway, some publishers could learn a lot of the whole thing. Especially on listening to the fanbase and having a good team in the lead (not management). Fox TV, I´m looking at you!
And we are talking about pulp booklets here. A market which could be considered dead….

The thing that astonished me the most about Firefly is that it could be considered Hard SF. (The show only deviates in gravity control and pisonics from physics). That´s a quite fascinating fact.

"In strange grammar this one writes" - Master Yoda

[Hafen von Schlockenberg]

Yup, like no sound in space — even with a shotgun.

Unfortunately,  when the film was eventually made, some suit in Production apparently didn’t want to “hear” about that. 

[Hafen von Schlockenberg]

Update, to add a fairly recent sort of overview of the series:

[Author]

Posts