Slidetopia: An Idea for a S5 episode...

Date: 03/17/1999
From: ThomasMalthus

Apologies to any Sliders fanfic author who might have already used the title "Slidetopia".

The Sliders (Mallory, Rembrandt, Diana and Maggie) land on a world which doesn't seem to be very heavily populated. There is no cityscape but signs of life are apparent so the foursome start searching. What they find is a community with banners and signs up reading something like "Welcome, Sliders!". They all seem disappointed, but when they see the four of them, they rush over and give them lavish gifts and warm greetings. One of them explains that the landing must have been off, and the Sliders are very confused. Rembrandt is approached by Wade and the Professor in a lab coat. Rembrandt is skeptical about their identities at first, but when they explain their stories he believes them. It turns out that this Arturo is the real one who was left behind on PTSS earth and that he re-invented sliding on that world. He then went off looking for the others, but on his way found Wade. Since he had already figured out about sliding signatures because he needed a way to prove he was the real Arturo to the other sliders, he discovered this Wade was his Wade. The two of them stumbled on this community of Kromagg refugees and decided to stay here, since they had been on the run from the Maggs for a while now. Rembrandt is overjoyed to see them, and Mallory is happy, too, but of course his other half of him is unsure how to react.

Meanwhile, Maggie finds that a Doctor Steven Jenson exists here. He walks up to her and tries to convince her that he is her Steven. He explains that he met a sliding double of himself a few weeks before the events in Exodus who slid him back to his (the double's) world. There he met a repressive government bent on exploring and conquering other worlds who was using his double to explore them. When he tried to convince them he was from another world, they scoff. However, when they discover his back injury they quickly take him to a med and due to advanced medicinal techniques he is cured. When they send him on the next mission, he goes AWOL as did his counterpart and he keeps sliding. His timer ran out on this world and he and Professor Arturo have been working on trying to repair it.

Diana finds out that an estranged relative (perhaps a sister or a father or something, we know nothing of her character so far, so I'm a bit sketchy on this.) lives here and begins to bond with her. Mallory talks to the Professor and Dr. Jenson and they say that with salvaged Kromagg tech they can separate Mallory into his two separate bodies, but the procedure will take longer than they have until the slide. Diana's relative, Wade, Dr. Jenson and the Professor all beg the Sliders not to slide out and tell them how much better their lives would be if they stayed here.

While Rembrandt and Wade are reminiscing and Remmy is filling her in on what's happened to him since being rescued from Earth Prime, Wade says something extremely out of character for her. At first, Remmy dismisses it, but then she blurts out something there's no way she could know. Rembrandt tries not to let on that he knows she's not Wade, but she figures it out anyhow. Rembrandt tries to go warn the others, but is quickly subdued. Meanwhile, Diana, Mallory and Maggie all figure out that these people aren't who they're supposed to be in time and all of them are knocked out. When they come to, they are now in a medical laboratory. The people here are much more advanced than humans and explain that their world was destroyed during an atomic war in the middle part of this century. They are forced to live underground and live on what little food they have stored and can grow in special farmable land. They wanted to use the timer to leave this world en masse. Despite wanting to help them, the sliders inform these people that their timer couldn't transport all of them to another world, and that the next one might not be any better than this. The people sadly come to grips with this reality, release them and let them have their timer back. They slide out, but each wonders if it would have been better to live there in an imagined paradise or to continue their seemingly endless journey.

What do you think?

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ThomasMalthus

Vey Nice TM <end>

Date: 03/17/1999
From: Chaser9

:-)

Original URL http://bboard.scifi.com/bboard/browse.cgi/1/5/545/4789
Nominated by Blinker