Secret Bases in Craig Era
Colonel Shatner
Chavtastic Bristol, BritainPosts: 574MI6 Agent
The cheesy Ice Palace form Die Another Day was way too much and rather uninspired, but I miss the highly elaborate and futuristic (for the time) hidden lairs from the Connery and Moore eras; they’ve only been loosely emulated in the Dalton and Brosnan eras, with no real sense of fun (but GoldenEye and Tomorrow Never Dies had the best villain lairs).
In Quantum of Solace we seem to be going to be properly going back to the Connery/Moore eras in terms of locations and set designs, with both MI6 and Quantum having state of the art bases of operations (with Dominic Greene’s Bolivian compound being particularly impressive). With Quantum being a world spanning syndicate comparable in influence to SPECTRE of old and the Alliance of Twelve from the Alias franchise, could Quantum also have similarly impressive secret bases?
I’ve got a few ideas in my head that seem unordinary yet not out of synch with the tone of the Craig era: Quantum as an organization is most likely a widely dispersed across the globe with only two or three big headquarters, a typical Quantum facility would either be a private residential building (like Mr. White’s villa) or a commercial/industrial property owned by one of Quantum’s shell companies (Dominic Greene’s desert compound). We don’t know what we’ll see in Quantum of Solace, but buildings owned by Quantum would likely have sensitive onsite facilities either in the sublevel basements or/and in the hidden spaces between the above ground floors and walls.
A much more impressive secret base along the lines of Blofeld’s infamous volcano base could work: maybe it could be a network of deep bunker complexes located beneath a large town or city of little strategic importance somewhere in South America or Eastern Europe. The bunker complex network’s main entrance for vehicles and bulk goods could be in a big quarry (which may have also masked the excavation), with the secondary entrances concealed either within Quantum owned buildings or down in the sewers. The bunker complexes are linked together by a secure private monorail network and fully sealed against nuclear strike: an airburst nuke will likely not penetrate, while the complexes are given added protection from conventional attack due to the risk of killing many civilians topside, and the obvious diplomatic disaster of invading the city of a sovereign nation.
Another idea for secret base could be Piz Gloria on steroids: a set of wide helipads and a slopped edged saucer shaped building built like a pillbox sticking out of the rock face hints at the size of the complex hidden within the mountain located somewhere in Asia. The main features of the mountain complex includes a grand central cavern (which is the hub of a monorail network), a huge mansion moved brick by brick into the mountain, and a nuclear power plant. The only way to get to the mountain fortress is by cable car, helicopter, and a steep road tunnel, while the mountain itself is located within the restricted airspace of China (like Scaramanga‘s island lair). The mountain fortress was initially a small military outpost built in the 1960s, but in the 1990s the Quantum organization modernized and expanded it. The surface construction/excavation activity picked up by NATO surveillance was attributed to the PRC and not Quantum.
How this ideas for secret bases? Too far fetched?
In Quantum of Solace we seem to be going to be properly going back to the Connery/Moore eras in terms of locations and set designs, with both MI6 and Quantum having state of the art bases of operations (with Dominic Greene’s Bolivian compound being particularly impressive). With Quantum being a world spanning syndicate comparable in influence to SPECTRE of old and the Alliance of Twelve from the Alias franchise, could Quantum also have similarly impressive secret bases?
I’ve got a few ideas in my head that seem unordinary yet not out of synch with the tone of the Craig era: Quantum as an organization is most likely a widely dispersed across the globe with only two or three big headquarters, a typical Quantum facility would either be a private residential building (like Mr. White’s villa) or a commercial/industrial property owned by one of Quantum’s shell companies (Dominic Greene’s desert compound). We don’t know what we’ll see in Quantum of Solace, but buildings owned by Quantum would likely have sensitive onsite facilities either in the sublevel basements or/and in the hidden spaces between the above ground floors and walls.
A much more impressive secret base along the lines of Blofeld’s infamous volcano base could work: maybe it could be a network of deep bunker complexes located beneath a large town or city of little strategic importance somewhere in South America or Eastern Europe. The bunker complex network’s main entrance for vehicles and bulk goods could be in a big quarry (which may have also masked the excavation), with the secondary entrances concealed either within Quantum owned buildings or down in the sewers. The bunker complexes are linked together by a secure private monorail network and fully sealed against nuclear strike: an airburst nuke will likely not penetrate, while the complexes are given added protection from conventional attack due to the risk of killing many civilians topside, and the obvious diplomatic disaster of invading the city of a sovereign nation.
Another idea for secret base could be Piz Gloria on steroids: a set of wide helipads and a slopped edged saucer shaped building built like a pillbox sticking out of the rock face hints at the size of the complex hidden within the mountain located somewhere in Asia. The main features of the mountain complex includes a grand central cavern (which is the hub of a monorail network), a huge mansion moved brick by brick into the mountain, and a nuclear power plant. The only way to get to the mountain fortress is by cable car, helicopter, and a steep road tunnel, while the mountain itself is located within the restricted airspace of China (like Scaramanga‘s island lair). The mountain fortress was initially a small military outpost built in the 1960s, but in the 1990s the Quantum organization modernized and expanded it. The surface construction/excavation activity picked up by NATO surveillance was attributed to the PRC and not Quantum.
How this ideas for secret bases? Too far fetched?
'Alright guard, begin the unnecessarily slow moving dipping mechanism...'
Comments
In the Craig era we could probably see a more formal battle between soldiers of a nation state and Quantum's private army. I've got a silly idea: what if Craig Bond bumps into a Quantum henchman he used to know from the SBS days?
Dominic Greene, the main villain, has his base of operations in an impressive commercial complex out in the desert and the whole place is a real location, the ESO Paranal Observatory in Chile. And that impressive sandstone building seen in the trailer is the observatory's existing dormatory/hotel (although the interior is likely a big set; Dennis Gassner wants to emulate Ken Adam).