Amber Amplifier

Professor Power calls Hawk Haven for help: there is an intruder in the Artificial Sun, and Commander Stargazer sends Quicksilver in the Sprinthawk to make sure. The intruders are Mo-Lec-U-Lar and Hardware, who have come up the fuel tube to the main power room for the Amber Amplifier, the sun's energy magnifier, which the Mob wants for a weapon to blast the SilverHawks off the face of Limbo. The sabotage starts at once. The fuses blow, the main condenser overloads, and the Professor warns that the light is going to go out.

Hardware, annoyed that the SilverHawk got there so quickly, waits for him. In the power room Quicksilver catches Mo-Lec-U-Lar with the amplifier and tells him to hand it over, but Hardware freezes him in a block of ice and the pair set off for Brim*Star. Mon*Star hears they have it and gloats that, fitted to Hardware's energy gun, it will make the most powerful weapon in Limbo.

When Quicksilver's report does not come, Stargazer sends the Mirage crew to watch Brim*Star. Steelheart asks what happens to the lieutenant, so Stargazer sends Tally-Hawk to find him. With Tally-Hawk's help, Quicksilver breaks out of the ice and reports, the Mirage is told that the amplifier multiplies any energy a million times, and Stargazer authorises a direct frontal attack.

As the Mirage goes in, Hardware needs more time, and Mon*Star orders his transformation to give it to him. Hardware finishes the fitting and opens fire just as Quicksilver and Tally-Hawk arrive, and Quicksilver sends Tally-Hawk after the amplifier. Back at the Artificial Sun, Professor Power puts it in what looks like the wrong way round, and explains that he marks everything with the wrong sign so that nobody else in Limbo can run the sun. This is why Hardware's energy gun blew up in his face: he fitted the amplifier the wrong way round, or, as the Professor puts it, the right way round.

Mo-Lec-U-Lar steals a device which amplifies the sun's power, and gives it to Hardware to use as a super-weapon.

Professor Power: "I always mark everything with the wrong sign! That way, I'm the only person in Limbo who knows how to operate the Artificial Sun! And I'll never be out of a job!"

"If the Amber Amplifier can produce enough energy to light up the entire Galaxy of Limbo, it can certainly produce enough energy to blast the SilverHawks into tiny pieces!"

"He fitted the Amber amplifier the wrong way around! You mean, the right way around!"

Anyone who has worked beside a colleague who keeps the only copy of the manual in his head will recognise Professor Power by the end of this one.[1] Bill Ratter's script spends most of its length on a heist and saves its real idea for the last scene, when the Professor puts the Amber Amplifier back into the Artificial Sun against its own markings and cheerfully owns up: "I always mark everything with the wrong sign! That way, I'm the only person in Limbo who knows how to operate the Artificial Sun!"

Up to that point it plays as a straight caper. Mo-Lec-U-Lar and Hardware come up the fuel tube to the power room and the fuses blow. Quicksilver arrives faster than anyone wanted and is frozen in a block of ice for his trouble, and the amplifier goes off to Brim*Star to be bolted onto Hardware's energy gun. The stakes are laid on thickly. We are told the device takes any source of energy and multiplies it a million times, and the Mob's own boast, as Hardware works on the gun, is that "If the Amber Amplifier can produce enough energy to light up the entire Galaxy of Limbo, it can certainly produce enough energy to blast the SilverHawks into tiny pieces!"

Stealing a machine is not the same as knowing how it works. The Mob gets everything it came for: the amplifier, the time to fit it, even a transformed Mon*Star to hold off the SilverHawks while Hardware finishes. None of it matters, because the man who built the sun's quirks into it is the only one who can use them. It is a pleasing idea for a show about a galaxy of crooks: the Professor keeps the sun safe by labelling it wrong!

The design plays fair with the joke. When the Professor refits the amplifier, the plus and minus marks are there on the column in plain sight, and the Professor himself, a glowing bulb of a head on a white lab coat, is drawn as a man who would find this funny. The scene that works best is a small one before the attack. Steelheart asks Stargazer "What about the lieutenant? We can't just abandon him," and he answers "I know that, Sergeant Steelheart" before sending Tally-Hawk after him.[2] It is the only scene in the episode about the SilverHawks themselves.

The weakness is that the SilverHawks do very little to win this one. Quicksilver spends the middle of the episode on ice, and the Mirage's direct frontal attack mostly keeps the Mob busy while Hardware finishes his work.[3] Then the gun fails for a reason none of the heroes knew about until the Professor explains it afterwards! The likely reason is the slot: a twenty-two minute script with a punchline this good is going to be built backwards from it, and the fight in the middle becomes a way of getting there.

It resolves where it should, on the Professor's joke. The penny drops ("He fitted the Amber Amplifier the wrong way around!") and the correction comes straight back: "You mean, the right way around!" The last line is the best thing in it.

1 ^ The Professor has been here before. In Save The Sun the Mob hijacked the Artificial Sun outright; this time they only take one part of it, the part he rigged.

2 ^ Stargazer calls Quicksilver "Lieutenant" when he tells him to quit the wisecracks, and Steelheart "Sergeant" here; the ranks are used as forms of address rather than explained.

3 ^ Mon*Star's transformation is ordered to buy Hardware a few more minutes. It is an odd use for the biggest gun the Mob has.

1. Professor Power says he marks everything with the wrong sign so that he is the only person in Limbo who can operate the Artificial Sun, and will never be out of a job.
2. The Amber Amplifier is described as the most powerful energy magnifier in Limbo, able to take any source of energy and multiply it a million times.
3. Mo-Lec-U-Lar and Hardware reach the main power room by the Artificial Sun's fuel tube.
4. Hardware freezes Quicksilver in a block of ice, and the Mob's parting joke is that it puts him out in the cold.
5. Stargazer calls Quicksilver 'Lieutenant' and Steelheart 'Sergeant'.
6. Mon*Star orders his transformation to give Hardware time to finish the gun, and Yes-Man is at the controls for it.
7. Hardware fires the finished energy gun from the Zoomer, the Mob car with the toothed open-mouth front.
8. The Artificial Sun and Professor Power were introduced in Save The Sun, where the Mob hijacked the sun itself.

Appearance lists compiled from the episode articles on the ThunderCats wiki, checked against this site's encyclopedia. Names we have no entry for are shown without a link rather than left out.