The Saviour Stone

The Mob's Zoomer pulls alongside the Earth Mail Ship with a delivery, and an explosion in the mail sorting area leaves the ship calling Mayday while the Mob loads its mail, hoping for the package Mon*Star wants. Back with the loot, Mon*Star finds nothing but junk mail until the snitch Grod points to a stone. The note with it says it is a worthless souvenir from Automata, sent by a miner to his son; Grod insists the note is a cover. Hardware tests the stone, finds it value negative, and Mon*Star throws Grod out for wasting his time.

Grod decides to sell the rock on Fence instead and hails Seymour's cab, where Zeek the Beak tries to sell him a fish. At Hawk Haven, Commander Stargazer tells the team that Earth's magnetic field has begun to decay; unless it is reversed, Earth will fall out of orbit and explode. The stone was being shipped undercover to Earth Headquarters as the only thing that can save the planet. Meanwhile Mo-Lec-U-Lar tells Mon*Star the rock is priceless, and Mon*Star, furious that it was thrown out, wants it now.

On Fence, Grod's buyers call him a snitch and will not deal until he brings the rock. Seymour and Zeek work out that Mon*Star will pay for news of the rock whether it is worth anything or not. They tip him off, then flag down the Mirage on its way to Brim*Star and point the team to Grod.

Grod delivers the rock, but Mon*Star gets to it first and leaves Grod lucky to be alive. Stargazer, cut off by the Light Year Limit, sends Tally-Hawk to look, and the SilverHawks arrive to find Mon*Star there first. They launch for a blitz on the Mob, and by the end they have the stone that can cure Earth's magnetic field. Earth is safe, by a hair, and Stargazer reminds them they all owe someone thanks.

The Mob robs a mail rocket in search of the Savior Stone, which is Earth's only hope of restoring her decaying magnetic fields.

Commander Stargazer: "If this process isn't reversed, Earth will fall out of orbit and... ultimately explode."

"You mean, if the Rock's worth anything, Mon*Star will want it. And if it's not, he'll pay for the information anyway."

"Well, I'll be hanged for a horse thief."

Who decides what a rock is worth? Bob Haney's script asks it over and over, and the answer keeps changing hands. The note in the mail sack says it is a miner's souvenir for his son; the snitch Grod says the note is a cover;[1] Hardware puts it under glass and reads "value negative"; Mon*Star, who wanted to know whether it was "worth more than a bag of peanuts," throws Grod out. A few minutes later Stargazer is calling the same stone "the most important chunk of rock in the entire universe," and the only difference is that he knows what it is for.

Nobody in Limbo can tell what the stone is worth, so it is passed down a chain of people selling it on a guess. The middle of the story belongs to that chain rather than to the heroes. Grod takes the rock to Fence because the Mob was too dumb to pay for it, and his buyers will not deal until they see it, since, as one of them puts it, "You're a snitch, Grodd. You work for whoever pays you, even the SilverHawks." Seymour and Zeek the Beak then sell Mon*Star the news of the rock: "You mean, if the Rock's worth anything, Mon*Star will want it. And if it's not, he'll pay for the information anyway."

The cab scene is the one to remember. Zeek, green and beaked and irrepressible, leans over the seat to offer Grod a fish while Seymour wonders aloud why anyone would pick up fares near that place, and Grod, a big-beaked, long-haired hustler in a yellow suit, can only snap back at him to keep his beak out of his face. It is a small comedy of three salesmen in a taxi, none of whom trusts the others. The animators give it the best-drawn stretch of the episode, most of it in close-up!

Against that, the Earth plot is played straight and grand. Stargazer shows the team Earth, calls it home, and explains that if the decay in its magnetic field is not reversed it will fall out of orbit and explode. The first reply from the team is "Well, I'll be hanged for a horse thief," and nobody improves on that! The team hear it in white uniforms instead of armour, so the news reaches them off duty.[2]

The weakness is that the SilverHawks are passengers until the last act. They set off for Brim*Star, the wrong place, and only reach Fence because Seymour flashes his lights at them, and by then Mon*Star has the stone. The fight itself goes by with barely a line of dialogue, and the stone's power to mend a planet is announced rather than shown.[3] The likely reason is the slot: a script that spends its middle on hustlers has little room left for the heroes, and Haney plainly found the hustlers more fun.

It resolves on the stone, in the hands of the one side that knows what it is. Scraped in by a hair, says one of the team, and Earth is safe again. The heist is thin, but the hustlers around it are a treat.

1 ^ Grod's name has come up before: in Fantascreen Mo-Lec-U-Lar disguised himself as Grod the Informer to lead Steelwill into a trap. Here we meet the real one.

2 ^ Steelwill wears a red-and-white top instead of the white jacket the others have, in both Hawk Haven scenes.

3 ^ Hardware's test reading of "value negative" is never explained. Either his instrument cannot measure what the stone does, or the stone really is ordinary rock with an extraordinary use, and the script does not say which.

1. Grod, whose name Mo-Lec-U-Lar borrowed to trap Steelwill in Fantascreen, appears in person; his buyers on Fence call him a snitch who works for whoever pays, even the SilverHawks.
2. The stone travels with a note calling it a worthless souvenir from Automata that a miner is sending to his son; it was really being shipped undercover to Earth Headquarters.
3. Stargazer explains that Earth's magnetic field has begun to decay, and that unless it is reversed Earth will fall out of orbit and explode.
4. Hardware's test of the stone reads value negative, and Mon*Star threatens Grod with the deep space ejector if he is lying.
5. The Mob's car is named in dialogue as the Zoomer; the published frame at 3:08 shows its toothed, open-mouth front.
6. The team hear the briefing out of armour, in white uniforms with the SilverHawks triangle badge; Steelwill wears a red-and-white top.
7. Stargazer says the Light Year Limit cuts all communications around Fence, and sends Tally-Hawk to find out what is happening.
8. The closing quiz is about the asteroid belt and the size of the biggest asteroid, which the quiz gives as about as big as Texas; the Copper Kidd finishes on eleven points.

2 names enter the series in this episode.

• Grod
• The Earth Mail Ship

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.