Psychic connections are pretty cool. Set one up between a PC and an NPC villain and let it manifest as weird subliminal messages given to the PC's player, or having the character pass out and then wake up some time later with no memory of what has happened in the intervening time.

The cool thing is that nobody will ever question a psychic connection, even in a game based on hard science. There must be a reason for that... Probably locked up in some extra dimensions somewhere.

In the real world of the Misadventures & Marionettes universe, of course, Thunderbirds doesn't exist. That's the premise of this entire comic, after all. But most of the other things we know and love (such as massively over-engineered machines built to do one specific, very rarely required job) do, albeit modified by the lack of Thunderbirds:

• Stringballs is a serious documentary about the quantum nature of black holes.
• Gerry Anderson is known (barely) for doing voiceovers for poorly selling computer games, but gains widespread fame after his appearance in the first Futurama movie.
• Peter Dyneley is known primarily for his role in Call Me Bwana.
• Nerdy guys make YouTube videos of themselves wearing bow ties and fezzes instead of walking awkwardly as if controlled by strings.
• Without the success of Thunderbirds to spark interest in Supermarionation, Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons was never revived with a movie and a new series, and remains an obscure short-running TV show.
• H.R. Pufnstuf was never made into a movie. Sid and Marty Krofft fans never had it so good.
• The major puppet show background that pervades all of Western culture is The Muppets, despite it never being much good. The original TV series was adapted recently into a new, updated film with a bigger budget, high-tech computerised special effects, and edgy writing. And it sucked.
• Throughout the 1960s, all the greatest children's TV shows were big-budget live action schoolroom dramas.
• The Comic Irregulars exist and are making a screencap comic based on Raiders of the Lost Ark.

Transcript

GM: The Rolls Royce's machine guns blast The Hood off the road!
[SFX]: Kabooom!!
Parker: Job done, milady.
Lady Penelope: I said catch him, not shoot first, Parker!
Lady Penelope: <sigh> Jeff, you needn't worry about the photos of the Thunderbirds.
Jeff: Good work, Penny.
Virgil: There's one thing I still don't understand. How did The Hood know about our mission?
Brains: Mesa thinks mesa can answer that, Mr Tracy.
Alan: One of you is a traitor!
Jeff: Go ahead, Brains.
Brains: Mesa have an idea that The Hood heard it from hissa half-brother, Kyrano!
Brains: Theysa connected by a psychic field that extends into extra dimensions which issa all scrunched up so wesa can't see them.
Brain: The Hood uses thissa connection to manipulate Kyrano, like some sort of... puppet.
Jeff: That's brillant, Brains! Do you have a name for this hypothesis?
Brains: Mesa calls it String Theory!