The evolution of the emission line ratios of a photoionized cloud described by standard BLR parameters which is exposed to a varying ionizing continuum is studied. The hardness of the ionizing distribution was varied by decoupling the UV increase from that of the X-ray component. After many tests using various ionizing distributions, it became apparent that the energy distribution must change in certain specific ways if Ly-alpha/C IV is to increase monotonically with f(1338 A) as in Fairall 9. A distribution composed of a varying 10 eV bump and a constant luminosity X-ray power law can successfully reproduce the observed Ly-alpha/C IV slope. This would be consistent with reported X-ray data only if the varying absorbing column density model were a valid explanation of its variability.