From: blakes7-d-request@lysator.liu.se Subject: blakes7-d Digest V00 #277 X-Loop: blakes7-d@lysator.liu.se X-Mailing-List: archive/volume00/277 Precedence: list MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/digest; boundary="----------------------------" To: blakes7-d@lysator.liu.se Reply-To: blakes7@lysator.liu.se ------------------------------ Content-Type: text/plain blakes7-d Digest Volume 00 : Issue 277 Today's Topics: Re: [B7L] Anna & the nature of love [ Harriet Monkhouse <101637.2064@comp ] Re: [B7L] Anna & the nature of love [ "Sally Manton" ] [B7L] Re: blakes7-d Digest V00 #276 [ Helen Krummenacker ] [B7L] Poetry and B7 [ "Ellynne G." ] [B7L] Re: Amount impacted by Star On [ "Ellynne G." ] [B7L] Re: Did Avon hallucinate Cally [ "Ellynne G." ] Re: [B7L] Fantasy [ "Neil Faulkner" ] Male Freedom Fighters (was Re: [B7L] [ Tigerm1019@aol.com ] Re: [B7L] Anna & the nature of love [ Russ Massey To: "INTERNET:blakes7@lysator.liu.se" Subject: Re: [B7L] Anna & the nature of love Message-ID: <200010031624_MC2-B59B-DE4@compuserve.com> Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Disposition: inline Tavia said: >Wow. Yet another Blake's Seven fan who loves TS Eliot. = >This is getting to be quite a trend. Did I mention that my nerves are bad tonight? Harriet ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 03 Oct 2000 20:32:09 GMT From: "Sally Manton" To: blakes7@lysator.liu.se Subject: Re: [B7L] Anna & the nature of love Message-ID: Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed Marian wrote: No, the point would seem that some of us believe that Blake was trying (and very well might have succeeded) to save many *more* people than he would have killed. Some others believe that he'd kill half the galaxy for the sake of his own ego and a handful of freed survivors. _________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com. Share information about yourself, create your own public profile at http://profiles.msn.com. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 03 Oct 2000 20:35:54 GMT From: "Sally Manton" To: blakes7@lysator.liu.se Subject: Re: [B7L] Anna & the nature of love Message-ID: Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed Natasha wrote: No, but I'd like to ... oh god yes, I would like to ... _________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com. Share information about yourself, create your own public profile at http://profiles.msn.com. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 03 Oct 2000 20:54:40 GMT From: "Sally Manton" To: blakes7@lysator.liu.se Subject: Re: [B7L] Anna & the nature of love Message-ID: Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed Marian wrote: How do you know he doesn't? For that matter, how do you know she hasn't already *got* her share? That they haven't basically divided up the goodies long before (this is a crew of criminals, remember)? Blake agreed to give Avon the *ship* - nothing was said about the crew, the treasure, the contents of the wardrobe room or anything else. For my part, I'm absolutely certain he'd have taken Orac himself if he gone to Earth :-) Also, how do you know that Jenna would want to leave? She's clearly not pleased with the idea of Avon being in charge, but there's nothing to indicate she wanted out. Strictly speaking - on Avon's own track record - Blake didn't have to agree to anything at all at this point, Avon would probably have gone with him anyway (as he did in Pressure Point, where Blake did *not* concede). At least part of it was IMO his own recognition that in a contest for control (and with these two there would be a battle) Avon would win - Vila and Cally would both go his way - and by indicating his own agreement, he could help head off the contest. Blake clearly at this point considers Avon the senior of the two (witness who he asks to run the defence of the galaxy). There's only one ship - he can't give it to both of them, there'd be blood on the flight deck within a week. And since they both - along with the rest - gave him defacto ownership months if not years ago ... _________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com. Share information about yourself, create your own public profile at http://profiles.msn.com. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 03 Oct 2000 22:44:57 +0200 From: Jacqueline Thijsen To: Subject: Re: [B7L] Anna & the nature of love Message-Id: <5.0.0.25.0.20001003224042.009db5f0@pop3.wish.net> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed At 20:21 3-10-00 +0100, Una McCormack wrote: >Natasa wrote: > > > 'I need a crew' is, I think, a kind of > > rational justification which he needs to give Avon. > >Or else he wants a crew that are deeply grateful to and dependent on him. None of them, except for maybe Gan, struck me as deeply grateful or dependent types, and Blake spent several months with them. I very much doubt that he would expect those qualities from any of them. Jacqueline ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 3 Oct 2000 20:03:41 +0100 (BST) From: Judith Proctor To: Lysator List Subject: Re: [B7L] Blake's 7 Movie Message-ID: Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII On Tue 03 Oct, GPrimeCEO@aol.com wrote: > I'm new to this list, but was wondering what, if any, information was > available on the Blake's 7 movie that supposedly went into production in mid > 1999 with Daul Darrow and Michael Keating? Was it ever broadcast/will it be > broadcast. Are there websites with info on it besides Horizon which has > little to no info. The bit about it going into production was just newspaper hype. There is a group intending to make the movie. They got the initial finance for a script, etc. Now that they have the groundwork done, they have to find people willing to finance the body of the work. Paul Darrow will be in it (he's an assistant producer). There is no confirmation that Micheal Keating or any other original cast member will be involved. The possibility may be there, but it is *only* a possibility. If there's any real news, you'll hear it here. Ignore any runours you hear via newspapers etc. I've got some data on my web site (which doesn't really say anything more than what I've said above) and I'll add to it when there is more news, but essentially, things are quiet at present and any speculation on cast/dates/etc is liable to be wrong. Judith -- http://www.hermit.org/Blakes7 - Fanzines for Blake's 7, B7 Filk songs, pictures, news, Conventions past and present, Blake's 7 fan clubs, Gareth Thomas, etc. (also non-Blake's 7 zines at http://www.knightwriter.org ) Redemption '01 23-25 Feb 2001 http://www.smof.com/redemption/ ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 3 Oct 2000 17:18:27 EDT From: B7Morrigan@aol.com To: blakes7@lysator.liu.se Subject: [B7L] Re: Amount impacted by Star One (was Anna & the nature of love) Message-ID: Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In a message dated 10/3/00 1:41:00 PM Eastern Daylight Time, Julia.lysator@jajones.demon.co.uk writes: > In message , B7Morrigan@aol.com writes > >Yet "Star One" seems a rather large contridiction to this theory, a > >willingness to kill millions of people to destroy the Federation. > > > We could go through that one again, but it's less than a year since the > last time - so I'll just summarize, and ask "where is your evidence that > millions of people would be killed by the destruction of Star One?" > Cally says "many, many people", which is not the same thing at all, and > the destruction shown in that episode is due to the Andromedans > manipulating the programming of Star One to create havoc, not to its > destruction. The issue being discussed was the opinion of ucev@tesla.rcub.bg.ac.yu that Blake had not done anything selfish throughout the series. > Correct me if I'm > wrong. I also think the script writers (most of them) make it clear that he > is much more driven by the love for mankind than by the hatred for the > Federation. This is more than obvious when he puts a plague warning into > Fosforon's orbit, rather than to use this opportunity to kill Servalan (as > 'somebody else' suggests they should do). I disagreed, citing Star One as an example of Blake's choice to destroy Federation control at the risk of lives. I cited million of lives, rather than "many, many lives" based on what I heard in "The Keeper" TRAVIS: Look, Star One is the computer control center. It controls the climate on more than two hundred worlds, communications, security, food production, it controls them all. It is the key to our very lives. Think of all that power. If each of those 200 worlds averaged 5,000 lives, then we are speaking of 1,000,000 lives (human, humanoid, or other), just on those worlds. This does not include other planets that might be dependent upon those 200 for food or other imports. As far as I know, there are no facts that suggest exactly how many lives were expected to be impacted by Blake's planned destruction of Star One, but it is clearly a significant number. I do not consider Blake's decision to destroy Star One selfish, but I firmly disagree that he was driven more by a love for mankind than a hatred of the Federation. Morrigan Protons have mass? I didn't even know they were Catholic! ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 4 Oct 2000 07:15:37 +1100 From: Kathryn Andersen To: "Blake's 7 list" Subject: Re: [B7L] Fantasy Message-ID: <20001004071537.C20772@welkin.apana.org.au> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii On Tue, Oct 03, 2000 at 08:34:05PM +0200, Natasa Tucev wrote: > Neil wrote: > > > >Or maybe arm wounds are just easier on make-up and pose fewer plot problems. > > OK, you're obviously right. I recant this. Wounds in literature, however, > tend to be symbolic. There's the famous King Arthur's wound, or Chatterly's > paralysis, to quote a 20th century example. And whereas I agree that the > arm-wound symbolism in B7 doesn't hold water, I still maintain that the eye > injury in 'Blake' IS very telling and should be considered as a symbol. I definitely agree with this. Even if it's only supposed to be a symbol of how like Travis Blake has become, he has become his own nemesis. In the B7 terms, it is a symbol of obsession. > >Also, High Fantasy is a close companion to myth, which functions to reaffirm > >the prevailing values of the status quo. SF, as the literary branch of > >science, seeks to question such values, to test them against reality and > >where necessary debunk them. > > > I don't think an entire genre can be subversive or the opposite. Too true, too true. "SF is subversive" is itself a myth. [snip cool para about myth and literature] Golly, we're getting very literate this week! (Kathryn sends off waves of admiration) Kathryn Andersen -- _--_|\ | Kathryn Andersen / \ | \_.--.*/ | v | #include "standard/disclaimer.h" ------------| Melbourne -> Victoria -> Australia -> Southern Hemisphere Maranatha! | -> Earth -> Sol -> Milky Way Galaxy -> Universe ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 04 Oct 2000 07:36:25 EST From: "J MacQueen" To: blakes7@lysator.liu.se Subject: Re: [B7L] Re: Fantasy, satire and princess brides Message-ID: Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed >From: "Neil Faulkner" > > Probably not enough in the way of penguins, either. >What do you think the Noegyth Nibin were? Oi, Faulkner, I said "probably not enough"; I didn't say "nothing at all", now, did I? Regards Joanne (now with the horrible idea of Una writing a PGP where Blake and Avon survive, but everyone else in their new crew is called Douglas. Thanks, I don't think, Una!) _________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com. Share information about yourself, create your own public profile at http://profiles.msn.com. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 3 Oct 2000 17:42:24 -0400 From: "Dana Shilling" To: Subject: Re: [B7L] Anna & the nature of love Message-ID: <009e01c02d85$021e14c0$726b4e0c@dshilling> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Re the Sally-Marian dialogue: > Sally asked: > >Actually, I've seen this before, and it puzzles me a little, because ... > exactly *what* do you expect Blake to reward her with?< > > Recognise her stake in Liberator (she *was* one of the salvagers) and give > her her share from Liberator's treasure room so she can buy her own > spacecraft. In Duel, even if he has no romantic feelings for Jenna, he could tell her explicitly that he is grateful for her sterling piloting and is sorry that her being his friend has placed her in especially imminent risk of death. Of course, like Tonto in the Lenny Bruce routine, she might have said "What you mean WE, white man?" and hopped down from the tree to cut a deal with Kiera the Mutoid... -(Y) ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 3 Oct 2000 17:53:52 -0400 From: "Dana Shilling" To: Subject: Re: [B7L] Anna & the nature of love Message-ID: <00a001c02d85$0a889f40$726b4e0c@dshilling> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Natasa said: >Can you imagine Avon > asking, 'Why are we going there?' and Blake replying, 'No man is an island, > entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent... And therefore > never send to know for whom the bell tolls...' I bet he would have liked it better than "shut up," which is pretty much what he got. -(Y) ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 3 Oct 2000 23:23:05 +0100 From: Tavia Chalcraft To: 'Lysator mailing list' Subject: Re: [B7L] Anna & the nature of love Message-ID: <01C02D90.E399EC70.tavia@btinternet.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Natasa asked about male freedom fighters. There was always Hunda, of course. Tavia --When the fire and the rose are one http://www.viragene.com/ ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 03 Oct 2000 23:31:42 +0000 From: Steve Rogerson To: Freedom City , Lysator Subject: [B7L] Xena Night - 15 Oct Message-ID: <39DA6C5F.342E7506@mcr1.poptel.org.uk> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; x-mac-type="54455854"; x-mac-creator="4D4F5353" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit There is a Xena night at Pages Bar in London on Sunday 15 October. The reason this is sort of relevant is that I'll be using it to celebrate my birthday (a few days late, but what the hell). Tickets for Xena nights cost 3 pound. If anyone wants to come, drop me an email and I'll reserve you a ticket. -- cheers Steve Rogerson http://homepages.poptel.org.uk/steve.rogerson Redemption: The Blake's 7 and Babylon 5 convention 23-25 February 2001, Ashford, Kent http://www.smof.com/redemption ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 03 Oct 2000 17:46:52 -0700 From: Helen Krummenacker To: blakes7@lysator.liu.se Subject: [B7L] Re: Did Avon hallucinate Cally's death Message-ID: <39DA7DFC.7164@jps.net> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit > Also, hallucinations are not necessarily based on what the person _wants_ > to see. However, skipping this and the fact that I could tell you some > stories about people who had bad reactions to medications who, I think I > could make a fair case, didn't _want_ to see floating heads, attacking > armies of ants, or tree shadows doing very strange things up and down the > wall, if we are going with what Avon is _afraid_ of or what he _expects_, > I think worse case scenarios must have been rather high in his mind. > I can agree with that. I picture him climbing through rubble to reach her, seeing her body slumped over... he *plans* on going all the way over to her and checking her pulse... and his mind, stilla ddled by drugs and lack of sleep races ahead of his actions. He can feel her thin, frail looking arm as he checks for some sign of life.. meanwhile, he's gripping some piping that has fallenfrom the wall as he slips on some plaster. His own heart is pounding and the one light still intact fizzles out as the wiring finally shorts out. Heaccidentally turns around, stands... he is confused a bit as to how he got there and back, but then he can't remember every step he took along the way, anyhow. There is a hint of smoke in the air. Cally's dead. He saw it, he felt her cold, pulseless arm (didn't he?). Time to hurry back or he may never find his way out again. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 03 Oct 2000 18:13:46 -0700 From: Helen Krummenacker To: blakes7@lysator.liu.se Subject: [B7L] Re: blakes7-d Digest V00 #276 Message-ID: <39DA844A.2701@jps.net> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit > >Zen is *really* pushing it, I fear > > Obvious! Transferred consciousness from Drive L(iberator) to Drive O(rac) > just before "expiring". Just waiting in zipped format for a new ship to be > put in. > -- > For A Dread Time, Call Penny: Oh! I LOVE this idea. Plus, he keeps the first-person self-realization upgrade he wrote for himself at the last minute. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 3 Oct 2000 22:31:05 -0600 From: "Ellynne G." To: blakes7@lysator.liu.se Subject: [B7L] Poetry and B7 Message-ID: <20001003.223108.-32069.2.rilliara@juno.com> Content-Type: text/plain Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Poems and ditties that put me in mind of B7 Never take a stranger's advice Never let a friend fool you twice 'Nobody's on Nobody's Side' Chess "Wipeout" All of the songs "Sweet Dreams are Made of These" and "I am a Rock." And by his smile, I knew that sullen hall; By his dead smile I knew we stood in Hell. 'Strange Meeting' Wilfred Owen (OK, you all know whose smile I'm thinking of, right?) Also, from the same poem, thinking of a certain, curly haired, one eyed hero - I would have poured my spirit without stint But not through wounds; not on the cess of war.... I am the enemy you killed, my friend. And, because something lighter is needed, let me add this from Ogden Nash's "Portrait of the Artist as a Prematurely Old Man" for Vila I might as well give you my opinion of these two kinds of sin as long as, in a way, against each other we are pitting them, And that is, don't bother your head about sins of commission because however sinful, they must at least be fun or else you wouldn't be committing them. Oh, and anything by Blake. Ellynne ________________________________________________________________ YOU'RE PAYING TOO MUCH FOR THE INTERNET! Juno now offers FREE Internet Access! Try it today - there's no risk! For your FREE software, visit: http://dl.www.juno.com/get/tagj. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 3 Oct 2000 21:59:16 -0600 From: "Ellynne G." To: blakes7@lysator.liu.se Subject: [B7L] Re: Amount impacted by Star One (was Anna & the nature of love) Message-ID: <20001003.223108.-32069.1.rilliara@juno.com> Content-Type: text/plain Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit A lot of arguments have been made about how destroying Star One made good military sense. It's also been pointed out that no one raised these concerns in Pressure Point and that others besides Blake came the conclusion that destroying it was a good thing. The question is what changed? MHO is that what has changed is Blake. The last time this thread came up, I made a reference to a story about a man on trial. He'd destroyed a particularly great evil but, to do it, had to deliberately, cold-bloodedly set up a mentally incompetent friend to die. Despite the man being rather uncooperative at his own trial (he keeps saying it's irrelevant [yes, almost as arrogant as Avon, this guy]), he's acquitted but it doesn't matter. He gives himself the same punishment the jury would have if he'd been found guilty. That's why the trial was irrelevant. He had already voted guilty. I think Blake had begun to realize that he was taking a step he couldn't justify to himself. Maybe the price was too high, maybe he felt he was doing it for revenge, for self-justification, for some motive other than the ones he believed in. Avon, on some level, senses this because he's Avon. Cally, on some level, senses it because her telepathy is better some days than others. And, speaking of levels, I wonder if, on some level, Blake wasn't almost relieved to find a justification not to carry through the 'final act' (not that galactic invasion is anything to jump up and down for joy over, but silver linings and all that). Ellynne ________________________________________________________________ YOU'RE PAYING TOO MUCH FOR THE INTERNET! Juno now offers FREE Internet Access! Try it today - there's no risk! For your FREE software, visit: http://dl.www.juno.com/get/tagj. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 3 Oct 2000 21:36:45 -0600 From: "Ellynne G." To: blakes7@lysator.liu.se Subject: [B7L] Re: Did Avon hallucinate Cally's death Message-ID: <20001003.223108.-32069.0.rilliara@juno.com> Content-Type: text/plain Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit On Tue, 03 Oct 2000 17:46:52 -0700 Helen Krummenacker writes: > > Also, hallucinations are not necessarily based on what the person > _wants_ > > to see. However, skipping this and the fact that I could tell you > some > > stories about people who had bad reactions to medications who, I > think I > > could make a fair case, didn't _want_ to see floating heads, > attacking > > armies of ants, or tree shadows doing very strange things up and > down the > > wall, if we are going with what Avon is _afraid_ of or what he > _expects_, > > I think worse case scenarios must have been rather high in his > mind. > > > I can agree with that. I picture him climbing through rubble to > reach > her, seeing her body slumped over... he *plans* on going all the way > over to her and checking her pulse... and his mind, stilla ddled by > drugs and lack of sleep races ahead of his actions. He can feel her > thin, frail looking arm as he checks for some sign of life.. > meanwhile, > he's gripping some piping that has fallenfrom the wall as he slips > on > some plaster. His own heart is pounding and the one light still > intact > fizzles out as the wiring finally shorts out. Heaccidentally turns > around, stands... he is confused a bit as to how he got there and > back, > but then he can't remember every step he took along the way, anyhow. > There is a hint of smoke in the air. Cally's dead. He saw it, he > felt > her cold, pulseless arm (didn't he?). Time to hurry back or he may > never > find his way out again. > Ooh! I _love_ this! Ellynne ________________________________________________________________ YOU'RE PAYING TOO MUCH FOR THE INTERNET! Juno now offers FREE Internet Access! Try it today - there's no risk! For your FREE software, visit: http://dl.www.juno.com/get/tagj. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 4 Oct 2000 08:22:41 +0100 From: "Neil Faulkner" To: "b7" Subject: Re: [B7L] Fantasy Message-ID: <009201c02dd7$22f56520$e535fea9@neilfaulkner> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit From: Natasa Tucev > And whereas I agree that the > arm-wound symbolism in B7 doesn't hold water, I still maintain that the eye > injury in 'Blake' IS very telling and should be considered as a symbol. Actually I'd go along with you on that one. > > >Also, High Fantasy is a close companion to myth, which functions to reaffirm > >the prevailing values of the status quo. SF, as the literary branch of > >science, seeks to question such values, to test them against reality and > >where necessary debunk them. > > > I don't think an entire genre can be subversive or the opposite. No, I don't think so either. SF radical, Fantasy reactionary? There's an awful lot of reactionary SF out there. Probably more than there is of radical Fantasy, though. (Moorcock's the big exception that springs to mind.) However, I would say that SF *as a concept* is radical, even if it turns out anything but in the execution. It has its eye to the future, to see what might happen if we step outside the myths we live by. Since this is intellectually difficult, and commercially dodgy, I don't think it's any great wonder that our current myths end up simply repackaged with rayguns, chrome-plated blast tubes and sinister BEMs. Fantasy, by contrast, looks to the past, usually a pre-Industrial one, and does so in order to reaffirm a set of mythic values that do not need to be explained or validated because they are tacitly assumed to hold true. I think the Industrial Revolution functions as a watershed between Fantasy and SF because that was the moment when the individual began to disappear. That Holy Grail of literature, the Human Condition, moved out from individuals to that seething heterogenous mass of humanity we call society. To relocate it within individuals, Fantasy has to move back to a time when individuals mattered. SF, on the other hand, moves forward to a time when individuals cease to have any importance at all, and then has to struggle with the implications. Reactionary SF is the product of a thought experiment that cannot come to terms with its own conclusions. > > Every culture, or every society, lives by certain myths. These myths, as you > say, serve to maintain the status quo. True, but in mass society, with mass media and mass communication, we cannot help but be aware of the diversity of those mythic systems, the contradictions between them or indeed within them. Globalisation notwithstanding, society has never been more diverse. We are no longer living a single set of myths - simply to function within society, we must subscribe to several, often simultaneously. And they can't all be right. Maybe none of them are. It's a miracle we aren't all paralysed by doubt. Myth can no longer sustain the status quo because there no longer is a status quo. Its social function has been made redundant at a time when we need it more than ever. SF can help us abandon that need, Fantasy can't. > However, all good literature > (including both SF and F) tends to be subversive, either by questioning the > validity of these mythical patterns, or by reaching for alternative > traditions, with alternative myths, in order to find a standpoint from which > the dominant culture could be observed, judged and perhaps revised. How much fantasy really does this? Surely it's SF, as a literary mimic of the scientific process, that at least aspires to that level of objectivity, even if it fails to get there more often than not. Neil ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 4 Oct 2000 08:44:33 +0100 From: "Neil Faulkner" To: "b7" Subject: Re: [B7L] Anna & the nature of love Message-ID: <009401c02dd7$24f49080$e535fea9@neilfaulkner> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit From: Dana Shilling > In Duel, even if he has no romantic feelings for Jenna, he could tell her > explicitly that he is grateful for her sterling piloting and is sorry that > her being his friend has placed her in especially imminent risk of death. We Brits don't do things like that. Neil ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 4 Oct 2000 08:38:29 +0100 From: "Neil Faulkner" To: "b7" Subject: Re: [B7L] Anna & the nature of love Message-ID: <009301c02dd7$240b1ae0$e535fea9@neilfaulkner> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit From: Natasa Tucev > Marian wrote about Blake: > > >By his own words, he's going to Cygnus Alpha because he needs a crew, not > >because the prisoners might need his help. Sounds a bit selfish to me :-) > > Blake could have easily recruited his crew from REAL freedom fighters such > as Kasabi and Avalon (and Cally - why are they all women?). At that particular point (only episode 2, remember) there's no reason to suspect that he's even heard of Kasabi and Avalon, or any other notable rebel. Even if he has met them in the past, chances are he can't remember doing so. While on Cygnus Alpha he will find people who know him and might be prepared to follow him (they're not exactly going to love the Federation, are they?), or who will at least be grateful for a chance to get off the planet (a pleasure resort it ain't, after all). All he has to do then is weed out the promising recruits, dump the rest, and use what he's got as a foundation on which to build a real fighting force. So his fellow convicts on the London are the nearest and most obvious place to go for the people he's going to need to fight for his cause. As to why Kasabi, Avalon and Cally are all women - you'd have to ask Terry Nation, since he dreamt them all up. But of course you can't do that now. I suppose having a woman as a dauntless freedom-fighting figurehead had a bit of mileage in 1978. Let's be kind and call it 'pioneering'. Neil His conscience, > however, drives him to Cygnus Alpha. 'I need a crew' is, I think, a kind of > rational justification which he needs to give Avon. Can you imagine Avon > asking, 'Why are we going there?' and Blake replying, 'No man is an island, > entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent... And therefore > never send to know for whom the bell tolls...' > > Natasa > > > ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 3 Oct 2000 17:59:00 +-100 From: Louise Rutter To: 'B7 Lysator' Subject: RE: [B7L] Anna & the nature of love Message-ID: <01C02D63.BC091D20@host213-123-29-68.btinternet.com> Russ wrote: >Now that surprises me. I can't remember that *anyone* gives Jenna >the benefit of doubt in Bounty. Why do you think that Blake does? When the others are bitching about her betrayal Blake says "I'm not so sure." Followed by the line, "Oh, come on, Blake, what does she have to do? Personally blow your head off?" :-) Nice to see you're still around, Russ. Louise ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 04 Oct 2000 08:39:42 GMT From: "Sally Manton" To: blakes7@lysator.liu.se Subject: Re: [B7L] Anna & the nature of love Message-ID: Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed neil wrote: Which is all very well and good, but he's just spent four months with them and he ain't stupid. Going by what we see, he's *got* two of the only three promising ones already on board, and is risking losing the ship and everything if they scarper while he's gone looking for the rest (Gan is the third - Vila's got promise, I guess, but promise of *what*??? And then there's Arco ... heaven only knows what his speciality is, or what use my less-than-morally-uptight Blake could make of it). They're not a promising bunch. Blake's memory appears to me to be coming back with a hell of a rush at this point (he knows stuff about Saurian Major that I *don't* think was on the Federation viscasts) and he seems to know enough about spacecraft to know he doesn't need *many* extra people to start with (in fact, as we find out in Time Squad, two will do quite nicely). I still think, even at this stage, he'd be able to do better than the less-than-promising bunch we saw dumped off the London. Sally - who seems to be in an argumentative mood this week, sorry. _________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com. Share information about yourself, create your own public profile at http://profiles.msn.com. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 04 Oct 2000 08:42:38 GMT From: "Sally Manton" To: blakes7@lysator.liu.se Subject: [B7L] Anna & the nature of love Message-ID: Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed After Natasa said: Dana said: Which, of course, is why when *he* got to lead, he went for the latter option almost exclusively ... and in another post ... He's praised/thanked her pretty explicitly most times we *get* to see sterling piloting from her. A big sentimental gush of 'now we're going to die let me tell you how much you mean to me' bit at this point may please the romantics, but would be screamingly out of character for both of them (and IMO Jenna wouldn't care for it at all). And if he has to *make* a Big Speech every time They're Going To Die or be called ungrateful, this is going to become very dull (and silly) viewing very very quickly :-) _________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com. Share information about yourself, create your own public profile at http://profiles.msn.com. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 04 Oct 2000 08:46:08 GMT From: "Sally Manton" To: blakes7@lysator.liu.se Subject: [B7L] Re: Amount impacted by Star One (was Anna & the na Message-ID: Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed Morrigan quoted the Man in Black Leather and No Studs: But Star One was destroyed, and the mass extinction didn't happen, did it? Far from being decimated by flood, fire and famine etc, it appears most worlds we see or hear about managed reasonably well and a lot managed to revolt in the bargain (to the point where it took the Federation months to bring even the centre of control - the Inner Worlds- to heel). Travis's quote is IMO rather narrowly focused, the operative words being 'control', 'key' and 'power'. It's the key to his and Servalan's - the only 'our' he would care about - lives all right, it's their key to power. But to get *away* from Star One and back to the point of Blake and selfishness ... no. Not as I understand the word, which means putting himself and his own interests ahead of everything else. Blake is, rather, self-willed. He puts the interests of 'the honest man' as he sees them ahead of everything else (let us remember there are precious few of these Honest Men (or Women) among Our Heroes in all four series. Possibly none except Gan) including himself and his own interests or even his life. He's genuinely not doing this for himself, but for others (otherwise, he'd have stopped long before the punishment got this bad.) HOWEVER ... As I said, very very self-willed. Having decided that this has to be done and (thanks to the god-given gift of the Liberator) he's the one who seems to have the best chance of doing it, he cannot be diverted *from* doing what he believes is right by any force short of a neutron bomb, and yes, he is arrogant enough, in the face of everything thrown at him, to believe in himself and his purpose, and to do things *his* way whether everyone else agrees or not. (From the evidence of the series, he does too consult the others quite a bit [if definitely not always] listen to advice [if even more definitely not always] and use it to help make decisions; from the same evidence, they usually end up doing what he decides :-)) He's an unabashed autocrat who happens to believe honestly and whole-heartedly in democracy. Quite a neat trick, actually. And yes, he will use just about anything and everything that comes to hand *for* that purpose, including the London prisoners, including the dream ship, including Sarkoff, Orac, Star One ... right down to the bounty hunter business. Including himself. _________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com. Share information about yourself, create your own public profile at http://profiles.msn.com. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 4 Oct 2000 04:48:13 -0400 (EDT) From: "rita d'orac" To: blakes7@lysator.liu.se Subject: [B7L]RE: Blake's 7 Movie Message-ID: <383334333.970649294827.JavaMail.root@web421-mc.mail.com> Content-Type: text/plain Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Lance (GPrimeCEO@aol.com) wrote: >I'm new to this list, but was wondering what, if any, information was >available on the Blake's 7 movie that supposedly went into production in mid >1999 with Daul Darrow and Michael Keating? Was it ever broadcast/will it be >broadcast. Are there websites with info on it besides Horizon which has >little to no info. The Horizon site, like all the other B7 sites, will have very little info on the movie, because very little info has been released! There is now an official website for the movie, blakes7.com but there is currently even less info available on that site. You can sign up for a newsletter on blakes7.com, which is planned for release in November and should give all the latest info available at that time. As far as I'm aware only Paul Darrow has been confirmed as definitely being in the movie. rita d'orac "If you think of this mouse as a space captain..." http://www.vilaworld.com ______________________________________________ FREE Personalized Email at Mail.com Sign up at http://www.mail.com/?sr=signup ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 4 Oct 2000 10:33:04 EDT From: Tigerm1019@aol.com To: blakes7@lysator.liu.se Subject: Male Freedom Fighters (was Re: [B7L] Anna & the nature of love) Message-ID: <63.beadfb0.270c99a0@aol.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In a message dated 10/03/2000 6:13:05 PM Central Daylight Time, tavia@btinternet.com writes: > Natasa asked about male freedom fighters. > > There was always Hunda, of course. There're also Cauder and the original Shivan. What about Bran Foster and Hal Mellanby? We never did find out why Ushton had been exiled to Exbar, either. Maybe the women are more memorable? Tiger M ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 4 Oct 2000 13:54:56 +0100 From: Russ Massey To: blakes7@lysator.liu.se Subject: Re: [B7L] Anna & the nature of love Message-ID: In message <009401c02dd7$24f49080$e535fea9@neilfaulkner>, Neil Faulkner writes >From: Dana Shilling >> In Duel, even if he has no romantic feelings for Jenna, he could tell her >> explicitly that he is grateful for her sterling piloting and is sorry that >> her being his friend has placed her in especially imminent risk of death. > >We Brits don't do things like that. > Unless very, very drunk :) I agree though, that the relationships between characters are very much understated in the traditional British way, hence probably the amount of mileage we authors get out of exploring them. Gratitude should have been obvious to Jenna, even if to the viewer it looked like a slightly extended moment of eye-contact, and a half- smile. And he probably slipped into her cabin later that evening with a hot cuppa and a digestive biscuit just to show how truly, stupendously grateful he really was. -- Russ Massey ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 3 Oct 2000 12:42:49 -0700 From: Julia Jones To: blakes7@lysator.liu.se Cc: blakes7@lysator.liu.se Subject: Re: [B7L] Anna & the nature of love Message-ID: In message <003501c02d68$1fd9f3c0$43ed72c3@marian-de-haan.multiweb.nl>, Marian de Haan writes >Yes, I've seen this discussion pop up many, many times but what's the point? >Is a death toll of 999999 people acceptable but not one of 1000001? Sorry, >but this she-says-many-people-and-not-millions-so-it's-all-right argument >always baffles me :-). We went through that last time:-) Where *do* you draw the line? You can't draw a line and say "on this side it's acceptable, on that side it's not", it's shades of grey. And we're back to the question of how much moral responsibility you bear for killing that is done by someone else, that you could have stopped. No, killing many, many people is not acceptable. But neither is standing by and allowing someone else to kill many, many people, which is what holding back from destroying Star One is. Blake has, in my opinion, chosen the lesser of two evils, knowing that he *is* choosing between two evils. And misquoting it as "millions" is trying to shift the balance between the evil of the numbers killed directly, and the evil of the numbers you allowed someone else to kill, to make it look as if Blake deliberately chose the greater of two evils. I object to that distortion. I am now going to Godwinate this thread, but unfortunately it's the starkest example I can think of from real life... I see the German army officers who tried to assassinate their democratically elected leader some five or six decades ago as heroes, not murderers. -- Julia Jones ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 3 Oct 2000 14:59:49 -0700 From: Julia Jones To: blakes7@lysator.liu.se Cc: blakes7@lysator.liu.se Subject: Re: [B7L] Re: Amount impacted by Star One (was Anna & the nature of love) Message-ID: In message , B7Morrigan@aol.com writes >TRAVIS: Look, Star One is the computer control center. It controls the >climate on more than two hundred worlds, communications, security, food >production, it controls them all. It is the key to our very lives. Think of >all that power. > >If each of those 200 worlds averaged 5,000 lives, then we are speaking of >1,000,000 lives (human, humanoid, or other), just on those worlds. This does >not include other planets that might be dependent upon those 200 for food or >other imports. As far as I know, there are no facts that suggest exactly how >many lives were expected to be impacted by Blake's planned destruction of >Star One, but it is clearly a significant number. Er, yes, and nowhere in all that does it say that simply removing that control will kill large proportions of the planetary population. It says that if you *control* that power, you control those worlds. I've always seen the destruction depicted in the episode Star One as the result of the Andromedans' deliberate manipulation of that control (such is certainly suggested by both the scenes with Lurena and the Andromedans, and Servalan's assumption that Star One is somehow being sabotaged) - and that potential for manipulation to attack a planet is something I see as being a damned good reason for Blake to remove that power from the Federation's hands. He certainly doesn't trust *himself* with it. -- Julia Jones -------------------------------- End of blakes7-d Digest V00 Issue #277 **************************************