From: blakes7-d-request@lysator.liu.se Subject: blakes7-d Digest V98 #3 X-Loop: blakes7-d@lysator.liu.se X-Mailing-List: archive/volume98/3 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 98 : Issue 3 Today's Topics: [B7L] Re: Slash debate [B7L]Rumours of Death Re: Re[B7L] EMail Junkie Re: [B7L] Harvest of Kairos [B7L] The Way Back 1/4 [B7L] The Way Back 2/4 [B7L] The Way Back 3/4 [B7L] The Way Back 4/4 [B7L] New Highlander List Re: [B7L] Harvest of Kairos Re: [B7L] Re The Great Escape re[B7L] re Tarrant v Jarvik [B7L] Re: Harvest of Kairos Re: [B7L] Re The Great Escape Re: [B7L] Re The Great Escape Re: [B7L] Re The Great Escape ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 3 Jan 1998 13:38:05 -0500 (EST) From: NWOutsider To: "Blake's 7 list" Subject: [B7L] Re: Slash debate Message-ID: Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Thu, 1 Jan 1998 Harriet Monkhouse wrote: >But there isn't a correct answer. Nicely said, Harriet. 8-) >Your belief about the nature of the ties >between them is just as true as mine, because the truth about this >particular story exists only in our separate minds. Even, though I >boggle to think of it, in the Tarrant Nostra's. LOL. Oh, well...I think we need to draw the line _somewhere_. 8-) Sue sclerc@bgnet.bgsu.edu http://www.bgsu.edu/~sclerc/Blakes7.html ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 3 Jan 1998 14:55:33 -0500 (EST) From: adering@ziplink.net (Alex Dering) To: blakes7@lysator.liu.se Subject: [B7L]Rumours of Death Message-Id: Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" As to Avon's going after Shrinker and the rest... I think the episode demonstrates, in a very Avonian way, that Avon is, albeit reluctantly, still a member of the human race. (Compare to Spock on Star Trek, who would often also "lapse" into human-ness from time to time.) In other episodes, he has also demonstrated that his membership card and blazer badge to the human race might be a little moldy, but they're still there. Two examples of this... in Horizon, when he goes after the crew, even though they've all been killed or captured, and even though he knows he could get away and live free until he died; and in Terminal, when he goes after Blake. Avon knew that the return of Blake would mean that he would be returning control of Liberator into Blake's hands, as well as Orac (in Rescue? Avon tells Dorian that Orac was bequethed to a friend, who bequethed it to him. Ergo, Avon's claim on Orac is admittedly second-hand, else he'd just say, oh, we got it from Ensor, cheap.). If Avon was a complete bastard, the crew wouldn't follow him. After the run-in with Del Grant, Avon must have had the whole issue of Anna re-awakened. Then Blake goes missing. Suddenly, Avon is in charge of the most advanced ship in the Federation. None of Blake's holier-than-thou nonsense to get in his way. He _can_ make them pay. As to the dragging the crew into it and the selfishness of the action... well, they could have refused to have any part in it, as Cally did. Vila, Tarrant, Dayna, all lined up for a slice of Shrinker. Like the saying goes, you pays your nickel and you takes your chances. Selfish? Hmmm. I would submit that everything people do is for selfish reasons. You go to work because that's the only way to earn money to buy the things you want. You could steal the things you want, but that gets complicated if you get caught, so you don't steal things. When you hang out with your friends, you do so because they give back something. If your friends start becoming difficult to deal with, on a regular basis, you tend to stop associating with them. (I could go on and on in tremendous detail, but you get the idea). Selfish. What about Tarrant going after his brother's killer. Why not have Orac override the android's programming and let Tarrant just shoot it in the head? I'm sure instances can be cited for most characters being selfish. Vila is too easy. But what about the others? Look at Blake's "mea culpa" routine after Pressure Point. The most interesting part of the Rumours of Death episode comes at the end, when Servalan, Tarrant, and Avon have their scene in the cellar (no, that's the OTHER list; rinse out your minds.) Avon asks Servalan if she's finally murdered her way to this wall (that she's chained to). Servalan replies that "...it's an old wall, Avon; it waits. I hope you don't die before you reach it." (or something like that). Perhaps it's foreshadowing. Or maybe Sevalan has been reading the psych reports on Avon. Alex ---------------------------------------- "There are worlds out there where the sky is burning and the sea's asleep and the rivers dream - people made of smoke and cities made of song. Somewhere there's danger; somewhere there's injustice. Somewhere else the tea's getting cold. Come on Ace, we've got work to do..." -- The Doctor (Doctor Who: Survival) -- ---------------------------------------- website: http://www.ziplink.net/~adering ---------------------------------------- ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 3 Jan 1998 18:16:19 +0000 From: Julia Jones To: blakes7@lysator.liu.se Subject: Re: Re[B7L] EMail Junkie Message-ID: In message <34AEE7C6.5821@termlow.co.uk>, Jackie writes >J. I. Horner wrote: > >> I have got another one : >> You include your Internet number as one of your BT Friends and Family >> numbers. > >You can`t get "Friends & Family" on cable. You can on my cable provider. >Although I believe that if you >have cable TV and phone, local phone calls are free. Only with some cable companies. And not even with them, for some local calls. Recent history has been that the cable companies rapidly exclude ISP numbers from "free local calls" when they realise how much traffic it generates. Or they require you to use their own ISP, which may not be the one you want to use. -- Julia Jones "Don't philosophise with me, you electronic moron!" The Turing test - as interpreted by Kerr Avon. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 03 Jan 98 19:32:31 GMT From: pdbean@argonet.co.uk (Patrick Bean) To: blakes7@lysator.liu.se Subject: Re: [B7L] Harvest of Kairos Message-Id: Content-Type: text/plain On Sat 3 Jan 98 (19:34:36 +0100), blakes7-d-request@lysator.liu.se wrote: > Has anyone considered that Tarrant may not have known about all the > wealth on board the Liberator? No, Avon told him about them in 'power play'. After Tarrant killed 'Harman', Avon took a bag of gens off of him. -- __ __ __ __ __ ___ _____________________________________________ |__||__)/ __/ \|\ ||_ | / pdbean@argonet.co.uk (Patrick David Bean) | || \\__/\__/| \||__ | /...Internet access for all Acorn RISC machines ___________________________/ Web http://www.argonet.co.uk/users/pdbean ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 3 Jan 1998 17:11:50 -0500 (EST) From: NWOutsider To: "Blake's 7 list" Subject: [B7L] The Way Back 1/4 Message-ID: Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Since it's the anniversary, I watched "The Way Back" (not that I need an excuse 8-) and revised some comments from my web page. The original and quite different version, as it appeared in the July 1995 issue Rallying Call, the B7 APA I edit, can be found at http://www.bgsu.edu/~sclerc/rc14.html. These comments are mostly about Federation life as pictured in the series. Part 2 is more of that and thoughts on some of the other characters. Part 3 is about the discrepancy between Foster's story and the one Blake and Travis tell in SLD as well as a conspiracy theory about Glynd. Part 4 is thoughts on Blake. -------------------------- The Way Back is not a popular episode because what's his name isn't in it, but it nevertheless crucial for understanding the series. The Way Back establishes the oppressiveness of Federation life for the average shmoe, the widespread corruption within the system, the reasons for Blake's resistance and drive to destroy it. Miss all this and you miss the essence of the series. First image: surveillance camera. First sound: muzak and announcements about cardholders having to report to Central and population control. Everything is sterile white, everyone looks lethargic. It isn't explicit in the dialogue but if you pay attention (or know some of the off-screen history of the series) you can figure out that people are color-coded by clothes. The living quarters of Maja and Varon aren't much better although they've tried for some color and comfort. The sterile, synthetic, enclosed, institutional, panopticon of dome life is in deliberate contrast to the natural world of the outsiders and rebels. In a sense, Blake is being reborn from the dead womb of the dome into his natural, real self as he leaves one environment, crosses the stream (can you say "baptism"?) and enters the natural world to refind his own nature. Life. Don't talk to me about life...: Looks pretty bleak for the average Earth citizen. If you play along and don't ask awkward questions you might survive. And what a great time you'll have with bribery, armed guards everywhere, surveillance of public areas, the most mundane activities, like school attendance, fed into the central register, automated "justice," unscrupulous legal and medical practitioners, drugged food and water. If you bend the rules or suggest there might be a problem, you're either transported to a penal colony or killed, usually without the inconvenience of a trial. It doesn't look like the kind of society where they're too fussy about habeus corpus and the rules of evidence, either. As Richie says, suspicion is all it takes. This is not a system that provides for peaceful change, peaceable assembly, or any sort of personal freedom. The only options are acquiesce and hope to squeak by, learn to survive outside the domes, or risk death. Everybody must get stoned: Is everyone drugged? Varon, Maja, and the villains seem alert. Only the corridor shufflers in the opening scene look like they're in a drug-induced haze. Maybe Varon is considered a properly socialized young man who doesn't need the drugs to go along with the system? Since Ravella says the water and food supplies are drugged, there would have to be more than one food and drink system to provide separate supplies to the undrugged elite. Blake would probably also be getting more than most, in order to keep his conditioning from breaking down. Trick or treatment: "Treatments" seem to be pretty common since Ravella seems quite casual about mentioning them and many people suspected Blake's confession and trial were rigged somehow. The rehabilitation centers must've been known about to be effective as a deterrent, too, although I'm sure they were presented as a means of helping the maladjusted and mentally unstable become productive members of society (I'm thinking of Kayn's attitude toward Gan's limiter). "Corruption at the highest levels": and at the lowest. From the President to the Arbiter General to the weasely Phil Collins/Vila look-alike records clerk, the Federation is riddled with immorality and venality. It seems inherent to the system. Sue sclerc@bgnet.bgsu.edu http://www.bgsu.edu/~sclerc/Blakes7.html ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 3 Jan 1998 17:14:15 -0500 (EST) From: NWOutsider To: "Blake's 7 list" Subject: [B7L] The Way Back 2/4 Message-ID: Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII More about life as she is lived in the Federation and some comments on Jenna, Tarrant, and others. --------------- And justice for all: Leaving the dome without permission is a category 4 crime. Ushton is on a planet for grade 4 offenders. Are grades and categories the same thing in Federation law? Exile to Exbar seems pretty extreme for leaving the dome and the outsiders seem a low priority for the Feds (more on that in a minute), so maybe grades and categories are different (or maybe it's an inconsistency in the series...naaaah, that couldn't be it). At first I thought that was where the human arbiter came into the judicial system--the cliche justice machine decides on the facts (like these are objective and knowable) and the human decided the sentence based on past record, the accused's repentance or lack of it, etc. But the arbirter says "In sentencing you, the justice machine has taken into account your past record..." So why have a human there at all, why not leave everything to the machines, if she isn't allowed any latitude in sentencing? Outsiders (not the Wolfpac. Hi Catherine!): People do live outside the dome and dome-dwellers are forbidden to have contact with them, presumably because living outside the dome means being free of Federation control and proving that such a thing is possible. But not all outsiders are rebels since Richie says "many of them are working for our cause now." Sounds like they just live out there as best they can but aren't in active rebellion. The dismissive way Servalan refers to them in "Pressure Point" also indicates they aren't much of a threat. How many people lived outside the domes, do they have towns, how many domes were there, how many people lived in them. The population stats on other planets indicates very sparse patterns: the planet Albian has fewer people than the city of New York. Foster's line "we were outlawed and hunted" combined with Blake's obvious outdoor survival skills make me wonder if they lived outside while on the run. Maybe Blake learned it all from Ushton. State troopers: All of the security forces we ever see dress in the same black uniform and green visor helmet: the courtroom guards, the Federation soldiers we see in later episodes, all of them. There doesn't seem to be any division between civil and military authority here although some of the later episodes do imply some separation. On the outer worlds, it doesn't seem as strange, but on Earth, the heart of the Federation, all of the police are also soldiers. Imagine that in your home town: the army giving out speeding tickets, investigating crimes, and driving around on patrol. Martial law. It would feel very threatening to me, particularly when they carry rifles as well as side arms. Tarrant Senior: I love the way they play with us--"Oh no, they're being followed!" "Whew, it's another rebel." "Oh my God, he's a spy!" He was either very cocky or very stupid to go to the courtroom. I wish he'd shown up again later in the series. Is he the one who betrayed Blake the first time? Why was he following Blake? It could've been coincidence because the place Ravella is waiting is a regular rebel meeting place. It could've been a set-up: he knew Blake was going to attend, maybe he told Foster to invite him, or someone saw Ravella getting close to Blake and he was checking. Ravella, Morag, magistrate, Maja, Jenna: One of the things I prefer about the first two seasons is the number of strong women, some good, some bad, that show up in the adventures. As the series progresses, the number and type of women encountered by the crew declines. Jenna rulz: My heroine. It could've been so good if they'd had any idea of how to incorporate sex without weakening the female character. The sad thing is they still don't--I dread to think what would happen on X Files. As it was, we didn't get either a strong woman after the first few episodes (except for occasional flashes) or a decent ongoing romance. What I like about her here is that she's tough but human, she comes onto Blake (and I can understand why) but is also making fun of him, and she's fun with Vila. I love that scene between them when they're watching Blake talk to Varon: Vila sidles up to her and she jumps and gives him a warning look. They know all about each other and yet there aren't many stories about Jenna and Vila meeting preseries. Are there any at all? And yet there are all those tiresome Avon and Vila stories where, with absolutely no support in the series, they were partners in crime. Stupidities and silliness: How could Varon and Maja overhear Glynd through the door; why doesn't Havant realize it isn't Glynd on the communicator when he and Varon sound nothing alike; check out the two little human figures in the London model shots (lower right hand corner of the screen); "we can build a case on these" (?!? on what--you can't read those). Bad bit of directing at the end re: the harness question: Blake should still be looking out the window or something. Special and not so special FX: I think the dome is one of the best FX of the series. The clothes establish the dire standard adhered to throughout, although here they at least serve the dual purpose of illustrating what a drab place it is and the way people are classified. Sue sclerc@bgnet.bgsu.edu http://www.bgsu.edu/~sclerc/Blakes7.html ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 3 Jan 1998 17:15:10 -0500 (EST) From: NWOutsider To: "Blake's 7 list" Subject: [B7L] The Way Back 3/4 Message-ID: Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Trying to work out something that just won't leave me alone. ---------------- Who do you trust?: Foster's story contradicts the one Blake and Travis tell in "Seek-Locate Destroy" and this has always niggled at me. B&T tell the same story and say there was a massacre (Travis "killed 20 of my friends," says Blake, and he is quite clear that the same thing has happened twice) and Blake was captured after wounding Travis. Foster says Blake was captured and "so were most of our followers." Rather than being slaughtered in the sub-basement, the other rebels were exiled and executed, like Blake's brother and sister. Why does Foster's story conflict with the other one? Simple confusion on the part of the scriptwriter? Pshaw! As we all know, Blake's 7 takes place in a wholly consistent universe so there must be a reason for this shocking gap in story continuity. Here are 3 possibilities: 1) It's possible Foster wasn't there when Blake was taken. He says "someone betrayed US" but the rest of the story sounds like he wasn't there, so "us"=the rebels as a group. I think it's implied that Tarrant was the one who betrayed them that time. It might have been Tarrant, then, who told Foster what happened to the supposedly captured followers, or Foster might have guessed based on experience (although why he would assume exile rather than summary execution, I don't know). If Foster was there, he's got some 'splaining to do about how he happened to escape. 2) Foster is lying to get Blake back on his side. This means Blake's siblings might still be alive and Foster is using the emigration/execution story twice to reinforce its likelihood. It might also be something Foster has reason to think Blake would believe because either Blake, before his trial, knew such things happened, or there were rumors throughout the Dome that such things occurred. It's risky, if he's lying, because he's relying on Blake remembering enough to believe him, but not remembering so much he can tell which parts of Foster's speech are real and which are lies. I don't know why he would lie about the massacre, though. 3) Conspiracy theory. Maybe Tarrant was running Foster all along or maybe only since the time Blake was captured and Foster wasn't...maybe Foster was captured after all and conditioned to be a (probably unwitting) tool for the Federation to track rebels and for some reason, the story about rebels being shipped off and killed is considered a better story than rebels getting shot to bits on site. Maybe Foster was no longer useful and this was the night Tarrant was going to kill him and Blake's presence was just a bonus. Maybe Foster was himself a spy and getting Blake was going to be his big coup...but that would contradict the whole idea of "Blake would be a martyr if we killed him." Maybe Foster was a rebel and wanted Blake dead so the Cause would have a martyr and he knew the troopers would show up and kill everyone. Maybe Foster was a spy but knew Tarrant was out to get him or his time was about to run out and was really going to turn rebel IF he could use Blake the way Glynd tried to later. I don't know how the conflict between "they was exile and executed" and "they was shot up real good" fits in, but I really like the idea of Foster being Tarrant's marionette. Glynd or Glynda: Suppose Glynd was already looking around for a new position before Voice from the Past, before The Way Back. There are always power struggles in any government and Glynd was looking to shore up his own power base and ensure his own future. He might have already been conspiring with LeGrand based on the idea that he would have a higher place in the new government or it might have occurred to him later. Along comes Blake again and Glynd has a new weapon to use. He arranges for Blake to be deported rather than killed, knowing that if there's one thing Blake can be relied on to do, it's cause trouble. To help Blake get away from Cygnus Alpha, Glynd makes sure a pilot currently in custody is thrown onto the London, too. If Blake doesn't escape, nothing is lost. If he does, he will find a way to wreak havoc and while the Federation forces are trying to put down Blake, their attention will be diverted from Glynd's activities. Furthermore, thanks to Blake's previous conditioning, Glynd has a puppet he can call up when he's ready to make his move. Sue sclerc@bgnet.bgsu.edu http://www.bgsu.edu/~sclerc/Blakes7.html ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 3 Jan 1998 17:16:09 -0500 (EST) From: NWOutsider To: "Blake's 7 list" Subject: [B7L] The Way Back 4/4 Message-ID: Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII All about Blake Watching Blake: Was someone set to watch him at all times? We know the Fed are still keeping track of him because they send him viztapes of his family to reinforce the conditioning. Is Blake such a major threat that they keep him under constant surveillance even after 4 years? Maybe. Or it might have picked up recently in response to the growing amount of dissident activity Ravella and Foster mention; the government suspected the rebels might approach Blake. I like the idea that they kept tabs on him all along because he was so dangerous, but it would also make sense as a way to trap other rebels who could be expected to try to get Blake to go rogue again. It would be easy enough to keep watch on him at work but at home might be more difficult. They could program him to think one of their agents is his best friend and confidante, or they could just order him to report any contact at regularly scheduled rehab sessions. They seemed to have let Ravella get very cozy with Blake without doing anything about it, though. She calls him by his first name, after all, something only family and close friends do (Foster, Ushton, and Inga are the only other people in the series who use Blake's first name). Maybe their spy system wasn't all that good and they didn't know of Ravella's rebel connections. One of the big unanswered questions is whether there was anyone special in Blake's life during this 4 year period. He never said anything about it, but then he never said anything about his life at all unless he had to. "There's not much left of the man I knew": Assuming he was being honest here, how correct is Foster? Zombie Blake is whiney and worried about breaking the rules, and he's a bit judgmental about common thieves. But he is short-tempered and commanding; breaks rules even when he's scared; asks that most characteristic of Blake questions, "what about the others;" does not believe everything he's told and doesn't automatically trust people; he figures out what the Federation is up to quickly--all of these familiar traits from later episodes. So aside from the whining, programmed "I should report this," and (IMO equally programmed) slight sneer at the guy who just stole his watch, the major difference between Blake before and after is the memory loss. So what was Blake like before the Fed's raped his mind? A rebel is born: It's often overlooked in discussions about why Blake wants to destroy the Federation that he was a rebel before the series started. More than 4 years before, for reasons we never learn, Blake led (or started, according to Jenna in VftP) a party of dissidents. In SLD, Travis says Blake "organized some attacks against some of our political rehabilitation centers. Released some of the prisoners who were having indoctrination treatment." In TWB, he sees a group of dissidents surrender peacefully and get slaughtered. According to SLD, it wasn't the first time. He knows that there is absolutely no chance for peaceful change; even the mildest of civil disobedience results in death. He knows there are brainwashing centers and he knew it before he personally experienced the procedure. We don't know what motivated Blake's original rebellion before the series but in both TWB and SLD there are indications that it was political and not entirely personal. In SLD Blake specifically says he was brainwashed to say his political ideas were mistaken; there is never any mention of a personal wrong suffered by him before his first capture 4 years prior. The choice of the rehabilitation centers as a target may indicate someone he knew was taken to one or it might mean that the centers were good targets for some other reason. I think it's important to remember that Blake's motives seem to stem from both personal experience (a measure of revenge for those who have been killed and for what's been taken from him) as well as more theoretical, abstract political ideas. Breaking the spell: We know from "Space Fall" that prisoners on the ship are drugged. Are prisoners in the holding cells also drugged? It would make sense either way--yes, to keep them quiet; no, why bother wasting supplies on them. Assuming they are drugged, Blake is still breaking conditioning--he is no longer getting reinforcement in the form of viztapes and whatever else they were doing to him, and the shock of the massacre and hearing Foster's story has, I think we can assume, breached the memory erases so he starts remembering on his own. But how much does he ever really recall? Since his story is different in SLD from Foster's, it looks like he has remembered that on his own. What I'm wondering, I guess, is how much of Blake's fight in the series is a result of his experiences in "The Way Back" and after, how much is a result of remembering his previous self, and how much is a result of trying to remember and reclaim what he was before. Would Blake be Blake without the cause? What's left of him if you take that away? Is this all he remembers of who he was? The glue holding him together? Does he sometimes wonder that himself? Sue sclerc@bgnet.bgsu.edu http://www.bgsu.edu/~sclerc/Blakes7.html ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 3 Jan 1998 19:17:06 EST From: Ashton7 To: blakes7@lysator.liu.se, space-city@world.std.com, FANZINE@PSUVM.PSU.EDU Subject: [B7L] New Highlander List Message-ID: Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Hi, all. I know there are Methos and Highlander fans lurking about, so I hope you don't mind this posting here! Ashton Press presents "Then the Night Comes" by Ann Wortham & Leah Rosenthal. A new Highlander: The Series fan novel, offering an alternative resolution to the fifth season cliffhanger Archangel and the aired sixth season episodes. Richie Ryan is dead at the hands of his best friend and mentor, Duncan MacLeod. Horrified at what he has done and believing he is pursued by an ancient demon known as Ahriman, MacLeod flees Paris to seek help from old friends in Cornwall. Joe Dawson, Cassandra, and Methos soon follow and the pursuit of who - or what - Ahriman truly is soon involves many of MacLeod's friends in a desperate race from Cornwall to Scotland to Wales. Along the way, Methos must confront more specters from his past, MacLeod learns a few lessons, Joe has a new friendship which is deepening, and Cassandra must learn to deal with a Methos who is, in many ways, different from the man she once knew. Flashbacks take our heroes from ancient Egypt to ancient Babylonia and to Barcelona, Spain along the way. "Then the Night Comes" is rated PG with no overt sex, either straight or slash. Lavishly illustrated throughout by Leah Rosenthal and Laura Virgil with a full color cover. Approximately 145,000 words. Ordering information can be found, along with a few excerpts of art and text at: http://members.aol.com/ashton7/night.htm If you do not have web access, you may email Linda Knights at: lknight@nas.com. For any questions regarding furture submissions or anything else pertaining to the zine(s) other than ordering information, please contact Ann Wortham at: ashton7@aol.com. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 4 Jan 1998 13:47:08 +1100 From: Kathryn Andersen To: "Blake's 7 list" Subject: Re: [B7L] Harvest of Kairos Message-ID: <19980104134708.19765@welkin.apana.org.au> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii On Sat, Jan 03, 1998 at 07:32:31PM +0000, Patrick Bean wrote: > On Sat 3 Jan 98 (19:34:36 +0100), blakes7-d-request@lysator.liu.se wrote: > > Has anyone considered that Tarrant may not have known about all the > > wealth on board the Liberator? > > No, Avon told him about them in 'power play'. After Tarrant killed 'Harman', > Avon took a bag of gens off of him. A whole bag of Gens? Maybe they were Liliputian Gens. And to think, Avon and Tarrant were secretly Simes all this time! Hmmm, puts another slant on that "kiss of death" don't it? Kathryn Andersen -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- "Yes, my dear, you see, it's a, it's a paradox. He won because he is not the better man." -- Sarkoff to Tyce, of Tarvin (Blake's 7: Bounty [A11]) -- _--_|\ | Kathryn Andersen / \ | http://connexus.apana.org.au/~kat \_.--.*/ | #include "std/disclaimer.h" v | ------------| Melbourne -> Victoria -> Australia -> Southern Hemisphere Maranatha! | -> Earth -> Sol -> Milky Way Galaxy -> Universe ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 04 Jan 1998 12:42:18 GMT From: kawm@dove.mtx.net.au (Ken Minne) To: blakes7@lysator.liu.se Subject: Re: [B7L] Re The Great Escape Message-ID: <34ae1bd6.19105774@mail.mtx.net.au> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Good day all, On Fri, 02 Jan 1998 18:48:58 +0100 GMT, Steve wrote: >Ovina said: "We only see Avon surrounded by troops -- who >for all the good reasons mentioned have probably been ordered >to capture as many rebels alive as possible -- and then we hear >2 or 3 shots fired. They may have been fired by someone else >entering the scene." > >cheers >Steve Rogerson > One question I have never ( personally ) seen addressed is whose troopers were they fighting our heroes in the final battle? Were they Deva's men, who might just have been trained to / or expecting another one of Blake's little testings to have gotten out of hand. In which case they might have been using stunners. In this scenairo, Dayna, however, is dead as she was shot by Arlen, who probably would not have been issued with a stunner, and probably would not have been using it if she had. Klyn summoned reinforcements to the control room long before Deva arrived to announce that the base was under attack. One the other hand, if the troopers were Federation regulars, brought in by the visting commisioner ( presumably Sleer, and Arlen's boss ), then presumalbly everyone is dead, unless the commisioner wanted some prisoners. On the whole, would anyone else agree that the writers, knowing that the series was to end, switched off our heroes brains for the episode? Starting with, how long is the flight time to Gauda Prime? It seems to be one relatively short conversation, given the flashbacks to Blake were presumeably anywhere up to a week in the past. Flying straight into the blockade forces shows criminal folly, and even Orac's ego would not get in the way of its desire for self preservation. Not lighting up the Stardrive the instant Tarrant got back into the control seat also helped a lot. Soolin and Dayna are suddenly screaming wimps when it comes to abandoning ship, and despite her posturing to Avon in the hut, Soolin hardly improves, given she is supposed to be a local. Dayna going for the dropped gun was stupid, but Soolin not going in the opposite direction for another gun was pathetic given she is supposed to be so fast. Arlen though not a crew member, gets a mention for being taken out by Vila, and Klyn should have got a posthumous medal for duty in the face of overwhelming firepower. Blake is clearly a loon, so at least has some excuse, which leaves Avon to do the one really smart thing of the whole episode, putting a bullet in Blake. After that lot, sometimes I wonder if we would really want them to survive. Comments Anyone? Walter Minne ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 04 Jan 1998 14:56:03 -0800 From: Jackie To: blakes7@lysator.liu.se Subject: re[B7L] re Tarrant v Jarvik Message-ID: <34B01383.18FC@termlow.co.uk> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit STEVE.ROGERSON@MCR1.poptel.org.uk wrote: > > Julie Horner said: "It seemed to me that quite an interesting > development might have come out of this if Jarvik - instead of > being killed off - had instead joined the Liberator crew. I > thought he was a splendid character and would have made a > much better Blake replacement than Tarrant." > > I agree totally. I think the Dayna-Jarvik and Avon-Jarvik > relationships would have been a lot more interesting. And I > can't see Jarvik becoming the obnoxious bully to Vila that > Tarrant did. And could you imagine Jarvik going all soppy over > Zeeona and jeopardising the whole mission? I agree, Jarvik would not have gone "soppy" over Zeeona. It must be hard to be soppy if you just throw women on the bed to get what you want. Absolutely no finesse required there at all. It is a wonder he lived as long as he had (and with his wedding tackle intact) if that was how he treated women. To be honest, if it WAS Jarvik that negotiated with her planet, would Zeeona have come to Terminal in the first place? In which case Avon would have still been on Xenon when the base exploded. Voila! no Blake episode, therefore Blake would have lived and the crew still died. Oh Tarrant, you have a lot to answer for. Bye for now Jackie (quickly hiding big paddle used for stirring things up) ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 4 Jan 1998 11:32:02 -0500 From: Harriet Monkhouse To: "Blake's 7 (Lysator)" Subject: [B7L] Re: Harvest of Kairos Message-ID: <199801041132_MC2-2DFF-AD67@compuserve.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Disposition: inline Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Julie Horner asked (in trying to find a motive for Tarrant's piracy): >Has anyone considered that Tarrant may not have >known about all the wealth on board the Liberator? Avon did mention it to him in Powerplay while explaining his thesis that one of the trooper thugs was murdering all the others in order to get his hands on the loot. Or are you going to argue that Avon later claimed he was making the whole thing up in order to frame the thug, and made sure Tarrant never went down the relevant corridor? She also suggested: >You include your Internet number as one of your BT >Friends and Family numbers. Oh, I embraced that number as one of my nearest and dearest long ago. If we were talking NY resolutions, I read a sensible one about writing "8" after all the "199-s" in your next cheque book now, before you write down "7" in the mad rush to get away from the counter. Harriet PS Kathryn - no, no, not the spinlist! Life is currently too short for any more than two lists (well, three including the cricket statisticians). I'll hope to meet you at Deliverance? ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 04 Jan 1998 13:07:07 -0500 From: Cecilia To: blakes7@lysator.liu.se Subject: Re: [B7L] Re The Great Escape Message-Id: <3.0.5.32.19980104130707.007b8a60@raex.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At 12:42 PM 1/4/98 GMT, Ken Minne wrote: > >On the whole, would anyone else agree that the writers, knowing that >the series was to end, switched off our heroes brains for the episode? Actually, I think the problem is that this episode is "plot driven" as opposed to "character driven". The writers knew where they wanted the characters to be at the end, and so willy-nilly there they went. It didn't matter that a lot of the episode showed characters "out-of-character" - the important thing was to get them to the supposedly climatic finale. Lady C., the Anceunt One ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 04 Jan 1998 10:04:28 -0800 From: Pat Patera To: blakes7@lysator.liu.se Subject: Re: [B7L] Re The Great Escape Message-ID: <34AFCF2C.14A8@geocities.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Ken Minne wrote: > On the whole, would anyone else agree that the writers, knowing that > the series was to end, switched off our heroes brains for the episode? I attribute their fractured behavior to shell shock, brought about by the destruction of Xenon base. They'd probably been sniping at one another ever since and suffered raw nerves. > Flying straight into the blockade forces shows criminal folly, and > even Orac's ego would not get in the way of its desire for self > preservation. Good point. How could Orac not know what Slave knew. We can only assume Orac was not paying attention to one of its many circuits - navigation was no doubt of little interest to it. > Not lighting up the Stardrive the instant Tarrant got back into the > control seat also helped a lot. By then it was damaged? > Soolin and Dayna are suddenly screaming wimps when it comes to > abandoning ship, Vertigo? > and despite her posturing to Avon in the hut, Soolin hardly improves, She hasn't much to fight with. Plus, given that you are a local of Earth, would you "have a plan" if suddenly dropped off in Zanzibar or Timbuktu? > Dayna going for the dropped gun was stupid, Well, Dayna never was very bright. > but Soolin not going in the opposite direction for another gun was pathetic Yeah, what *was* Soolin doing all this time? > Arlen though not a crew member, gets a mention for being taken out by Vila, Yeah, that always bugged me, for she's never met him before and doesn't know what a wimp he is. > Klyn should have got a posthumous medal for duty in the face of overwhelming firepower. Duck! You Sucker! > Blake is clearly a loon, Oh my! Has a story been written where Blake survives GP, comes back aboard Liberator and proceeds to act like a total loon? Causing someone to shoot him later? :) Pat P ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 5 Jan 1998 06:43:40 +1100 From: Kathryn Andersen To: "Blake's 7 list" Subject: Re: [B7L] Re The Great Escape Message-ID: <19980105064340.25258@welkin.apana.org.au> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii On Sun, Jan 04, 1998 at 01:07:07PM -0500, Cecilia wrote: > At 12:42 PM 1/4/98 GMT, Ken Minne wrote: > > > > >On the whole, would anyone else agree that the writers, knowing that > >the series was to end, switched off our heroes brains for the episode? > > Actually, I think the problem is that this episode is "plot driven" as > opposed to "character driven". The writers knew where they wanted the > characters to be at the end, and so willy-nilly there they went. It didn't > matter that a lot of the episode showed characters "out-of-character" - the > important thing was to get them to the supposedly climatic finale. Well, as someone so aptly said, Chris Boucher "considers a plot something to hang dialogue off"; despite the fact that he was the script editor, and therefore responsible for continuity, he was quite happy to sacrifice continuity in his own scripts for the sake of dramatic moments. At least Ana Dorfstad managed to exploit the plot-holes in "Blake" to write her own excellent "Pattern of Infinity" (and BTW, folks, *please* don't read Sarah Thompson's review of it on Judith's page, unless you adore spoilers.) And yes, Harriet, I'm going to be at Deliverance. It's going to be fun! Kathryn Andersen -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Inigo: I do not mean to pry, but you don't by any chance happen to have six fingers on your right hand? Masked Man: Do you always begin conversations this way? (The Princess Bride) -- _--_|\ | Kathryn Andersen / \ | http://connexus.apana.org.au/~kat \_.--.*/ | #include "std/disclaimer.h" v | ------------| Melbourne -> Victoria -> Australia -> Southern Hemisphere Maranatha! | -> Earth -> Sol -> Milky Way Galaxy -> Universe -------------------------------- End of blakes7-d Digest V98 Issue #3 ************************************