From: blakes7-d-request@lysator.liu.se Subject: blakes7-d Digest V99 #58 X-Loop: blakes7-d@lysator.liu.se X-Mailing-List: archive/volume99/58 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 99 : Issue 58 Today's Topics: [B7L] Not Necessarily The Flat Robin 11a [B7L] Not Necessarily The Flat Robin 11a Re: [B7L] Avon's background-- speculation Re: [B7L] Flat Robin #11, by Penny Re: [B7L] Avon's background-- speculation ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 10 Feb 1999 18:45:27 PST From: "Penny Dreadful" To: blakes7@lysator.liu.se Cc: arkaroo@hotmail.com, egomoo@geocities.com Subject: [B7L] Not Necessarily The Flat Robin 11a Message-ID: <19990211024531.15187.qmail@hotmail.com> Content-type: text/plain (a) I'm calling this the end of the segment I submitted yesterday (or rather *very* early this morning) but if it conflicts in the *least* with *anything* someone else was inclined to add (hint hint nudge nudge wink wink) then it may be disregarded. I don't want the Flat Robin turned into a Squashed Robin or the Penny Dreadful Monomaniacal No-Life Society Minutes...I just *gotta* post now you see I'm on a roll (twitch twitch). (b) Jeroen, I really didn't mean that to sound so *menacing* as it does on a re-read. It was a friendly invitation, I swear! Maybe I *should* start using emoticons... ---------- >Hex's quill laboriously spelled out: +++ Danger, Will Robinson! +++ > >Ponder stood, fully alert now, and deeply concerned. *How* will it >'robinson'? he wondered. And when? *** "Ah, Bursar!" Archchancellor Ridcully grinned broadly as the dart he had just thrown at the back of his office door embedded itself in Mr. Imbecile's eyepatch. The Bursar had naturally had the foresight to duck the instant the door was flung open. Travis pulled the dart out of his face, looking aggrieved. Servalan quickly snatched it out of his hand before he could attempt to adhere to any biblical precepts. Plenty of time for unfortunate incidents after the job was done. Travis smacked the nearest mutoid in the back of the head, but rather halfheartedly. "What brings you here?" Ridcully continued, addressing the Bursar. He exuded such a convincing obliviousness to the other four people in the doorway that the Bursar decided they *must* be figments of his imagination after all, and wandered off without comment to engage in matters Bursary. Servalan, on the other hand, was not prepared to be ignored. She swept imperiously into the room, displaying her charms to full advantage since that tactic had worked even better than usual with the last two male humanoids she'd encountered. She leaned over Ridcully's desk even as he rose to his feet, and extended her hand. Ridcully shook it heartily, and it took some effort for her not to wince. "Archchancellor Ridcully at your service," the ruddy wizard said heartily. "And you would be...?" "Su-PREME Com-MAN-der Servalan," she responded, extracting her hand delicately from his. "Perhaps you've heard of me?" Ridcully assessed her thoughtfully. "No, I don't go into those places all that often -- you're not the one who does the trick with the watermelon, are you?" The mutoids averted their eyes. "Great abdominal strength, that one," Ridcully said admiringly. "And remarkable aim, for a girl." Servalan appeared nonplussed. "Well, never mind that," she said at length. "You ARE in charge of this city-state, am I correct?" "Yes," he said. 'In charge of' being a phrase open to so many interpretations. "Good," she said. "I and my compatriots have come to warn you of the great threat which is even now erupting in your midst--" "The kitchen staff *has* been favouring legumes rather heavily of late--" "The great threat which has very recently descended from above," continued Servalan, unfazed. "A band of remorseless terrorists from beyond the stars, armed with weapons beyond your wildest imaginings--" At this Ridcully seemed for the first time to actually hear what was being said. Visions of atomized wildlife danced in his head. "--and intent on wreaking mayhem on the innocent populace of your fair city!" "Well if it's only the *innocent* populace they're after we're not in a great deal of danger," Ridcully replied. In Ankh-Morpork the nuns carried switchblades, and not for self-defense either. Still, all this talk of armaments had fired up his blood. "And where might these remorseless terrytowels of yours be found?" "*That*," said Servalan, "is the question. They could be *anywhere*. They have *magical* powers of teleportation." She waited in vain for at least a little of the colour to drain from his face. "Ah." Ridcully looked disappointed. "More wizards." The fantastickal engines of destruction in his fantasy crumbling into just another variation on Mostowski's Collapsing Fireball. "Well, this may not be my jurisdiction after all." There was a wad of paperwork on the desk in front of him which had suddenly caught his eye. "You might want to try the Mended Drum, wizards being wizards. That's just down the block and across the street from your, ah, place of employ, madam." And they were invisible again. *** They walked across the lawn, Servalan's stiletto heels aerating it viciously with every angry step. A butterfly -- a real one -- fluttered around Travis' head and he took a bead on it with his gun-arm. Then lowered the weapon and walked on with a dismissive wave. Servalan eyed him curiously. They continued in silence toward the main gate. "Nice day," Travis said eventually. Servalan halted and spun on her heel, which motion brought a tear to Modo the Groundskeeper's eye a full mile away[1]. "Nice...day," she repeated slowly. "Travis, what is *wrong* with you?" "Well, my trousers are a little tight, but other than that I'm doing quite nicely, thank you." "I *beg* your *pardon?" Servalan asked icily. "Sorry, Supreme Commander, I meant to say 'Doing quite nicely, thank you, Supreme Commander,' Scream Pomander." "Travis, have you gone completely insane?" "Frequently," he answered, gazing serenely skyward. "Why look, I do believe the moon is in the seventh House. Jupiter should be aligning with Mars any time now, if I'm not mistaken." Servalan ground her sharp heel into Travis' toe as hard as she could. He flinched, but made no move to cuff either of the mutoids, though both were within easy reach and had instinctively braced themselves at the first sign of the Supreme Commander going on the offensive. Then she stalked off seething in the direction of the main gate, the mutoids trailing on either side. Eventually Travis followed. *** [1] When it comes to feeling disturbances in the Force, the Jedi are rank amateurs next to Professional Landscape Artists. ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 10 Feb 1999 18:45:39 PST From: "Penny Dreadful" To: blakes7@lysator.liu.se Cc: arkaroo@hotmail.com, egomoo@geocities.com Subject: [B7L] Not Necessarily The Flat Robin 11a Message-ID: <19990211024541.2566.qmail@hotmail.com> Content-type: text/plain (a) I'm calling this the end of the segment I submitted yesterday (or rather *very* early this morning) but if it conflicts in the *least* with *anything* someone else was inclined to add (hint hint nudge nudge wink wink) then it may be disregarded. I don't want the Flat Robin turned into a Squashed Robin or the Penny Dreadful Monomaniacal No-Life Society Minutes...I just *gotta* post now you see I'm on a roll (twitch twitch). (b) Jeroen, I really didn't mean that to sound so *menacing* as it does on a re-read. It was a friendly invitation, I swear! Maybe I *should* start using emoticons... ---------- >Hex's quill laboriously spelled out: +++ Danger, Will Robinson! +++ > >Ponder stood, fully alert now, and deeply concerned. *How* will it >'robinson'? he wondered. And when? *** "Ah, Bursar!" Archchancellor Ridcully grinned broadly as the dart he had just thrown at the back of his office door embedded itself in Mr. Imbecile's eyepatch. The Bursar had naturally had the foresight to duck the instant the door was flung open. Travis pulled the dart out of his face, looking aggrieved. Servalan quickly snatched it out of his hand before he could attempt to adhere to any biblical precepts. Plenty of time for unfortunate incidents after the job was done. Travis smacked the nearest mutoid in the back of the head, but rather halfheartedly. "What brings you here?" Ridcully continued, addressing the Bursar. He exuded such a convincing obliviousness to the other four people in the doorway that the Bursar decided they *must* be figments of his imagination after all, and wandered off without comment to engage in matters Bursary. Servalan, on the other hand, was not prepared to be ignored. She swept imperiously into the room, displaying her charms to full advantage since that tactic had worked even better than usual with the last two male humanoids she'd encountered. She leaned over Ridcully's desk even as he rose to his feet, and extended her hand. Ridcully shook it heartily, and it took some effort for her not to wince. "Archchancellor Ridcully at your service," the ruddy wizard said heartily. "And you would be...?" "Su-PREME Com-MAN-der Servalan," she responded, extracting her hand delicately from his. "Perhaps you've heard of me?" Ridcully assessed her thoughtfully. "No, I don't go into those places all that often -- you're not the one who does the trick with the watermelon, are you?" The mutoids averted their eyes. "Great abdominal strength, that one," Ridcully said admiringly. "And remarkable aim, for a girl." Servalan appeared nonplussed. "Well, never mind that," she said at length. "You ARE in charge of this city-state, am I correct?" "Yes," he said. 'In charge of' being a phrase open to so many interpretations. "Good," she said. "I and my compatriots have come to warn you of the great threat which is even now erupting in your midst--" "The kitchen staff *has* been favouring legumes rather heavily of late--" "The great threat which has very recently descended from above," continued Servalan, unfazed. "A band of remorseless terrorists from beyond the stars, armed with weapons beyond your wildest imaginings--" At this Ridcully seemed for the first time to actually hear what was being said. Visions of atomized wildlife danced in his head. "--and intent on wreaking mayhem on the innocent populace of your fair city!" "Well if it's only the *innocent* populace they're after we're not in a great deal of danger," Ridcully replied. In Ankh-Morpork the nuns carried switchblades, and not for self-defense either. Still, all this talk of armaments had fired up his blood. "And where might these remorseless terrytowels of yours be found?" "*That*," said Servalan, "is the question. They could be *anywhere*. They have *magical* powers of teleportation." She waited in vain for at least a little of the colour to drain from his face. "Ah." Ridcully looked disappointed. "More wizards." The fantastickal engines of destruction in his fantasy crumbling into just another variation on Mostowski's Collapsing Fireball. "Well, this may not be my jurisdiction after all." There was a wad of paperwork on the desk in front of him which had suddenly caught his eye. "You might want to try the Mended Drum, wizards being wizards. That's just down the block and across the street from your, ah, place of employ, madam." And they were invisible again. *** They walked across the lawn, Servalan's stiletto heels aerating it viciously with every angry step. A butterfly -- a real one -- fluttered around Travis' head and he took a bead on it with his gun-arm. Then lowered the weapon and walked on with a dismissive wave. Servalan eyed him curiously. They continued in silence toward the main gate. "Nice day," Travis said eventually. Servalan halted and spun on her heel, which motion brought a tear to Modo the Groundskeeper's eye a full mile away[1]. "Nice...day," she repeated slowly. "Travis, what is *wrong* with you?" "Well, my trousers are a little tight, but other than that I'm doing quite nicely, thank you." "I *beg* your *pardon?" Servalan asked icily. "Sorry, Supreme Commander, I meant to say 'Doing quite nicely, thank you, Supreme Commander,' Scream Pomander." "Travis, have you gone completely insane?" "Frequently," he answered, gazing serenely skyward. "Why look, I do believe the moon is in the seventh House. Jupiter should be aligning with Mars any time now, if I'm not mistaken." Servalan ground her sharp heel into Travis' toe as hard as she could. He flinched, but made no move to cuff either of the mutoids, though both were within easy reach and had instinctively braced themselves at the first sign of the Supreme Commander going on the offensive. Then she stalked off seething in the direction of the main gate, the mutoids trailing on either side. Eventually Travis followed. *** [1] When it comes to feeling disturbances in the Force, the Jedi are rank amateurs next to Professional Landscape Artists. ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 11 Feb 1999 10:20:09 GMT From: kminne@camtech.net.au (Ken Minne) To: Subject: Re: [B7L] Avon's background-- speculation Message-ID: <36c2327f.5010908@mail.camtech.net.au> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Good day all, Having spent some time catching up on my backlog of messages downloaded from this list, I thought I might delurk long enough to post in response to this post. On Sun, 07 Feb 1999 11:12:00 -0700, Helen wrote: >Has anyone ever worked with a story where Avon _was_ political himself >at one time? The Federation thought he was or they wouldn't have >assigned Bartolomew to 'run' him. Further, he must have been doing >something to attract their attention _before_ 'Bartolomw' was assigned, >since B. was Anna, and Avon's motive was supposedly to take her with him >into the realm of the 'too rich to touch'. >Why was he afraid of being 'touched' by the Federation? Obviously, he >was aware of its attitude toward people who upset the status quo in any >way, and believed that he might be seen as a threat. >Could it be his reluctance to follow Blake may have had its roots in >direct experience-- an interest in rebellion/ political dissent that had >previously been disappointed? It would be very interesting if Avon had >been attracted to Blake's original Freedom Party (was that the right >name?) until Blake publically recanted its efforts. >Obviously, Avon has always been the sort to try to keep the risks >minimal by hiding his sympathies, but isn't their a saying about a cynic >being an idealist with experience? > As a couple of other posters have already pointed out, under the Federation, any sufficiently large crime would be considered political. Suppose Avon had once been an idealistic young rising star in the Federation computer services ( I know, I know, I am skating close to the edge with that image, >;-) ). Unfortunately for Avon, and probably through no fault of his own, he wound up on the wrong end of a political power-play, that probably would have involved corruption and coercion ( like most of the higher level politics in the Federation ). Though due to his brilliance ( read value to the Federation, not escapology ), he survived, he was left cynical and disillusioned because he had discovered that just being honest and good in what you do was no protection in Federation society. During the series, Avon is often portrayed as seeking safety, and he wants enough money to buy his safety. The Federation, and later Avon himself, consider safety as coming from power. So Avon's Great scam is designed to gain enough cash to buy out of the Federation completely, and have enough to make sure that the Federation does not send assasins to tidy up. Unfortunately, the No. One computer guy in the Federation has decided to keep an eye on his rival ( Avon ), and when Avon begins the first stage of his plan, tips off Federation security that Avon is up to something. Fed Security, unsure if Avon is working alone or as part of a larger conspiracy and if he is want to catch the rest, set Bartholomew ( Anna ) to investigate. Anna and Avon fall in love, and Anna thinks they can get away with it. They go a head with the plan, but it fails. Anna pretends to have been loyal to the Federation and gets Avon tossed on the London rather than executed, and goes on to hatch other plots against the Federation leadership. Although overt dissent tended to be ruthlessly suppressed in the Federation, there was also a constant tension between different parts of the Federation. That the lawyers from The Way Back even existed in the Federation shows that there was at least a pretense of the rule of law, or that one faction could act against another if they had sufficient excuse. Different factions would have had different policy priorities, whether from altruism ( ie killing innocent civillians is not a good idea ) or pragmatism ( ie those innocent civillians cost me a fortune to train/feed/transport ). The original Freedom Party may have started as a particularly altruistic faction, that crossed the line whne it tried to become a mass movement. Now, have I duplicated the backstory to anyone's fanfic? Comments Welcome, Walter Minne ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 11 Feb 1999 18:21:12 +0000 From: Julia Jones To: blakes7@lysator.liu.se Subject: Re: [B7L] Flat Robin #11, by Penny Message-ID: In message <19990210093534.1128.qmail@hotmail.com>, Penny Dreadful writes >But the Senior Wrangler wasn't listening. He was staring at Servalan and >turning a rather alarming shade of maroon. And she, in her turn, seemed >uncustomarily enthralled by the Senior Wrangler. Perhaps it was his >dressing gown -- a relatively (on the U.U. Tackiness Scale) sedate >number in red velvet, gold lame, white ostrich feathers, silver sequins, >black satin lining, sparklers all around the collar and the lips and >eyelids of five unique endangered species for trim. "My God, Travis," >she whispered huskily, "we've finally landed on a planet where the >natives have some *taste*." Keep going, ladies, I'm enjoying it immensely. -- Julia Jones "Don't philosophise with me, you electronic moron!" The Turing test - as interpreted by Kerr Avon. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 12 Feb 1999 00:13:12 EST From: Pherber@aol.com To: kminne@camtech.net.au, blakes7@lysator.liu.se Subject: Re: [B7L] Avon's background-- speculation Message-ID: <3ba788f0.36c3b868@aol.com> Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit In a message dated 2/11/99 3:23:15 AM Mountain Standard Time, kminne@camtech.net.au writes: << Suppose Avon had once been an idealistic young rising star in the Federation computer services ( I know, I know, I am skating close to the edge with that image, >;-) ). Unfortunately for Avon, and probably through no fault of his own, he wound up on the wrong end of a political power-play, that probably would have involved corruption and coercion ( like most of the higher level politics in the Federation ). Though due to his brilliance ( read value to the Federation, not escapology ), he survived, he was left cynical and disillusioned because he had discovered that just being honest and good in what you do was no protection in Federation society. >> Sounds quite plausible to me. Avon's potential must have made him fairly conspicuous and a tempting target for some unscrupulous superior to try to use for their own motives. It also provides a possible explanation for why Avon was banished instead of 'rehabilitated.' A life sentence to Cygnus Alpha always struck me as a rather extreme penalty to impose on someone of Avon's abilities for a first offense, even one of that magnitude. But add to it a history of being on the losing side of a political fight and a bad case of Attitude, sending him off-planet permanently might suddenly seem like a good idea to the authorities. Certainly it would be cheaper than keeping him under surveillance constantly. Nina McClure -------------------------------- End of blakes7-d Digest V99 Issue #58 *************************************