Blakes7 February 2001

blakes7@lists.lysator.liu.se

80 participants
929 discussions

Re: [B7L] Time Squad Remake?
by Ellynne G. 11 Feb '01

11 Feb '01

On Sat, 10 Feb 2001 09:30:29 -0000 "Alison Page" <alison(a)alisonpage.demon.co.uk> writes: > Meegat/Gamete, the time-squad capsule, Chris Boucher's > fondly-remembered > story. We've got quite a sub-genre here. Stories which dramatise the > meaning, or lack of meaning, that sexual reproduction brings to an > individual life, but using space-colonisation as a metaphor. > > What I like about interpreting stories in this way is that it raises > questions in my mind. > > Does leaving children behind really make your life more meaningful? > Does a 'failure' to reproduce take anything away from your worth? > How much should you sacrifice of yourself for the chance to leave a > legacy? Just my feelings on the matter, but - I think one of the most important parts of our lives is how we interact with others. What we leave behind is our lives and how those lives touched others. There are people who've had incredibly meaningful lives who never had children, sure. There are people who, frankly, make you wish it was possible to keep them from having kids. The monsters of WW II (and other eras) who could be quite decent in their home life and terrifying elsewhere? This isn't deep, but I think most people manage interesting - sometimes incredible - mixes of good and evil in their natures. Orson Scott Card, in Red Prophet, summed it up by saying nearly everyone has something so bad they won't do it. Getting back to kids, however, they're the most overwhelming obligation package you ever get. Strangers - even friends - can be ignored or written off. Kids? Forget it. They're what Heinlein called "the whole Chinese obligation" (although he was speaking of cats). You're responsible. However it works on an individual scale, being responsible for all the children your race can have? Ever? No pressure, Meegat, no pressure. As for Time Squad, I think they should have dumped it on an uninhabited planet, preferably after Avon had done a little adjusting to the little zygotes' training programs to cut out the homicidal mania. Ellynne ________________________________________________________________ GET INTERNET ACCESS FROM JUNO! Juno offers FREE or PREMIUM Internet access for less! Join Juno today! For your FREE software, visit: http://dl.www.juno.com/get/tagj.

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Meegat: Leave or Stay?
by Ellynne G. 11 Feb '01

11 Feb '01

If they had taken Meegat and her people, they couldn't have kept them on The Liberator. What options could they give them? 1) Resettlement on an uninhabited planet without the homes they know have or anything else familiar to them. Also with a bare minimum of medical or other supplies. This is not a good option. 2) Resettlement on an inhabited planet. Assuming they can get one to take the refugees (given the nature of the Federation, many neighboring planets might be extremely reluctant to take guests who don't come through very specific channels), this still means major upheaval and coping with a lot of things they may not feel like coping with. However, if it doesn't mean dumping them in a refugee camp with a considerably lower standard of living (and almost no chance of getting out, given the marketable skills and other things those wanting immigrants may be looking for), it seems a good option to me. Would it seem so to them? It somehow seems that any sales pitch was likely doomed to failure. _They're_ comfortable. The problems they have are all ones they're accustomed too, that probably don't even register with them as problems because that's the way life is. What did Shakespeare say about not wanting to fly to troubles we know not of? Ellynne ________________________________________________________________ GET INTERNET ACCESS FROM JUNO! Juno offers FREE or PREMIUM Internet access for less! Join Juno today! For your FREE software, visit: http://dl.www.juno.com/get/tagj.

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Liberator technology
by Helen Krummenacker 11 Feb '01

11 Feb '01

> > The ship has a strong suggestion of organic technology, and "feeds" off > energy. It's possible that it can create much or all of what it needs so > long as it has raw materials to work with. How far down do those raw > materials go? All the way down to being able to convert energy to > matter? This is giving me an eerie thought. The question of "What happened to the Liberator's first crew?" has come up from time to time. Given what we saw of the System, it would value the ship over any crew. Could the DSV have broken down its own crew for material after it was damaged? After bonding with Jenna, obviously some reprogramming was done of the computer via her brain; this might have included her values of human life above the ship.

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Re: [B7L] cats
by Tavia Chalcraft 11 Feb '01

11 Feb '01

Neil was taught: >As I was taught at school, gingers are overwhelmingly male >and the few ginger females are sterile. Seems not to be the case for me. I can assure you, as a ginger female, I have two healthy cat children doing fine. Neither ginger, mind you. Tavia

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Re: [B7L] Deliverance
by Harriet Monkhouse 10 Feb '01

10 Feb '01

Fiona wrote: >If you can find me one piece of evidence > for his embarrassment-- a line of dialogue, >a blush, a quick "Oh, great" eye-roll at the >others, anything-- I will (honest!) consider >revising my opinion. I'm not asking you to revise your opinion, merely to accept that some people have different opinions and that none of them is definitive. cf the end of Star One, where Paul (I will accept his evidence on this, as he's not trying to push his own interpretation) says he deliberately played his reaction to Gareth's "I have always trusted you" as blank, and allowed viewers to interpret that as indicating his deep love/hatred/whatever of the man. Which we did (my interpretation on that one happens to be fury). As Sally has often said, we were all issued with different tapes. I have no intention of sitting through what I consider a tedious episode, but off the top of my head, I would say that my tape depicts Avon speaking in a slow, formal, deadpan manner which I interpret as "I must retain my dignity at all costs in this horribly embarrassing situation." He does sound smug when Vila asks why Meegat picked him, but that's part of his relationship with Vila. (I also think "Probably" partly reflects his own confusion, and is partly an attempt to put Vila off the scent - if he said "No, I'm horribly embarrassed," Vila would never let him forget it for the next three years.) Harriet

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Re: Fanfic, Internet and writing
by Helen Krummenacker 10 Feb '01

10 Feb '01

Once, in my pre-Internet days, I got chewed out by an editor for useing Internet-style markings on my writing. What I haad been doing was setting off a persons thoughts with asterisks. I had seen this done in novels I'd been reading in my childhood, so obviously it predated the Internet, but was not in general enough use for the editor to realize I'd pcked up the habit from a different source. I liked it because quotation marks indicate speech out loud, and there seemed to be a need to make speech in one's own head be punctuated as such. Likewise, I've been very fond of the ellispses (...) to indicate pauses for as long as I've been writing. One might be able to leave out punctuation for emphasis and pauses in FanFic and have people still know that Avon would drawl a line ironically and Vila would spout off quickly, but what about original fiction? You need to give people a sense of the character's voice. Just not every line, which, I except is the actual complaint?

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Re: [B7L] Let's Do the Time Squad Again
by Sally Manton 10 Feb '01

10 Feb '01

Dana wrote: <Later on, instead of asking the pilot's opinion of the controls in the capsule, he asks Avon, when there isn't a reason in the world why a systems analyst and avocational hacker would know anything about them.> Two things: 1. Blake *already asked* Jenna for her opinion just before they ran out of air, remember? And now he's asking if "Avon's got any (further) ideas." Why not? 2. Whether there's a reason in the world or not in ordinary terms, the fact is, from Avon's answer, he does know quite a bit. And the three of them have been on that ship for 4 months ... you really think Blake [a] hasn't worked that out and [b] doesn't know that Avon likes to be asked for his opinion? _________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com.

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Re: Deliverance
by Helen Krummenacker 10 Feb '01

10 Feb '01

I watched in again last night, taking more careful note of the nuances. Cally and Jenna: definitely not in 'victim' mode in spite of being captured. Blake's cotribution of Cally's freedom consisted entirely of shouting "now" while Ensor collapsed. Odd thing about the "Avon's a bastard" line of thought. Blake doesn't seem to have any interest in the humanitarian rescue thing. We don't know who suggested going to see if there were survivors from the explosion, but my first guess would be Jenna, as there would likely be an ethical code among free traders that you try to help other downed pilots. OTOH, it could be Avon. He's definitely leading the rescue party. The exchange between Avon and Blake: "Are you afraid I can handle it better than you?" "No." "Well, you should be." This is not as much of an Avon and Blake moment as a Paul and Gareth moment! The 'it' in question isn't the rescue or the radiation (although it's vague, to be interpreted as either). Now that I've heard it was originally to be Lord Blake helping Meeghat, I know that this is about Paul taking over the script. Not sure whether this wa filmed to fill time after, or if Boucher threw it in there as his own inside joke, being fond of Paul's delivery. On to Avon and Meeghat. Yes, he was attracted to her. I had never noticed before how much time they spent holding hands. I had interpreted his avoiding looking at her at first as embarrassment, but since someone mentioned he was hold his gun, I paid more attention and saw that when they first entered, he was afraid Meeghat's act might be an attempt to distract them while someone lurking back attacked. Once he'd had the time to realize things were genuine, his attitude changed. Sending off the rocket. The man who created it had been killed before he could launch it; it was waiting for "the word". The Liberator crew were able to get the machines up without a problem, but surely the people who were guardians of it *at the time* could have launched it if getting the power up was all that was needed. No, it needed "the word". Avon is a computer genius, not a rocket scientist, as has been pointed out. When they returned with Jenna, the camera focussed away from Avon for several seconds. AVON TYPED IN THE PASSWORD DURING THAT TIME! That is what a computer expert could do. Either he ran a password cruncher, or he used the little tricks of investigating the work area to see where the useer made a notation of their password. Either way, it falls into his expertise and suggests a genuine prophecy such as the one in Sarcophagus. True, this is a guess based on the script, but it does help fix the gaping plot hole of why no one fired the rocket before all the technology was forgotten. Nothing fixes the gaping plot hole of why the boys cower in terror from the rocks rather than shoot their weapons, except that Gan can't kill and Vila *won't* use a gun if there's anyway out of it. All I can guess here is that, gee, the colonialist/empirialist/Boy's Own heroes were actually trying not to kill if they didn't have to? As for Avon not taking Meeghat with him. This is flimsy evidence at best but: He says his taking care of the rocket is a poor reward for her long wait, and apologizes that she did wait so long. He is evidently atracted to her. She would be endangered by joining them, nor could they transport her anywhere that they could gaurantee her a safe welcome. He is in a fairly good mood when we last see him on the planet, but on the ship, we obviously come in at the tail end of a discussion. He is calm while discussing the rocket. Then Cally brings up Meeghat, who they had evidently talked about for a while before. (There must have been a discussion, otherwise, Cally, who'd been on ship, wouldn't ask about her. There goes the idea that she was an afterthought after the rocket) Avon turns snarky when Blake joins in the discussion. Perhaps Avon hadn't wanted to leave Meeghat behind and Blake insisted he look at it rationally. There's no place for her, she's safer where she is, etc. His sulkiness in ORAC may have to do as much with still being touchy about leaving her as suffering radiation sickness. Once again, I know the evidence is flimsy, but it does answer the questions why they didn't talk about Meeghat and why Avon, who was holding hands with her, leaves her behind. Also, in regards to how Meeghat now knows he's not a god... if he asked her if she'd like to come along before contacting Blake, he'd have to explain a bit. Hearing Avon getting chewed out by Blake for such a silly notion would blow away the rest of the illusion. And no, I'm not trying to make Avon look good by making Blake look bad, here. I think it would be preposterous to take her away from her world, and Blake would be right to say no if Avon was foolish enough to think of it.

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RE: [B7L] cats
by Louise Rutter 10 Feb '01

10 Feb '01

Neil wrote: >As I was taught at school, gingers are overwhelmingly male and the few >ginger females are sterile. Sorry, Neil, they lied. Ginger females breed just as well as all the rest. Louise

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RE: [B7L] cats
by Louise Rutter 10 Feb '01

10 Feb '01

Pred wrote: >Do male torties (Yank: calicos) exist or is that an unbreakable genetic >wossname? They exist, but they're extraordinarily rare - I haven't seen one in 6 years as a vet. They're genetic accidents (XXY as I recall) and they're sterile. Louise

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Blakes7 February 2001