Blakes7 May 2001

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84 participants
897 discussions

Re: [B7L] Avon needs blake...
by Marian de Haan 09 May '01

09 May '01

Guy wrote: >What still troubles me is why Avon needs Blake. Various reasons have been suggested, but I don't really find any of them very convincing.< Apart from the last episode, I don't see any evidence in the series for Avon needing Blake. And in "Blake" he gives a rational reason - they need him as figurehead. IMO in Terminal Avon doesn't go looking for Blake because he needs him but out of a sense of duty. Blake's disappearance meant that Avon couldn't keep his part of the bargain - bringing Blake to Earth in exchange for the Liberator. I don't think Avon would lose any sleep over it but, as a man of his word, he'd prefer to honour his debt if the occasion arose. Of course, the chance for Blake to stir up things on Earth is over, so they'd have to find some other arrangement. I think the idea of trying to establish a base on Obsidian ("Volcano") is especially meant as alternative for Blake: if the road to Earth is closed, providing Blake with a base elsewhere - in exchange for the Liberator - is the next best thing Avon can think of. Minority opinion of one, I know :-) Marian

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Baycon
by Julia Jones 09 May '01

09 May '01

So who's going to Baycon? I'm contemplating going, since it's an hour away on the light rail and I won't have to spend money on a hotel. This panel on Saturday looks interesting <grin> My Characters are doing WHAT?!? Fan fic and the suspension of disbelief within a fantasy world. John O'Halloran, ElizaBeth Gilligan, Brad Templeton, Brenda Clough -- Julia Jones

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Re: [B7L] Gan's woman
by Marian de Haan 09 May '01

09 May '01

Jenny wrote: >>And the fact that he doesn't give her name, or even say "my wife" or "my lover", but "my woman". Creepy.<< I always assumed it to be the accepted expression in the Federation, as Shrinker uses it too when talking about Anna Grant to Avon ("I never saw your woman!") Harriere wrote: >Not necessarily - I quite like those languages where "my man" and "my husband" are expressed by the same words.< That is the case in Dutch, likewise the word for "woman" also means "wife". That's probably why the use of it doesn't sound strange to me. >But in this case, I assume that they weren't married, and then you get into the tired old what-do-you-call-them thing. I remember round about the time of B7 someone listing possible options in a letter to a newspaper, and rejecting "my lover" as unnecessarily dramatic - and Gan is rather understated. "My partner" might leave the audience wondering whether the trooper was sabotaging their small business. "My girlfriend" would just about do, but might imply the relationship was a little more casual than I imagine it to be. "My significant other" would sound absurdly comic. "My common-law wife" would be a bit technical.< "My concubine" wouldn't have been suitable for the time-slot :-) Marian

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Fw: [B7L] Avon needs blake...
by Guy Kendall 09 May '01

09 May '01

Nathan wrote: > > Remember Avon too isn't entirely sure the whole thing isn't genuine. I forget the exact dialogue between himself and servalan, but it runs along the lines of him recognising that it could quite possibly be a trap, but after having Zen analyse the recordings of Blakes voice the message could be genuine and therefore worth a look. > now he doesn't want to jeapordise the Liberator in the first instance, so he makes it his risk. If he advises the crew to bugger off once he's on planet, the Liberator is safe theoretically. Either way there's a gamble involved. > > What's confusing is what motivates him. The short answer can only be he needs Blake. He proves it again in the Blake episode. A figure head, a rabble rouser and a good one. Blakes charisma outweighs Avon's when it comes to pure leadership. Which is ironic in the end, because it shows a turn in Avon's character incongruent with the previous Blake - Avon relationship. > > He rids himself of Blake, through circumstances and finally gets what he wants. yet when the oportunity finally arrives he makes a conscious an overtly determined effort to reacquire the very person he was the least fond of. Avon needs Blake - badly. > > sorry to all the avon fans out there, I love the character too, but it's interesting don't you think. I like the way this series allows for "characters" to be so pivotal in it's logical/illogical continuence. Their individual selfishness and idiosyncracies amusing us, surprising us, confusing us and annoying us. Brilliant, just plain brilliant. well, with the odd episodal exception! > I couldn't agree more. [By the way, I am a big Avon fan and a bit anti-Blake.] What still troubles me is why Avon needs Blake. Various reasons have been suggested, but I don't really find any of them very convincing. Sure, I agree that if Avon wants to beat up the Federation, then he does need Blake. But does he really want to do this ? And if so, why ?

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Terminal
by Ellynne G. 09 May '01

09 May '01

OK, I'm having a little trouble getting my computer to transfer Read e-mail into Send e-mail (this is what I get for using the computer I found in the bottom of a box of Cracker Jacks), so, please, pardon the lack of previous statements. I should have this fixed soon. As a biological experiment to predict human evolution, Terminal is either worthless or dealing with something undisclosed (maybe past nuclear wars have damaged a lot of DNA on Earth and it is only aggressive controls we never hear about that keep the damage results in check [unlikely, but it's all I could think of]). Evolution should be better referred to as adaptive mutation. Specific mutation can only be predicted in a limited way (as with cancer and knowing that a person has cells that are prone to that malformation). But, remember, wolves and deer are supposed to share a common ancestor. Long term trends are hard to predict. Given certain factors, certain trends seem _likely_ - but that doesn't make them inevitable (sea turtles have been around since the dinosaurs but still lay eggs on land. Whales, relative new comers, give birth at sea). Terminal was useless precisely because of the variables introduced to make the experiment work. 1) The process was sped up. I assume this means mutagenic factors were introduced to the environment - rather like having people living in a high radiation zone and taking the results as normal for everyone outside it. If reproduction was effected - quicker growth followed by more rapid reproduction - it's again useless because it's getting rid of essentials - intelligent lifeforms need more time to raise and train offspring, so this scenario favors instinct over intelligence. 2) The environment was changed. Put a tropical creature in an artic environment. Assuming it survives (big if), eventual evolution might give you something like a polar bear or (ahem) a penguin. You can't then go and say "Ah-hah! Ostriches are evolving into penguins!" Take a space faring species with broad avenues for technological development. Trap it on a single world where technological development will always be artificially controlled to keep them from circumventing the experiment (there are probably other altered variables, but those will do). The results aren't comparable. 3) Single solution evolution is balderdash. See reference above to deer and wolves being related. So, what was Terminal? 1) Further evidence of Federation decay. The Federation shows signs of having decayed from a prewar civilization. In some cases, technology has been preserved but underlying principles were either lost or are known only to the groups who control it, like the Clone Masters. There may have been enough ignorance to make enough people in power think Terminal was a good idea for the reasons given. 2) Terminal was for something else. There might be experiments were Terminal conditions could be useful. Example: a sped up life cycle to track specific genetic or biological experiments. Like an SF novel that had deliberately created, fast aging humans to track treatments for a genetic disease that manifested in biological middle age. Then, Terminal was abandoned and the lab rats (probably already altered to links or pretty close) got to struggle on. 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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Re: [B7L] The End (Was: Re: scripts and other ephemera)
by Illandri2＠aol.com 09 May '01

09 May '01

<< "Sally Manton" on why Avon stands over Blake's body wrote: > >*Why* triumphant? Not just that I don't see it in his stance, but what has >he got to triumph about in shooting Blake? He's free of him at last. Jenny >> Free of Blake only to realize that he's going to die. I've always thought that he was being ironic. Avon has a *great* sense of the ironic. Zenia, quietly coming out of shadows

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Re: [B7L] Re: moloch/limiters
by Jenny Kaye 09 May '01

09 May '01

Sally wrote: ><As for the dangerousness of Gan vs. Doran, I definitely did not make it >clear that I meant that I thought the Federation was jumping to >erroneous conclusions when they thought Gan was more dangerous than >Doran to them.> > >I still think the matter is simple. The limiter is not to prevent people >fighting others, whether legally (as in a trooper) or unfairly (as in >Doran's nasty ways with women). Gan bends and mangles plenty of enemies >with >no problem. It's to stop them *killing*. > >The limiter was used on people who killed. There's nothing in Moloch to >suggest that Doran was convicted of murder. Gan was. First of all, there's a good deal to suggest that Doran was convicted (at least partly) of murder. He talks about dreaming of "committing every crime in the book"; he says "When Doran gets aggravated, he kills people"; he shoots two unarmed guards with nothing more than a quip about the gun going off in his hand. The man's a killer. But we never *do* find out exactly what Gan was convicted of, we only have Gan's word for it. Anyway, there's strong evidence that Gan does kill someone in Cygnus Alpha. Shortly after Kara is killed, we see him leaning heavily on a spear, driving it into something on the ground. Either he's doing a spot of gardening, or he's stabbing someone. Jenny _________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com.

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Re: [B7L] Re: moloch/limiters
by Jenny Kaye 09 May '01

09 May '01

Helen wrote: > > There was a scene in an early episode where Avon shows him a thing or > > two > > about computers, but there are also quite a number of times where Avon > > clearly demonstrates his contempt for Gan's intelligence. For example: > > When > > they are looking for Orac in Shadow,Gan tells the crew that he even > > called > > out Orac's name. Avon replies, "That requires a degree of stupidity > > that no > > amount of training could match." > > > > >What part of "Snarky comments aside" was unclear? I *am* aware of the >oft quoted insults-- but then, Avon has insulted the intelligence of all >of them at various times. Perhaps you beliueve that Avon's words always >reveal true, deeply held convictions-- I prefer to scrutinize his >actions. Yes, so do I. But you appear to be assuming that just because he says something he means the opposite. He is "snarky" to Cally, Vila, Tarrant, Blake... and yet, however grudgingly, allows them their expertise. I can't think of a single occasion where he shows any respect for Gan's intelligence. The only time he comes close is when he explains the Liberator's functioning to Gan in "The Web" and even that's pretty contemptuous (and I'll tell you one thing that scene does show-- that Gan's more intelligent than he lets on. Which makes one wonder why he's hiding it). Even after Gan dies--and everyone else is upset about it--he's sarcastic about him and uses his death to score political points off Blake. >As for the dangerousness of Gan vs. Doran, I definitely did not make it >clear that I meant that I thought the Federation was jumping to >erroneous conclusions when they thought Gan was more dangerous than >Doran to them. Why would the Federation jump to erroneous conclusions? They're fascists, not idiots. >Also, almost everything mentioned (encouraging Vila to >assualt Servalan, shooting guards) happens after the initial arrest. >They apparently didn't realize what a beast he was.

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Re: [B7L] No changes, please ...
by Marian de Haan 09 May '01

09 May '01

Sally asked: >We've done what changes we'd like. Now, would anyone like to give us: > >[a] three things about Blake's 7 as a series that make it special for them, and different from other shows?< 1. The heroes *not* getting on with each other. 2. Women who don't scream. 3. Outstanding dialogue. >[b] if you can think of them, one thing in each of just three episodes that somehow lifted that episode for you?< 1. Project Avalon: Vila's dawdling when getting ready for teleport and Cally and Avon's reaction to that. 2. Ultraworld: the rare occasion in B7 of a joke at the end that works (and Avon's gorgeous smile :-) ). 3. Moloch: Avon expressing concern for Vila and regret about having allowed Tarrant to bully him along. (It's fun to see Avon being more compassionate than Cally just for once.) Marian

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Re: [B7L] Re: Blakes7 digest, Vol 1 #393 - 14 msgs
by Jenny Kaye 09 May '01

09 May '01

Helen wrote: > > Jacqui wrote: > > > > > > >How come Vila's 'friend' in 'Moloch' didn't have a limiter when he > > was far > > >more dangerous than Gan? > > > > Because Gan was far more dangerous than Vila's friend in 'Moloch'. > > That's > > the simple answer :-). > > > > Jenny > > > > >Ack! I shall defend my Oak Leaves (actually, was never awarded any >despite thinking Gan's a slendid chap and arguing that Avon teaching him >about computers shows that snarky comments aside, the Snarly One thought >Gan showed potential as a student) There was a scene in an early episode where Avon shows him a thing or two about computers, but there are also quite a number of times where Avon clearly demonstrates his contempt for Gan's intelligence. For example: When they are looking for Orac in Shadow,Gan tells the crew that he even called out Orac's name. Avon replies, "That requires a degree of stupidity that no amount of training could match." by amending that: >Gan was far more dangerous TO THE FEDERATION. What do they care if the >guy in Moloch rapes and harms the few women that are to be found on a >prison planet? First off, the women Doran meets are on the planet Sardos not a prison planet. Secondly Gan was sent to a prison planet. Thirdly, when left in the control room to guard two unarmed Federation soldiers, Doran shoots them both. Saying later that his finger slipped! Doran is an extremely violent individual. They are only there because they are criminals. He has a >mad on at half the species, but he's also basically a coward and won't >be attacking women with rank and status. I haven't got this episode on video and I haven't see it in years, so please excuse me if I'm getting this wrong, but I don't remember Doran being intimidated by women with rank and status, he even tries to encourage Vila to rape Servalan. Gan, on the other hand, >specifically killed a Federation trooper with his bare hands. He tells us he did, there is no confirmation of this. And it is never stated that he used his bare hands, just that he killed a guard that killed his woman. And the fact that he doesn't give her name, or even say "my wife" or "my lover", but "my woman". Creepy. It like Jenna going missing and someone aboard the Liberator saying, "where's that woman gone?" >They assume his anger will apply to anyone in the same uniform, or > >worse,with the same allegience. He is therefore a danger to the > >Federation and must be quelled. IMO that doesn't hold much water, because the reason Gan gives is that it was a vengence killing, not a political one. Also if Gan's such a "splended chap" why would the athorities consider him a threat to "anyone in the same uniform" that sounds more like a psycopath than a rational being. Jenny _________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com.

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Blakes7 May 2001