Blakes7 May 2001

blakes7@lists.lysator.liu.se

84 participants
897 discussions

Re: [B7L] Terminal
by Alison Page 09 May '01

09 May '01

Guy said - >>I'm a newcomer here, so I should really borrow some of Slave's humility for my first few postings No way - get stuck in like everyone else does. Hello by the way. >>Do we really believe Servalan thinks about this stuff much ? 'Think about' and 'believe that' are ambiguous terms. A person might 'think that' something is the case without framing it in their mind in so many words. So it might be that Servalan doesn't spend much time thinking about political or historical processes, but she just instinctively feels that everything must end badly, that compassion and love will lose to greed and terror: as she says 'it's an old wall, and it waits for everyone'. I think adding this radical pessimism to her character makes her more rounded (no pun intended) than the average SF villain of the time. Her ruthlessness isn't just an inexplicable plot device, but reflects a complete, bleak, world view. As it happens I'd go a bit further than that, as I think Servalan probably does think in explicit terms about these things. I think she is a bit of an intellectual, though a pragmatic one rather than a lover of ideas for their own sake. But I'd be interested to hear other people's opinions. Alison ********************************************************************** This email and any files transmitted with it are confidential and intended solely for the use of the individual or entity to whom they are addressed. If you have received this email in error please notify the system manager. This footnote also confirms that this email message has been swept by MIMEsweeper for the presence of computer viruses. www.mimesweeper.com **********************************************************************

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Re: [B7L] Dayna's family
by Jenny Kaye 09 May '01

09 May '01

Marian wrote: >Ellynne wrote: > >This would also give Dayna somewhat better reasons for her homicidal >treatment of the neighbors and for her father's tolerance of it. If she >was >avenging foster-mother, fighting people who had murdered her >foster-sister's >family the same way her biological mother and family had been murdered, her >actions make much more sense. So does what happened to Laran. If she was >some kind of lost heir, she was a threat as long as she lived. Also, it >kind of gives a new meaning to her rejoining her people.< > >Makes sense. It always seemed strange to me that they would kill her >rather >than force her into marriage. 1/ Why assume that they *would* force her into marriage? We know next to nothing about Sarran women. 2/ A more likely explanation is that they would kill her because she had been "contaminated" by outsiders and they feared that contamination. The prophecy, remember. 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 Sally Manton 09 May '01

09 May '01

Helen wrote: <Ack! I shall defend my Oak Leaves (actually, was never awarded any despite thinking Gan's a slendid chap ...> <smile of modest pride> *I've* got one - can't actually recall now why I got it though ... <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. _________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com.

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Re: [B7L] Dayna's family
by Jenny Kaye 09 May '01

09 May '01

Ellynne G. wrote: > >Checking over the archive, I came across the subject of Laran's adoption >into Dayna's family and whether she was a baby or child or whatever. I >noticed an interesting fact. Dayna is skilled enough with her chosen >weapons to deal successfully with multiples of the locals - armed, >mounted locals. Furthermore, the weapons she uses require a high degree >of training and skill - training I very much doubt her father had and >that his partial blindness probably would have kept him from passing on >even if he did. > >So, this suggests Dayna had contact with an adult who _was_ trained and >skilled in those weapons - and she was much more likely to find one of >those in the neighborhood than among whatever friends did or didn't come >to visit. Odds are, this adult was either one of Laran's parents or a >guardian of some sort. As the local populace wanted to kill Hal, Dayna and Lauren, I think it's unlikely that they would have got any help from that quarter. Especially when it is the Sarrans that Dayna is practicing her skills by killing. The script states that Lauren was a child when she joined the Melanbys, there is no evidence that Lauren was also accompanied by anyone else. Both Dayna and her father mention that she has learned, and is learning, to master all weapons ancient and modern. There's no reference in the script at all to her learning how from the Sarrans or anyone else. >Whew, Dayna now has an excellent reason to survive GP, too many >unresolved plot issues. There are no unresolved plot issues, it's all there in the text. Jenny _________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com.

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Exeter City (mercifully brief)
by Stephen Date 09 May '01

09 May '01

The Exeter City website's (www.weareexeter.com) latest headline is Blake's 7! The seven in question are players whose contracts have come to an end and been summarily dismissed. I find this oddly appropriate. Stephen. ____________________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get your free @yahoo.co.uk address at http://mail.yahoo.co.uk or your free @yahoo.ie address at http://mail.yahoo.ie

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Re: [B7L] Terminal (was: moloch/limiters)
by Alison Page 09 May '01

09 May '01

Stephen said - >like the ending of Terminal as drama - as philosophy >and biology it's awful - but as drama it's brilliant Yep. But could we imagine a future biology which has discovered that evolution is not as random as we currently think? I'm not suggesting that is true (or that we could know it was true even if it were) but imagine that the chaotic processes of evolution nevertheless have certain favoured stable states which are much more likely than others ('strange attractors' I think in chaos modelling?). So the links could be heavily predictable as most likely outcomes. I think this sort of remorseless predictability is a bit of a feature of B7 overall, not just in evolutionary terms. No matter how the individual struggles against political and psychological trends, they will tend to re-assert themselves. The federation will tend to reform, the rebellions will tend to peter out, the various future outcomes will collapse back into certain predictable end states. Even if it isn't true, I think Servalan believes it is true. She believes the political future is inevitable, so she might as well look out for herself within that overall context. A ruling class that makes use of psychostrategists is likely to have that view I would think. Alison

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Re: [B7L] Terminal (was: moloch/limiters)
by Jenny Kaye 09 May '01

09 May '01

Stephen wrote: > > >Servalan is IMO talking absolute rubbish, and if > > Avon wasn't in a state of > > >shock from the 'Blake is dead' bit, he'd have > > probably taken some > > >pleasure in pointing this out. > > > > What do you think he would have said? > >Something to do with Chaos theory I imagine. It is >difficult enough to predict weather patterns over a >period of a few days (UK people may remember Michael >Fish reassuring the public that there wasn't going to >be a storm in 1987 just before it broke loose.)Trying >to predict them over a period of several million >years, which is the sort of timescale evolution works >in, is going to be impossible. If you can't predict >the climate you can't predict how evolution is going >to happen. So what he'd have said would be basically "Then again, maybe you're wrong?" I think that's a bit too upbeat for a story like Terminal. >More simply why would natural selection consistently >favour link like traits against intelligence and not >ripping the head off anything you meet ? Perhaps they can outbreed and outfight the more intelligent specimens :-)? >I am open to correction on this from anyone who has a >better knowledge of evolutionary biology but I don't >think that a Terminal type experiment would do more >than give you one possibility for how things would >work out. It would be cheaper and more effective to >use computer modelling I would think. Well, it was 1980 and SimCity was a few years off :-). But I'd imagine a live trial has the advantage that things could happen which the experimenters didn't predict-- a computer is only as good as its operator after all. >They are indeed crucial to Nation's ending. The >Federation is in tatters. Servalan is dead. Blake is >dead. The Liberator has been destroyed. Jenna is mia. >And in the long run it has all been for nothing. In >the end it has all been for nothing as we are all >going to evolve into links. Vanity, vanity, all is >vanity. I agree, it's a very postmodern ending. The theme of civilisation descending into barbarism seems to be a common one with Nation-- it crops up in the Dalek stories a lot-- made even more poignant here by the fact that the Federation is basically a fascist state and fascism is in itself a sort of barbarism. I find the costumes worn by Servalan's guards interesting as well. Bad, but still interesting in that Nicky Rocker seems to have picked up on the "fascists' descent into bestial savagery" bit. They are blond and wear silver space suits and remind me of Flash Gordon, Buck Rogers and the Robinson family from the '60's serial Lost in Space: square jawed space pioneers, bringing to the galaxy family values, Mom's apple pie, truth, justice and mass murder. During one part of the episode two of them are beaten to death by a group of Links. Welcome to the future... >Mind you I think he's wrong. Leaving my religious >prejudices out of the argument, and conceding for the >sake of argument that if the history of the universe >can be summed up in an hour of meaningless noise >containing a few seconds of Bach, this does not make >the Bach any the less beautiful. If our species has an >allotted time frame of a few million years before we >evolve into men in bad monkey suits then let us make >the life of our species worthwhile while it lasts. Perhaps it's also that no one species is any more valuable than the other. Which isn't necessarily a bad or tragic thing. >(Who obviously read way too much Albert Camus at university). I liked "The Outsider." Jenny _________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com.

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Avon and Terminal
by Sally Manton 09 May '01

09 May '01

Marian wrote: <Basically, Avon is a survivor and to bring himself into such a no-win situation is more stupid than I would have given him credit for.> Let's try and reason it out more (aka make more excuses for him) shall we? <g> Well, maybe Avon convinced himself that he had to keep the rest out of it, not only for their own sakes but for Blake's, if he *was* being genuinely used as bait in a trap. If the others followed (as they have already shown they would) and are found out (which they probably would be), it could make Blake's and his own position more precarious. Rather than a Charge to the Rescue, their presence *could* be that one fatal mistake he doesn't need. Look at it from Avon's (tired and distinctly stressed) point of view. He has to go, on the off-chance it's Blake. He has to try and ensure that the Liberator and the crew don't topple into the trap with him (though his concern didn't extend to ensuring they didn't run any danger on the way there of course :-)). *And* he has to ensure that said crew don't create any further danger for himself and/or Blake (if Blake is there and in trouble). *And* try and organise a pickup if he can do it on the precise one-hour schedule he's laid down for himself and within the time-limit he's set (to protect the Liberator etc etc). No wonder it's all rather more than he can handle with his usual <cough> impeccable sense ... _________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com.

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Re: [B7L] Terminal
by Tavia 09 May '01

09 May '01

Alison wrote: >I think adding this radical pessimism to her character makes >her more rounded (no pun intended) than the average SF villain >of the time. Her ruthlessness isn't just an inexplicable plot device, >but reflects a complete, bleak, world view. I'm not convinced Servalan's bleak world view by Rumours was necessarily present at the start of the series. She gives me the impression of being curiously innocent and almost optimistic in S1, especially. One of the nice things about the series to me is the way in which even the villains' characters are radically developed as time passes. Servalan, like most of the other main characters, gets her uniquely personal tragedy (Children of Auron) and I see this affecting her world view. I've commented on this before, but Servalan apparently ages far more than most of the others throughout the four seasons. In SLD (S1) she could easily be 19--21; by Animals (S4) she looks more like 40. The obvious changes in dress and make-up (white to black, innocent to vamp) seem symbolic of the change in attitude. >I think she is a bit of an intellectual, though a pragmatic one rather >than a lover of ideas for their own sake. But I'd be interested to >hear other people's opinions. I'd tend to agree, but just as a back-of-the-envelope feeling (says she valiantly trying to pretend that this is FC and I don't need to back up my vague feelings....) Tavia

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Re: [B7L] scripts and other ephemera
by Sally Manton 09 May '01

09 May '01

Leia wrote: <I've always liked that one word line.> Another one-word one-liner I always liked was Tarrant's 'duck' in Terminal, especially the way he pretends to think about it first ... really quite gorgeous. _________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com.

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Blakes7 May 2001