jacquispeel@netscape.net wrote:
Does Travis actually see himself as disabled?
Jacqui
I think Travis sees himself as a soldier. In his bionic rebuild (SLD), he refers to his feeling of kinship with mutoids. He'd always give a mutoid priority over a man, he says. This almost suggests he sees mutoids as an improvement over being human. And why shouldn't he? Their superior abilities make them superior soldiers.
He's turned his missing hand into a weapon. Is he trying to *become* the weapon he's trained to be? (They might have done something with his eye then, made it useful for something, a laser tracking device maybe. I can see a handy red-eyed "Terminator" style modification.)
Travis probably doesn't think of himself as . . . less than before Blake reconfigured him. Which rather undermines his whole vendetta against Blake. Why should Travis take it personally that Blake maimed him? What did it do to him, to experience that assualt?
To return to your question, I can just imagine the uses to which the Federation puts its disabled population. If there was the slightest question in Travis's mind that he was disabled, he would have parked *himself* on the rubbish heap. Not only didn't he do that, he made himself into a better soldier than before. Guess someone gave him the old "make lemons into lemonade" speech. Before he shot him.
How does his hand weapon work, anyway?
Jackie