Dana wrote: <If the Federation had only one limiter, or only a few, why not implant it in Blake, whose violent impulses were likely to cause a lot more damage than Gan's?>

Three possibles ...

1. Blake's real crime - and in particular, his threat in the eyes of the Federation - wasn't as a violent criminal, it was as a political dissenter with a dangerous level of popular appeal. The limiter as it stands would have no real effect on that threat (perhaps - had it been a success at the rather crude level it's currently operating on - the Powers-That-Be could have authorised a development program to try and make it work against other undesirable impulses).

2. The limiter appears to work on a mixture of emotion ('The limiter is supposed to cut in when stress drives him to the point where he might kill.' - Blake, Breakdown) and intent (Gan can still fight perfectly well). The former is the problem - Blake doesn't kill in an emotional state, from the beginning he is able to *separate* himself from his emotions where violence is concerned (his quite scarey detachment in 'Blake' is just this ability pushed further along). It's quite possible that the effect of the limiter would therefore be muffled. Though it's an interesting point - as a leader in a battle, would someone with a limiter be able to order Vila to destroy another ship with people on? Or fire the neutron blasters himself?

2. Blake is a high-profile prisoner in both instances, proven by the lengths the PWB will go to to try and ensure he is not seen as a victim. The first time, the purpose is to make it look like a voluntary 'return to the fold', something that would be a little hard to make plausible if everyone can see a metal control sticking out of his head :-) The second time (TWB) they're out to trash his reputation then consign him - still alive, to avoid the martyrdom angle - to a planetary he can't possible ever come back from.

Blake always needed special treatment, because of his status (I doubt many people were important enough for the full mindwipe treatment he received). Gan is essentially nobody. Judith wrote:

<There's also the theory that Gan's limiter was experimental, though I'm not sure if I buy that as Kane certainly recognised it.>

As I've said, I do consider the limiter to have been an experimental thing, and Gan one of the nameless lab rats selected simply because his criminal record showed he killed in a fit of fury and was therefore the proper material to work with. This being Kane's field, and Kane being an admirer of the way the Federation did things, he could well have kept up with what developments the Federation were carrying out in that area (it certainly *wasn't* secret work, though Vila's seeming ignorance indicates it also wasn't highly publicised).

<And, by the way, why did the Federation have to go to the trouble of actually conditioning kids to believe that they were molested by Blake?>

'To give artistic verisimilitude to an otherwise bald and unconvincing narrative' ... (possibly misquoted :-) but you get the idea. They're trying to destroy someone already showing worrying signs of indestructibility; they're probably aware that there are going to be doubters, so they're making absolutely sure that the reality of evidence (the children themselves) can't be questioned. It's just one more administrative step, after all ...

And it was all for nothing, since no one in the galaxy appeared to have *bought* the story once he became the Public Face of the Rebellion ...

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