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."
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--- Jenny wrote: >
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.
Surely he would have said "Well now, it's not my field but then again maybe you're wrong" :-)
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 :-)?
Maybe. But ask any conservationist which large predators are not in danger of extinction by homo sapiens. I'm pretty sure it would be a fairly short list.
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.
But the initial parameters of the experiment would have to be set by the experimenters. How would you allow for things like, for example, the mass extinctions at the end of the Permian era or the giant meteorite that wiped out the dinosaurs ? It should also be remembered that human beings on different planets would be subject to different selective pressures. So human beings on Terminal might evolve into Links, on Sardos they might evolve into Moloch, elsewhere they might evolve into somewhere else.
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...
I'd never seen it in that way before. Personally I thought the costumes were appalling so I'm quite pleased that I can now watch it and think "Aha, profound symbolism" rather than "Fashion victims". Incidentally civilisation ending on a diminuendo as a doomed humanity descends into barbarism can be found in Stapledon's First and Last men. I suppose that it's possible that Nation adapted the idea.
By the way the note of tragedy that Jacqueline Pearce injects into her voice when she tells them that the links are our future always makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. I have to say I really like the ending of Terminal as drama - as philosophy and biology it's awful - but as drama it's brilliant (apart from Servie not noticing the state the Liberator was in). In some ways I feel that it would have made a much better conclusion to the show's ending than "Blake". Only in some ways though.
(Who obviously read way too much Albert Camus at
university).
I liked "The Outsider."
If you haven't read the Plague you might like that too.
Stephen.
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Avon expects to be picked up/'rescued' - otherwise why take Orac's key with him? (and the others have told him on more than one occasion - in 'Terminal' and RoD offhand, that they care for him - at least as a team member)
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How long would it take a person to be 'converted' into a mutoid - and what does Travis mean when he refers to their bionic upgrade (or whatever, I am going from memory)? (and would it depend upon how much of their original skills etc it was wished to retain?)
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--- Jacqui wrote:
Avon expects to be picked up/'rescued' - otherwise why take Orac's key with him? (and the others have told him on more than one occasion - in 'Terminal' and RoD offhand, that they care for him - at least as a team member)
Plan A involves getting down to the planet, rescuing Blake, nabbing the treasure and getting back to the ship.
Plan B involves walking into a trap, dying horribly and Liberator getting the hell out. Avon has pre-programmed the computers to do this and left an account of his actions in a secret file.
If the crew had Orac they could hack into the computers extract the information and override the pre-programming. So Avon takes the key.
My guess is that Avon thought he could get Blake off or avoid the trap and return to the ship. He's not the sacrificial type.
Stephen.
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