Steven,

They're also disposable. One of the interesting things about Travis is that he has some fugitive stirrings of conscience on occasion.

I agree with you concerning his stirrings of conscience. Also, at least until _Trial_, he is a dedicated Federation officer, prepared to sacrifice his life if it meant the destruction of the Federation's enemies, inlcuding Blake. In 'Seek-Locate-Destroy' he orders the troopers to open fire, and not to wory about hitting him; in 'Pressure Point', he was prepared to let Servalan be killed as long as he could kill Blake. Servalan, in contrast, only cared about saving her own skin.

...

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.)

I think that Travis is a kind of humanoid dalek. He has allowed himself to be dehumanised and turned into a killing machine. It's a fairly old (and incredibly unfair) dramatic convention to show evil people as somehow physically flawed, in order to counterpoint their mental and moral flaws.

Changing attitudes towards physically disabled people, with efforts being made to bring them into ordinary society as much as possible, ensuring that they have better access to education and employment, has certainly made this dramatic convention unfair. I now look at such portrayals of evil people with physical flaws in a new light, one of annoyance and amusement, wondering if they could complain about being discriminated against on the grounds of disability.<bg>

Murray