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blakes7-d Digest Volume 98 : Issue 3
Today's Topics:
[B7L] Re: Slash debate
[B7L]Rumours of Death
Re: Re[B7L] EMail Junkie
Re: [B7L] Harvest of Kairos
[B7L] The Way Back 1/4
[B7L] The Way Back 2/4
[B7L] The Way Back 3/4
[B7L] The Way Back 4/4
[B7L] New Highlander List
Re: [B7L] Harvest of Kairos
Re: [B7L] Re The Great Escape
re[B7L] re Tarrant v Jarvik
[B7L] Re: Harvest of Kairos
Re: [B7L] Re The Great Escape
Re: [B7L] Re The Great Escape
Re: [B7L] Re The Great Escape
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 3 Jan 1998 13:38:05 -0500 (EST)
From: NWOutsider <sclerc@bgnet.bgsu.edu>
To: "Blake's 7 list" <blakes7@lysator.liu.se>
Subject: [B7L] Re: Slash debate
Message-ID: <Pine.OSF.3.95.980103133716.2749D-100000@alpha.bgsu.edu>
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
On Thu, 1 Jan 1998 Harriet Monkhouse wrote:
>But there isn't a correct answer.
Nicely said, Harriet. 8-)
>Your belief about the nature of the ties
>between them is just as true as mine, because the truth about this
>particular story exists only in our separate minds. Even, though I
>boggle to think of it, in the Tarrant Nostra's.
LOL. Oh, well...I think we need to draw the line _somewhere_. 8-)
Sue
sclerc@bgnet.bgsu.edu http://www.bgsu.edu/~sclerc/Blakes7.html
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 3 Jan 1998 14:55:33 -0500 (EST)
From: adering@ziplink.net (Alex Dering)
To: blakes7@lysator.liu.se
Subject: [B7L]Rumours of Death
Message-Id: <v01000000b0d3eb78c407@[208.196.104.185]>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
As to Avon's going after Shrinker and the rest...
I think the episode demonstrates, in a very Avonian way, that Avon is,
albeit reluctantly, still a member of the human race. (Compare to Spock on
Star Trek, who would often also "lapse" into human-ness from time to time.)
In other episodes, he has also demonstrated that his membership card and
blazer badge to the human race might be a little moldy, but they're still
there. Two examples of this... in Horizon, when he goes after the crew,
even though they've all been killed or captured, and even though he knows
he could get away and live free until he died; and in Terminal, when he
goes after Blake. Avon knew that the return of Blake would mean that he
would be returning control of Liberator into Blake's hands, as well as Orac
(in Rescue? Avon tells Dorian that Orac was bequethed to a friend, who
bequethed it to him. Ergo, Avon's claim on Orac is admittedly second-hand,
else he'd just say, oh, we got it from Ensor, cheap.).
If Avon was a complete bastard, the crew wouldn't follow him. After the
run-in with Del Grant, Avon must have had the whole issue of Anna
re-awakened. Then Blake goes missing. Suddenly, Avon is in charge of the
most advanced ship in the Federation. None of Blake's holier-than-thou
nonsense to get in his way. He _can_ make them pay.
As to the dragging the crew into it and the selfishness of the action...
well, they could have refused to have any part in it, as Cally did. Vila,
Tarrant, Dayna, all lined up for a slice of Shrinker. Like the saying goes,
you pays your nickel and you takes your chances.
Selfish? Hmmm. I would submit that everything people do is for selfish
reasons. You go to work because that's the only way to earn money to buy
the things you want. You could steal the things you want, but that gets
complicated if you get caught, so you don't steal things. When you hang out
with your friends, you do so because they give back something. If your
friends start becoming difficult to deal with, on a regular basis, you tend
to stop associating with them. (I could go on and on in tremendous detail,
but you get the idea).
Selfish. What about Tarrant going after his brother's killer. Why not have
Orac override the android's programming and let Tarrant just shoot it in
the head? I'm sure instances can be cited for most characters being
selfish. Vila is too easy. But what about the others? Look at Blake's "mea
culpa" routine after Pressure Point.
The most interesting part of the Rumours of Death episode comes at the end,
when Servalan, Tarrant, and Avon have their scene in the cellar (no, that's
the OTHER list; rinse out your minds.)
Avon asks Servalan if she's finally murdered her way to this wall (that
she's chained to). Servalan replies that "...it's an old wall, Avon; it
waits. I hope you don't die before you reach it." (or something like that).
Perhaps it's foreshadowing. Or maybe Sevalan has been reading the psych
reports on Avon.
Alex
----------------------------------------
"There are worlds out there where the
sky is burning and the sea's asleep and
the rivers dream - people made of smoke
and cities made of song. Somewhere there's
danger; somewhere there's injustice.
Somewhere else the tea's getting cold.
Come on Ace, we've got work to do..."
-- The Doctor (Doctor Who: Survival) --
----------------------------------------
website: http://www.ziplink.net/~adering
----------------------------------------
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 3 Jan 1998 18:16:19 +0000
From: Julia Jones <Julia.lysator@jajones.demon.co.uk>
To: blakes7@lysator.liu.se
Subject: Re: Re[B7L] EMail Junkie
Message-ID: <gVNI0DAzBor0EwVz@jajones.demon.co.uk>
In message <34AEE7C6.5821@termlow.co.uk>, Jackie <jackiew@termlow.co.uk>
writes
>J. I. Horner wrote:
>
>> I have got another one :
>> You include your Internet number as one of your BT Friends and Family
>> numbers.
>
>You can`t get "Friends & Family" on cable.
You can on my cable provider.
>Although I believe that if you
>have cable TV and phone, local phone calls are free.
Only with some cable companies. And not even with them, for some local
calls. Recent history has been that the cable companies rapidly exclude
ISP numbers from "free local calls" when they realise how much traffic
it generates. Or they require you to use their own ISP, which may not be
the one you want to use.
--
Julia Jones
"Don't philosophise with me, you electronic moron!"
The Turing test - as interpreted by Kerr Avon.
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 03 Jan 98 19:32:31 GMT
From: pdbean@argonet.co.uk (Patrick Bean)
To: blakes7@lysator.liu.se
Subject: Re: [B7L] Harvest of Kairos
Message-Id: <E0xoaLn-0005n1-00@golden.argonet.co.uk>
Content-Type: text/plain
On Sat 3 Jan 98 (19:34:36 +0100), blakes7-d-request@lysator.liu.se wrote:
> Has anyone considered that Tarrant may not have known about all the
> wealth on board the Liberator?
No, Avon told him about them in 'power play'. After Tarrant killed 'Harman',
Avon took a bag of gens off of him.
--
__ __ __ __ __ ___ _____________________________________________
|__||__)/ __/ \|\ ||_ | / pdbean@argonet.co.uk (Patrick David Bean)
| || \\__/\__/| \||__ | /...Internet access for all Acorn RISC machines
___________________________/ Web http://www.argonet.co.uk/users/pdbean
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 3 Jan 1998 17:11:50 -0500 (EST)
From: NWOutsider <sclerc@bgnet.bgsu.edu>
To: "Blake's 7 list" <blakes7@lysator.liu.se>
Subject: [B7L] The Way Back 1/4
Message-ID: <Pine.OSF.3.95.980103170826.7993E-100000@alpha.bgsu.edu>
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
Since it's the anniversary, I watched "The Way Back" (not that I
need an excuse 8-) and revised some comments from my web page. The
original and quite different version, as it appeared in the July 1995
issue Rallying Call, the B7 APA I edit, can be found at
http://www.bgsu.edu/~sclerc/rc14.html.
These comments are mostly about Federation life as pictured in the
series. Part 2 is more of that and thoughts on some of the other
characters. Part 3 is about the discrepancy between Foster's story and the
one Blake and Travis tell in SLD as well as a conspiracy theory about
Glynd. Part 4 is thoughts on Blake.
--------------------------
The Way Back is not a popular episode because what's his name isn't in it,
but it nevertheless crucial for understanding the series. The Way Back
establishes the oppressiveness of Federation life for the average shmoe,
the widespread corruption within the system, the reasons for Blake's
resistance and drive to destroy it. Miss all this and you miss the essence
of the series.
First image: surveillance camera. First sound: muzak and announcements
about cardholders having to report to Central and population control.
Everything is sterile white, everyone looks lethargic. It isn't explicit
in the dialogue but if you pay attention (or know some of the off-screen
history of the series) you can figure out that people are color-coded by
clothes. The living quarters of Maja and Varon aren't much better although
they've tried for some color and comfort. The sterile, synthetic,
enclosed, institutional, panopticon of dome life is in deliberate contrast
to the natural world of the outsiders and rebels. In a sense, Blake is
being reborn from the dead womb of the dome into his natural, real self
as he leaves one environment, crosses the stream (can you say "baptism"?)
and enters the natural world to refind his own nature.
Life. Don't talk to me about life...: Looks pretty bleak for the average
Earth citizen. If you play along and don't ask awkward questions you might
survive. And what a great time you'll have with bribery, armed guards
everywhere, surveillance of public areas, the most mundane activities,
like school attendance, fed into the central register, automated
"justice," unscrupulous legal and medical practitioners, drugged food and
water. If you bend the rules or suggest there might be a problem, you're
either transported to a penal colony or killed, usually without the
inconvenience of a trial. It doesn't look like the kind of society where
they're too fussy about habeus corpus and the rules of evidence, either.
As Richie says, suspicion is all it takes. This is not a system that
provides for peaceful change, peaceable assembly, or any sort of personal
freedom. The only options are acquiesce and hope to squeak by, learn to
survive outside the domes, or risk death.
Everybody must get stoned: Is everyone drugged? Varon, Maja, and the
villains seem alert. Only the corridor shufflers in the opening scene look
like they're in a drug-induced haze. Maybe Varon is considered a properly
socialized young man who doesn't need the drugs to go along with the
system? Since Ravella says the water and food supplies are drugged, there
would have to be more than one food and drink system to provide separate
supplies to the undrugged elite. Blake would probably also be getting more
than most, in order to keep his conditioning from breaking down.
Trick or treatment: "Treatments" seem to be pretty common since Ravella
seems quite casual about mentioning them and many people suspected Blake's
confession and trial were rigged somehow. The rehabilitation centers
must've been known about to be effective as a deterrent, too, although I'm
sure they were presented as a means of helping the maladjusted and
mentally unstable become productive members of society (I'm thinking of
Kayn's attitude toward Gan's limiter).
"Corruption at the highest levels": and at the lowest. From the President
to the Arbiter General to the weasely Phil Collins/Vila look-alike records
clerk, the Federation is riddled with immorality and venality. It seems
inherent to the system.
Sue
sclerc@bgnet.bgsu.edu http://www.bgsu.edu/~sclerc/Blakes7.html
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 3 Jan 1998 17:14:15 -0500 (EST)
From: NWOutsider <sclerc@bgnet.bgsu.edu>
To: "Blake's 7 list" <blakes7@lysator.liu.se>
Subject: [B7L] The Way Back 2/4
Message-ID: <Pine.OSF.3.95.980103171158.7993F-100000@alpha.bgsu.edu>
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
More about life as she is lived in the Federation and some comments on
Jenna, Tarrant, and others.
---------------
And justice for all: Leaving the dome without permission is a category 4
crime. Ushton is on a planet for grade 4 offenders. Are grades and
categories the same thing in Federation law? Exile to Exbar seems pretty
extreme for leaving the dome and the outsiders seem a low priority for the
Feds (more on that in a minute), so maybe grades and categories are
different (or maybe it's an inconsistency in the series...naaaah, that
couldn't be it). At first I thought that was where the human arbiter came
into the judicial system--the cliche justice machine decides on the facts
(like these are objective and knowable) and the human decided the sentence
based on past record, the accused's repentance or lack of it, etc. But the
arbirter says "In sentencing you, the justice machine has taken into
account your past record..." So why have a human there at all, why not
leave everything to the machines, if she isn't allowed any latitude in
sentencing?
Outsiders (not the Wolfpac. Hi Catherine!): People do live outside the
dome and dome-dwellers are forbidden to have contact with them, presumably
because living outside the dome means being free of Federation control and
proving that such a thing is possible. But not all outsiders are rebels
since Richie says "many of them are working for our cause now." Sounds
like they just live out there as best they can but aren't in active
rebellion. The dismissive way Servalan refers to them in "Pressure Point"
also indicates they aren't much of a threat. How many people lived outside
the domes, do they have towns, how many domes were there, how many people
lived in them. The population stats on other planets indicates very sparse
patterns: the planet Albian has fewer people than the city of New York.
Foster's line "we were outlawed and hunted" combined with Blake's obvious
outdoor survival skills make me wonder if they lived outside while on the
run. Maybe Blake learned it all from Ushton.
State troopers: All of the security forces we ever see dress in the same
black uniform and green visor helmet: the courtroom guards, the Federation
soldiers we see in later episodes, all of them. There doesn't seem to be
any division between civil and military authority here although some of
the later episodes do imply some separation. On the outer worlds, it
doesn't seem as strange, but on Earth, the heart of the Federation, all of
the police are also soldiers. Imagine that in your home town: the army
giving out speeding tickets, investigating crimes, and driving around on
patrol. Martial law. It would feel very threatening to me, particularly
when they carry rifles as well as side arms.
Tarrant Senior: I love the way they play with us--"Oh no, they're being
followed!" "Whew, it's another rebel." "Oh my God, he's a spy!" He was
either very cocky or very stupid to go to the courtroom. I wish he'd shown
up again later in the series. Is he the one who betrayed Blake the first
time? Why was he following Blake? It could've been coincidence because the
place Ravella is waiting is a regular rebel meeting place. It could've
been a set-up: he knew Blake was going to attend, maybe he told Foster to
invite him, or someone saw Ravella getting close to Blake and he was
checking.
Ravella, Morag, magistrate, Maja, Jenna: One of the things I prefer about
the first two seasons is the number of strong women, some good, some bad,
that show up in the adventures. As the series progresses, the number and
type of women encountered by the crew declines.
Jenna rulz: My heroine. It could've been so good if they'd had any idea of
how to incorporate sex without weakening the female character. The sad
thing is they still don't--I dread to think what would happen on X Files.
As it was, we didn't get either a strong woman after the first few
episodes (except for occasional flashes) or a decent ongoing romance. What
I like about her here is that she's tough but human, she comes onto Blake
(and I can understand why) but is also making fun of him, and she's fun
with Vila. I love that scene between them when they're watching Blake talk
to Varon: Vila sidles up to her and she jumps and gives him a warning
look. They know all about each other and yet there aren't many stories
about Jenna and Vila meeting preseries. Are there any at all? And yet
there are all those tiresome Avon and Vila stories where, with absolutely
no support in the series, they were partners in crime.
Stupidities and silliness: How could Varon and Maja overhear Glynd through
the door; why doesn't Havant realize it isn't Glynd on the communicator
when he and Varon sound nothing alike; check out the two little human
figures in the London model shots (lower right hand corner of the screen);
"we can build a case on these" (?!? on what--you can't read those). Bad
bit of directing at the end re: the harness question: Blake should still
be looking out the window or something.
Special and not so special FX: I think the dome is one of the best FX of
the series. The clothes establish the dire standard adhered to throughout,
although here they at least serve the dual purpose of illustrating what a
drab place it is and the way people are classified.
Sue
sclerc@bgnet.bgsu.edu http://www.bgsu.edu/~sclerc/Blakes7.html
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 3 Jan 1998 17:15:10 -0500 (EST)
From: NWOutsider <sclerc@bgnet.bgsu.edu>
To: "Blake's 7 list" <blakes7@lysator.liu.se>
Subject: [B7L] The Way Back 3/4
Message-ID: <Pine.OSF.3.95.980103171420.7993G-100000@alpha.bgsu.edu>
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
Trying to work out something that just won't leave me alone.
----------------
Who do you trust?: Foster's story contradicts the one Blake and Travis
tell in "Seek-Locate Destroy" and this has always niggled at me. B&T tell
the same story and say there was a massacre (Travis "killed 20 of my
friends," says Blake, and he is quite clear that the same thing has
happened twice) and Blake was captured after wounding Travis. Foster says
Blake was captured and "so were most of our followers." Rather than being
slaughtered in the sub-basement, the other rebels were exiled and
executed, like Blake's brother and sister. Why does Foster's story
conflict with the other one? Simple confusion on the part of the
scriptwriter? Pshaw! As we all know, Blake's 7 takes place in a wholly
consistent universe so there must be a reason for this shocking gap in
story continuity. Here are 3 possibilities:
1) It's possible Foster wasn't there when Blake was taken. He says
"someone betrayed US" but the rest of the story sounds like he wasn't
there, so "us"=the rebels as a group. I think it's implied that Tarrant
was the one who betrayed them that time. It might have been Tarrant, then,
who told Foster what happened to the supposedly captured followers, or
Foster might have guessed based on experience (although why he would
assume exile rather than summary execution, I don't know). If Foster was
there, he's got some 'splaining to do about how he happened to escape.
2) Foster is lying to get Blake back on his side. This means Blake's
siblings might still be alive and Foster is using the emigration/execution
story twice to reinforce its likelihood. It might also be something Foster
has reason to think Blake would believe because either Blake, before his
trial, knew such things happened, or there were rumors throughout the Dome
that such things occurred. It's risky, if he's lying, because he's relying
on Blake remembering enough to believe him, but not remembering so much he
can tell which parts of Foster's speech are real and which are lies. I
don't know why he would lie about the massacre, though.
3) Conspiracy theory. Maybe Tarrant was running Foster all along or maybe
only since the time Blake was captured and Foster wasn't...maybe Foster
was captured after all and conditioned to be a (probably unwitting) tool
for the Federation to track rebels and for some reason, the story about
rebels being shipped off and killed is considered a better story than
rebels getting shot to bits on site. Maybe Foster was no longer useful and
this was the night Tarrant was going to kill him and Blake's presence was
just a bonus. Maybe Foster was himself a spy and getting Blake was going
to be his big coup...but that would contradict the whole idea of "Blake
would be a martyr if we killed him." Maybe Foster was a rebel and wanted
Blake dead so the Cause would have a martyr and he knew the troopers would
show up and kill everyone. Maybe Foster was a spy but knew Tarrant was out
to get him or his time was about to run out and was really going to turn
rebel IF he could use Blake the way Glynd tried to later. I don't know how
the conflict between "they was exile and executed" and "they was shot up
real good" fits in, but I really like the idea of Foster being Tarrant's
marionette.
Glynd or Glynda: Suppose Glynd was already looking around for a new
position before Voice from the Past, before The Way Back. There are always
power struggles in any government and Glynd was looking to shore up his
own power base and ensure his own future. He might have already been
conspiring with LeGrand based on the idea that he would have a higher
place in the new government or it might have occurred to him later. Along
comes Blake again and Glynd has a new weapon to use. He arranges for Blake
to be deported rather than killed, knowing that if there's one thing Blake
can be relied on to do, it's cause trouble. To help Blake get away from
Cygnus Alpha, Glynd makes sure a pilot currently in custody is thrown onto
the London, too. If Blake doesn't escape, nothing is lost. If he does, he
will find a way to wreak havoc and while the Federation forces are trying
to put down Blake, their attention will be diverted from Glynd's
activities. Furthermore, thanks to Blake's previous conditioning, Glynd
has a puppet he can call up when he's ready to make his move.
Sue
sclerc@bgnet.bgsu.edu http://www.bgsu.edu/~sclerc/Blakes7.html
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 3 Jan 1998 17:16:09 -0500 (EST)
From: NWOutsider <sclerc@bgnet.bgsu.edu>
To: "Blake's 7 list" <blakes7@lysator.liu.se>
Subject: [B7L] The Way Back 4/4
Message-ID: <Pine.OSF.3.95.980103171515.7993H-100000@alpha.bgsu.edu>
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
All about Blake
Watching Blake: Was someone set to watch him at all times? We know the Fed
are still keeping track of him because they send him viztapes of his
family to reinforce the conditioning. Is Blake such a major threat that
they keep him under constant surveillance even after 4 years? Maybe. Or it
might have picked up recently in response to the growing amount of
dissident activity Ravella and Foster mention; the government suspected
the rebels might approach Blake. I like the idea that they kept tabs on
him all along because he was so dangerous, but it would also make sense as
a way to trap other rebels who could be expected to try to get Blake to go
rogue again. It would be easy enough to keep watch on him at work but at
home might be more difficult. They could program him to think one of their
agents is his best friend and confidante, or they could just order him to
report any contact at regularly scheduled rehab sessions. They seemed to
have let Ravella get very cozy with Blake without doing anything about it,
though. She calls him by his first name, after all, something only family
and close friends do (Foster, Ushton, and Inga are the only other people
in the series who use Blake's first name). Maybe their spy system wasn't
all that good and they didn't know of Ravella's rebel connections. One of
the big unanswered questions is whether there was anyone special in
Blake's life during this 4 year period. He never said anything about it,
but then he never said anything about his life at all unless he had to.
"There's not much left of the man I knew": Assuming he was being honest
here, how correct is Foster? Zombie Blake is whiney and worried about
breaking the rules, and he's a bit judgmental about common thieves. But he
is short-tempered and commanding; breaks rules even when he's scared; asks
that most characteristic of Blake questions, "what about the others;" does
not believe everything he's told and doesn't automatically trust people;
he figures out what the Federation is up to quickly--all of these familiar
traits from later episodes. So aside from the whining, programmed "I
should report this," and (IMO equally programmed) slight sneer at the guy
who just stole his watch, the major difference between Blake before and
after is the memory loss. So what was Blake like before the Fed's raped
his mind?
A rebel is born: It's often overlooked in discussions about why Blake
wants to destroy the Federation that he was a rebel before the series
started. More than 4 years before, for reasons we never learn, Blake led
(or started, according to Jenna in VftP) a party of dissidents. In SLD,
Travis says Blake "organized some attacks against some of our political
rehabilitation centers. Released some of the prisoners who were having
indoctrination treatment." In TWB, he sees a group of dissidents
surrender peacefully and get slaughtered. According to SLD, it wasn't the
first time. He knows that there is absolutely no chance for peaceful
change; even the mildest of civil disobedience results in death. He knows
there are brainwashing centers and he knew it before he personally
experienced the procedure. We don't know what motivated Blake's original
rebellion before the series but in both TWB and SLD there are indications
that it was political and not entirely personal. In SLD Blake specifically
says he was brainwashed to say his political ideas were mistaken; there is
never any mention of a personal wrong suffered by him before his first
capture 4 years prior. The choice of the rehabilitation centers as a
target may indicate someone he knew was taken to one or it might mean that
the centers were good targets for some other reason. I think it's
important to remember that Blake's motives seem to stem from both personal
experience (a measure of revenge for those who have been killed and for
what's been taken from him) as well as more theoretical, abstract
political ideas.
Breaking the spell: We know from "Space Fall" that prisoners on the ship
are drugged. Are prisoners in the holding cells also drugged? It would
make sense either way--yes, to keep them quiet; no, why bother wasting
supplies on them. Assuming they are drugged, Blake is still breaking
conditioning--he is no longer getting reinforcement in the form of
viztapes and whatever else they were doing to him, and the shock of the
massacre and hearing Foster's story has, I think we can assume, breached
the memory erases so he starts remembering on his own. But how much does
he ever really recall? Since his story is different in SLD from Foster's,
it looks like he has remembered that on his own. What I'm wondering, I
guess, is how much of Blake's fight in the series is a result of his
experiences in "The Way Back" and after, how much is a result of
remembering his previous self, and how much is a result of trying to
remember and reclaim what he was before. Would Blake be Blake without the
cause? What's left of him if you take that away? Is this all he remembers
of who he was? The glue holding him together? Does he sometimes wonder
that himself?
Sue
sclerc@bgnet.bgsu.edu http://www.bgsu.edu/~sclerc/Blakes7.html
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 3 Jan 1998 19:17:06 EST
From: Ashton7 <Ashton7@aol.com>
To: blakes7@lysator.liu.se, space-city@world.std.com, FANZINE@PSUVM.PSU.EDU
Subject: [B7L] New Highlander List
Message-ID: <f406c092.34aed504@aol.com>
Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit
Hi, all. I know there are Methos and Highlander fans lurking about, so I hope
you don't mind this posting here!
Ashton Press presents "Then the Night Comes" by Ann Wortham & Leah Rosenthal.
A new Highlander: The Series fan novel, offering an alternative resolution to
the fifth season cliffhanger Archangel and the aired sixth season episodes.
Richie Ryan is dead at the hands of his best friend and mentor, Duncan
MacLeod. Horrified at what he has done and believing he is pursued by an
ancient demon known as Ahriman, MacLeod flees Paris to seek help from old
friends in Cornwall. Joe Dawson, Cassandra, and Methos soon follow and the
pursuit of who - or what - Ahriman truly is soon involves many of MacLeod's
friends in a desperate race from Cornwall to Scotland to Wales. Along the way,
Methos must confront more specters from his past, MacLeod learns a few
lessons, Joe has a new friendship which is deepening, and Cassandra must learn
to deal with a Methos who is, in many ways, different from the man she once
knew. Flashbacks take our heroes from ancient Egypt to ancient Babylonia and
to Barcelona, Spain along the way.
"Then the Night Comes" is rated PG with no overt sex, either straight or
slash.
Lavishly illustrated throughout by Leah Rosenthal and Laura Virgil with a full
color cover. Approximately 145,000 words. Ordering information can be found,
along with a few excerpts of art and text at:
http://members.aol.com/ashton7/night.htm
If you do not have web access, you may email Linda Knights at:
lknight@nas.com.
For any questions regarding furture submissions or anything else pertaining to
the zine(s) other than ordering information, please contact Ann Wortham at:
ashton7@aol.com.
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 4 Jan 1998 13:47:08 +1100
From: Kathryn Andersen <kat@welkin.apana.org.au>
To: "Blake's 7 list" <blakes7@lysator.liu.se>
Subject: Re: [B7L] Harvest of Kairos
Message-ID: <19980104134708.19765@welkin.apana.org.au>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
On Sat, Jan 03, 1998 at 07:32:31PM +0000, Patrick Bean wrote:
> On Sat 3 Jan 98 (19:34:36 +0100), blakes7-d-request@lysator.liu.se wrote:
> > Has anyone considered that Tarrant may not have known about all the
> > wealth on board the Liberator?
>
> No, Avon told him about them in 'power play'. After Tarrant killed 'Harman',
> Avon took a bag of gens off of him.
A whole bag of Gens? Maybe they were Liliputian Gens.
And to think, Avon and Tarrant were secretly Simes all this time!
Hmmm, puts another slant on that "kiss of death" don't it?
<big huge grin>
Kathryn Andersen
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
"Yes, my dear, you see, it's a, it's a paradox.
He won because he is not the better man."
-- Sarkoff to Tyce, of Tarvin (Blake's 7: Bounty [A11])
--
_--_|\ | Kathryn Andersen <kat@welkin.apana.org.au>
/ \ | http://connexus.apana.org.au/~kat
\_.--.*/ | #include "std/disclaimer.h"
v |
------------| Melbourne -> Victoria -> Australia -> Southern Hemisphere
Maranatha! | -> Earth -> Sol -> Milky Way Galaxy -> Universe
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 04 Jan 1998 12:42:18 GMT
From: kawm@dove.mtx.net.au (Ken Minne)
To: blakes7@lysator.liu.se
Subject: Re: [B7L] Re The Great Escape
Message-ID: <34ae1bd6.19105774@mail.mtx.net.au>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
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Good day all,
On Fri, 02 Jan 1998 18:48:58 +0100 GMT, Steve wrote:
>Ovina said: "We only see Avon surrounded by troops -- who
>for all the good reasons mentioned have probably been ordered
>to capture as many rebels alive as possible -- and then we hear
>2 or 3 shots fired. They may have been fired by someone else
>entering the scene."
>
<snip>
>cheers
>Steve Rogerson
>
One question I have never ( personally ) seen addressed is whose
troopers were they fighting our heroes in the final battle?
Were they Deva's men, who might just have been trained to / or
expecting another one of Blake's little testings to have gotten out of
hand. In which case they might have been using stunners. In this
scenairo, Dayna, however, is dead as she was shot by Arlen, who
probably would not have been issued with a stunner, and probably would
not have been using it if she had.
Klyn summoned reinforcements to the control room long before Deva
arrived to announce that the base was under attack.
One the other hand, if the troopers were Federation regulars, brought
in by the visting commisioner ( presumably Sleer, and Arlen's boss ),
then presumalbly everyone is dead, unless the commisioner wanted some
prisoners.
On the whole, would anyone else agree that the writers, knowing that
the series was to end, switched off our heroes brains for the episode?
Starting with, how long is the flight time to Gauda Prime? It seems to
be one relatively short conversation, given the flashbacks to Blake
were presumeably anywhere up to a week in the past.
Flying straight into the blockade forces shows criminal folly, and
even Orac's ego would not get in the way of its desire for self
preservation.
Not lighting up the Stardrive the instant Tarrant got back into the
control seat also helped a lot.
Soolin and Dayna are suddenly screaming wimps when it comes to
abandoning ship, and despite her posturing to Avon in the hut, Soolin
hardly improves, given she is supposed to be a local.
Dayna going for the dropped gun was stupid, but Soolin not going in
the opposite direction for another gun was pathetic given she is
supposed to be so fast.
Arlen though not a crew member, gets a mention for being taken out by
Vila, and Klyn should have got a posthumous medal for duty in the face
of overwhelming firepower.
Blake is clearly a loon, so at least has some excuse, which leaves
Avon to do the one really smart thing of the whole episode, putting a
bullet in Blake.
After that lot, sometimes I wonder if we would really want them to
survive.
Comments Anyone?
Walter Minne
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 04 Jan 1998 14:56:03 -0800
From: Jackie <jackiew@termlow.co.uk>
To: blakes7@lysator.liu.se
Subject: re[B7L] re Tarrant v Jarvik
Message-ID: <34B01383.18FC@termlow.co.uk>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
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STEVE.ROGERSON@MCR1.poptel.org.uk wrote:
>
> Julie Horner said: "It seemed to me that quite an interesting
> development might have come out of this if Jarvik - instead of
> being killed off - had instead joined the Liberator crew. I
> thought he was a splendid character and would have made a
> much better Blake replacement than Tarrant."
>
> I agree totally. I think the Dayna-Jarvik and Avon-Jarvik
> relationships would have been a lot more interesting. And I
> can't see Jarvik becoming the obnoxious bully to Vila that
> Tarrant did. And could you imagine Jarvik going all soppy over
> Zeeona and jeopardising the whole mission?
I agree, Jarvik would not have gone "soppy" over Zeeona. It must be hard
to be soppy if you just throw women on the bed to get what you want.
Absolutely no finesse required there at all. It is a wonder he lived as
long as he had (and with his wedding tackle intact) if that was how he
treated women.
To be honest, if it WAS Jarvik that negotiated with her planet, would
Zeeona have come to Terminal in the first place? In which case Avon
would have still been on Xenon when the base exploded. Voila! no Blake
episode, therefore Blake would have lived and the crew still died.
Oh Tarrant, you have a lot to answer for.
Bye for now
Jackie
(quickly hiding big paddle used for stirring things up)
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 4 Jan 1998 11:32:02 -0500
From: Harriet Monkhouse <H_F_Monkhouse@compuserve.com>
To: "Blake's 7 (Lysator)" <BLAKES7@lysator.liu.se>
Subject: [B7L] Re: Harvest of Kairos
Message-ID: <199801041132_MC2-2DFF-AD67@compuserve.com>
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Julie Horner asked (in trying to find a motive for Tarrant's piracy):
>Has anyone considered that Tarrant may not have
>known about all the wealth on board the Liberator?
Avon did mention it to him in Powerplay while explaining his thesis that
one of the trooper thugs was murdering all the others in order to get his
hands on the loot. Or are you going to argue that Avon later claimed he
was making the whole thing up in order to frame the thug, and made sure
Tarrant never went down the relevant corridor?
She also suggested:
>You include your Internet number as one of your BT >Friends and Family
numbers.
Oh, I embraced that number as one of my nearest and dearest long ago. If
we were talking NY resolutions, I read a sensible one about writing "8"
after all the "199-s" in your next cheque book now, before you write down
"7" in the mad rush to get away from the counter.
Harriet
PS Kathryn - no, no, not the spinlist! Life is currently too short for
any more than two lists (well, three including the cricket statisticians).
I'll hope to meet you at Deliverance?
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 04 Jan 1998 13:07:07 -0500
From: Cecilia <elric01@raex.com>
To: blakes7@lysator.liu.se
Subject: Re: [B7L] Re The Great Escape
Message-Id: <3.0.5.32.19980104130707.007b8a60@raex.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
At 12:42 PM 1/4/98 GMT, Ken Minne wrote:
<Very interesting observations snipped in the interest of bandwidth>>
>On the whole, would anyone else agree that the writers, knowing that
>the series was to end, switched off our heroes brains for the episode?
Actually, I think the problem is that this episode is "plot driven" as
opposed to "character driven". The writers knew where they wanted the
characters to be at the end, and so willy-nilly there they went. It didn't
matter that a lot of the episode showed characters "out-of-character" - the
important thing was to get them to the supposedly climatic finale.
Lady C., the Anceunt One
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 04 Jan 1998 10:04:28 -0800
From: Pat Patera <pussnboots@geocities.com>
To: blakes7@lysator.liu.se
Subject: Re: [B7L] Re The Great Escape
Message-ID: <34AFCF2C.14A8@geocities.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Ken Minne wrote:
> On the whole, would anyone else agree that the writers, knowing that
> the series was to end, switched off our heroes brains for the episode?
I attribute their fractured behavior to shell shock, brought about by
the destruction of Xenon base. They'd probably been sniping at one
another ever since and suffered raw nerves.
> Flying straight into the blockade forces shows criminal folly, and
> even Orac's ego would not get in the way of its desire for self
> preservation.
Good point. How could Orac not know what Slave knew. We can only assume
Orac was not paying attention to one of its many circuits - navigation
was no doubt of little interest to it.
> Not lighting up the Stardrive the instant Tarrant got back into the
> control seat also helped a lot.
By then it was damaged?
> Soolin and Dayna are suddenly screaming wimps when it comes to
> abandoning ship,
Vertigo?
> and despite her posturing to Avon in the hut, Soolin hardly improves,
She hasn't much to fight with. Plus, given that you are a local of
Earth, would you "have a plan" if suddenly dropped off in Zanzibar or
Timbuktu?
> Dayna going for the dropped gun was stupid,
Well, Dayna never was very bright.
> but Soolin not going in the opposite direction for another gun was pathetic
Yeah, what *was* Soolin doing all this time?
> Arlen though not a crew member, gets a mention for being taken out by Vila,
Yeah, that always bugged me, for she's never met him before and doesn't
know what a wimp he is.
> Klyn should have got a posthumous medal for duty in the face of overwhelming firepower.
Duck! You Sucker!
> Blake is clearly a loon,
Oh my! Has a story been written where Blake survives GP, comes back
aboard Liberator and proceeds to act like a total loon? Causing someone
to shoot him later? :)
Pat P
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 5 Jan 1998 06:43:40 +1100
From: Kathryn Andersen <kat@welkin.apana.org.au>
To: "Blake's 7 list" <blakes7@lysator.liu.se>
Subject: Re: [B7L] Re The Great Escape
Message-ID: <19980105064340.25258@welkin.apana.org.au>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
On Sun, Jan 04, 1998 at 01:07:07PM -0500, Cecilia wrote:
> At 12:42 PM 1/4/98 GMT, Ken Minne wrote:
>
> <Very interesting observations snipped in the interest of bandwidth>>
> >On the whole, would anyone else agree that the writers, knowing that
> >the series was to end, switched off our heroes brains for the episode?
>
> Actually, I think the problem is that this episode is "plot driven" as
> opposed to "character driven". The writers knew where they wanted the
> characters to be at the end, and so willy-nilly there they went. It didn't
> matter that a lot of the episode showed characters "out-of-character" - the
> important thing was to get them to the supposedly climatic finale.
Well, as someone so aptly said, Chris Boucher "considers a plot something
to hang dialogue off"; despite the fact that he was the script editor, and
therefore responsible for continuity, he was quite happy to sacrifice
continuity in his own scripts for the sake of dramatic moments. At least
Ana Dorfstad managed to exploit the plot-holes in "Blake" to write her own
excellent "Pattern of Infinity" (and BTW, folks, *please* don't read Sarah
Thompson's review of it on Judith's page, unless you adore spoilers.)
And yes, Harriet, I'm going to be at Deliverance. It's going to be fun!
Kathryn Andersen
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Inigo: I do not mean to pry, but you don't by any chance happen to have six
fingers on your right hand?
Masked Man: Do you always begin conversations this way?
(The Princess Bride)
--
_--_|\ | Kathryn Andersen <kat@welkin.apana.org.au>
/ \ | http://connexus.apana.org.au/~kat
\_.--.*/ | #include "std/disclaimer.h"
v |
------------| Melbourne -> Victoria -> Australia -> Southern Hemisphere
Maranatha! | -> Earth -> Sol -> Milky Way Galaxy -> Universe
--------------------------------
End of blakes7-d Digest V98 Issue #3
************************************