From: blakes7-d-request@lysator.liu.se Subject: blakes7-d Digest V98 #284 X-Loop: blakes7-d@lysator.liu.se X-Mailing-List: archive/volume98/284 Precedence: list MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/digest; boundary="----------------------------" To: blakes7-d@lysator.liu.se Reply-To: blakes7@lysator.liu.se ------------------------------ Content-Type: text/plain blakes7-d Digest Volume 98 : Issue 284 Today's Topics: Re: [B7L] Federation Justice [B7L] Re: Neil Faulkner Re: [B7L] Re: Neil Faulkner [B7L] Re: Clive James [B7L] Re: Federation justice [B7L] Re: Post? What post? [B7L] Neil Faulkner [B7L] Re: Vila's Past, etc. Re: [B7L] Re: Vila's Past, etc. [B7L]: Guards! Guards! RE: [B7L] Federation Justice Re: [B7L] Defending Blake's honor [B7L] Hello [B7L] Hello [B7L] Re: Neil Faulkner on religion Re: [B7L] Hello Re: [B7L] Babylon 5 [B7L] Vila's Past Re: [B7L] Vila's Past [B7L] Vila's Past [B7L] Vila's Past ------------------------------ Date: 12 Nov 1998 22:07:56 +0100 From: Calle Dybedahl To: blakes7@lysator.liu.se Subject: Re: [B7L] Federation Justice Message-ID: Tigerm1019@aol.com writes: > This does raise the question of what offences would get someone made > into a mutoid or sold into slavery. Anyone have any comments? Annoying a superior? -- Calle Dybedahl, Vasav. 82, S-177 52 Jaerfaella,SWEDEN | calle@lysator.liu.se Please pay no attention to the panda in the fridge. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Nov 1998 20:50:11 -0000 From: "Susan Bennett" To: "Lysator" Subject: [B7L] Re: Neil Faulkner Message-Id: <199811122145.VAA17201@mail.iol.ie> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Suzanne wrote: >>>Neil Faulkner, your observations on religion in the B7 universe are fascinating. I very much enjoyed reading your post. Thank you so much for writing it. :)<<< Post? What post? I saw one a while ago but it had no text in it at all, and I just assumed that it was Neil getting used to his email. I'm wondering just how much my provider has been eating :-( Susan Bennett ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Nov 1998 16:14:43 -0600 From: Lisa Williams To: Subject: Re: [B7L] Re: Neil Faulkner Message-Id: <199811122211.QAA29876@mail.dallas.net> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Susan Bennett wrote: >Post? What post? I saw one a while ago but it had no text in it at >all, and I just assumed that it was Neil getting used to his email. I've seen none from him except that one a couple of weeks ago which was thoroughly garbled (looked like it had been posted in some kind of word processor format; sounds like your mail program just zapped the text completely.) I did reply to him privately, explaining that messages to an elist need to be sent in plain ASCII text to be legible to all subscribers and suggesting he resend, but haven't seen anything from him since. - Lisa _____________________________________________________________ Lisa Williams: lcw@dallas.net or lwilliams@rsc.raytheon.com Lisa's Video Frame Capture Library: http://lcw.simplenet.com/ New Riders of the Golden Age: http://www.warhorse.com/ ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Nov 1998 15:18:08 PST From: "Joanne MacQueen" To: blakes7@lysator.liu.se Subject: [B7L] Re: Clive James Message-ID: <19981112231809.10148.qmail@hotmail.com> Content-Type: text/plain >Given that this program looks at particular genres of TV each week it >might mean that one of them will be a SF theme and he will be taking >the **** out of B7! Watch that speace if you can! >steveT >unlurking for a bit Actually, he has already. I don't know if anyone has mentioned this before me (if they have, I'll blame it on it being Friday the 13th here ) but I'd like to direct your attention to his collections of television criticism for The Observer newspaper. So far as he was concerned, Servalan was the best thing in the episode he was reviewing (The Harvest of Kairos - I thought there was something familiar about some of the dialogue when I read the transcript), but then he'd been complimentary about Jacqueline Pearce in a televised production of Measure for Measure. Mind you, he did compare Servalan to Barbara Woodhouse, the animal trainer. If your mind isn't boggling at that, read on. Unfortunately, he either didn't know or didn't care (I think the latter more likely) that Blake wasn't around at the time, and referred to the crew as "dreary". Worse was to come in the descriptions of weaponry as being "photonscrambulators" and "bacterial spasm guns" (you can tell how "impressed" I was at the time - this is entirely from memory). To me, this sounds more like Nigel Molesworth up against the Pukon and his Treens (or Sigismund the mad maths master and his mustered rhomboids ) than Blake's 7. But then again, I have heard that dear old Clive is a fan of the original Star Trek series, so you can decide for yourselves as to whether or not that affected his judgement . Regards Joanne I am well qualified to relate a tale of science fiction since I have always been of a fictitious nature. --from "Bottom of the barrel", article by David Langford, SFX no 43 (which, co-incidentally, faces an advertisement for two Blake's 7 videos!) ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Nov 1998 16:40:46 PST From: "Joanne MacQueen" To: blakes7@lysator.liu.se Subject: [B7L] Re: Federation justice Message-ID: <19981113004047.22132.qmail@hotmail.com> Content-Type: text/plain Murray said: >I don't believe that the Federation 'shipped all convicts to prison >planets to get them off Earth' as the convicts on board the London >appear to be there for serious offences Given that you mentioned Australian history, not that I'm an expert : It's quite possible that some of those on the London had committed crimes less serious than the others, so Nova need not have done anything drastic. After all, looking at convicts sent to Australia, thefts of items of quite a small value were worth a death sentence, which was usually substituted by transportation to the new colony of New South Wales. Britain, at the time, was involved in a race to colonise new lands, especially after the loss of its American colonies (and being unable to send any further shiploads of convicts to those colonies), so new workers for those colonies would've been very welcome, and there would've been those who did not care how those workers were recruited. The Federation, the laws of which appear to be as draconian as those of Britain in the 18th century, was looking to expand its boundaries in a roughly similar fashion. I doubt very much that the Federation cared how it recruited new workers for new colony planets as, like most of those sent to New South Wales, those people wouldn't have been able to come back whether they wanted to or not (no money or influence, no return fare), after they had finished their sentences (which is what you mean by freed after a period, I presume). May I add my voice to Tiger M's question as to what crimes might have someone converted into a mutoid or sold into slavery? Undoubtedly, slavery would have been more profitable to businessmen in Britain and the Americas than shipping British convicts across the Atlantic (sometimes done by the same people, or so I gather), as the former automatically gained life sentences (well, that's one way of putting it, sorry ), and couldn't withdraw their labour from those to whom that labour had been sold at the end of, for instance, seven years. If a similar situation was the case for the Federation? We know that high-ranking officials weren't averse to making large amounts of money (look at Servalan!), so it might well have been worth someone's while to organise slave trading *and* transportation to prison planets, as with the Terra Nostra, where the top man was a Federation bigwig - from my memory of the transcript, as I've yet to see that one. I'm damned if I can think of an equivalent in Anglo-Australian history for mutoids! Unlike the Federation, however, most British colonies were given autonomy sooner or later (the obvious exception being the American colonies, which decided they couldn't wait that long. Given the length of time some African colonies had to wait, who could blame them?). Appropriately enough for this mailing list, the act of making the Australian colonies into a nation is known as Federation. Should we start worrying now ? Regards Joanne If you don't let us inspect your weapons of mass destruction, we'll show you OUR weapons of mass destruction. --Caption to a Wilcox cartoon, UN official to Saddam Hussein, SMH 13/11/98 ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 13 Nov 1998 00:29:47 -0000 From: "Neil Faulkner" To: "lysator" Subject: [B7L] Re: Post? What post? Message-ID: <002501be0ea0$ec5e1ea0$1b16ac3e@default> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-7" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I would appreciate it if people could let me know if I have managed to de-fubar my mailing problems (in other words, can you read this?). Lisa sent me an extract from my last post: actually I think it was more interesting in the form she received it than what I actually wrote. Neil the IT-illiterate ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Nov 1998 20:47:20 EST From: SuzanThoms@aol.com To: blakes7@lysator.liu.se Subject: [B7L] Neil Faulkner Message-ID: Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit << Lisa wrote: << I've seen none from him except that one a couple of weeks ago which was thoroughly garbled (looked like it had been posted in some kind of word processor format; sounds like your mail program just zapped the text completely.) >> The message I read was sent a couple of weeks ago but it was not garbled. It was a very long, extremely fascinating post. Actually, I had wondered why there had been no responses to it. I'm very behind in my mail which is why I only saw it just last night. I don't have it electronically anymore or I would send it out (I printed it out then deleted it). What a shame if it was missed by most of you; it is really worth reading. Suzanne Neil...are you there? Please resend your post. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 13 Nov 98 02:07:00 GMT From: s.thompson8@genie.com To: blakes7@lysator.liu.se Subject: [B7L] Re: Vila's Past, etc. Message-Id: <199811130220.CAA15644@rock103.genie.net> Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Allison Polise asked: >What do we know about Vila's past? He's a very good thief. In fact, I >can't think of a lock that stopped him(I'm probably wrong). He said that >he had been to the psychotherapists four times. He also seemed to not have >memory problems. What did he do to be sent to a prison planet? Avon and >Blake seem to get all the attention, but the whole crew of the Liberator >was unique one way or another. I had the impression that he was shipped to Cygnus Alpha not so much for the seriousness of his offenses, but for his incorrigibility-- his head just won't stay shrunk. Also, it occurs to me that in a setting where the majority of the population are drug-dulled zombies, even a petty criminal would be a much more serious menace, because most people would simply not be able to protect themselves. So true that each of the crew-- and the villains too-- had special points; the ensemble nature of the cast is definitely one of the biggest sources of appeal of the show. That's why I'm always puzzled by fans who seem to think that liking one character must mean disliking others. Ann Basart said: >Well, yes. Which brings us back to the question, "is Avon mad (or a bit >mad) in season 4?" I don't think we came to a satisfying answer in the >previous discussion, but on rewatching the whole of B7, I think he was--or >gave a convincing imitation. (Actor's decision? Directors'? Built into the >script? Only in my mind?) This _should_ be easier to answer than the same >question asked of Hamlet. When I first got into B7 fandom a few years ago, I formed the impression-- largely from this very list!-- that the two burning questions guaranteed to start a heated debate among B7 fen are: Was Blake a terrorist or a freedom fighter? and Was fourth-season Avon insane? There is no clear answer to either, IMO, but debating them can be fun as long as everyone keeps her temper. Tiger M. mentioned Vila being unable to unlock the hangar door in "Power." Wasn't the problem not so much the lock, as the bomb that it was boobytrapped with? Though you'd think that bobbytraps would be among the things Vila knew how to deal with. Maybe it was a matter of time. That bomb was on a timer or something, wasn't it? Must rewatch. Alison Page said: >I can't remember who made the following contribution, but I really liked >it: > >The suggestion was that due to the dynamics of the series Paul Darrow >was able to take increasing control over the way Avon behaved. He >didn't actually intend to make Avon appear mad, but rather to more fully >realise his own ideas about what Avon was actually like. As we know his >ideas about what Avon was 'really' like are quite different from most >fans'. Thus he thought he was getting to the true Avon, and we viewers >interpret it as Avon going a bit bonkers. > >I think this is a fantastic explanation, and I really hope it is true. It >means that Avon's madness is a completely emergent property, not made by a >particular person, or even intended, but arising out of real life events. >IMHO the best bits of pop culture come about in this kind of fortuitous >way. I'm not sure either who first said this; possibly several people at once. I agree. One thing I especially like about B7 is the way that events external to the series produce plot lines that also have convincing internal explanations. Such as: PD wants Avon to be more macho = Avon feels the need to project a tougher image, as a matter of survival, and deliberately turns himself into a flamboyant space pirate; and/or Avon becomes a bit peculiar due to stress! GT feels increasingly frustrated with the role of eponymous hero and wishes he could go off and join the RSC = Blake feels increasingly frustrated and desperate in his attempts to destroy the Federation Nervous young actor acting tough, with unnaturally gruff voice, for big role in space opera = naive young former Space Command officer pretending to be more ruthless than he really is ("no tedious moral scruples") when he falls in with dangerous rebels and so on. Allison Polise continued: >I think that Avon tried to do something he had no aptitude or training for, >and tried to do it for too long. He always seemed to be a perfectionist, >and never being able to do it "right" was probably horrible for him. I >think the real reason that he wanted Blake back was so he could go back to >being the computer expert without having to worry about the rest of the >ship. When he thought Blake had betrayed him, that was the last straw. He >finally went completely crackers, instead of mostly. Most of it was pure >tension. I agree with most of this, except the very last-- I don't think Avon was nuts when he shot Blake. I think it was within the bounds of rationality, given that he truly believed Blake had betrayed them. Remember all the way back in "Redemption," when he and Jenna have been captured and think they are about to die, and he says something about at least not making it easy for them? IMO that's what he's doing when he shoots Blake-- "I'm done for, but at least the bastard who betrayed me will pay." It =is= bad judgement, and he does it only because he's stressed out-- but not quite crazy. Close, but IMO not quite. If we take as the basic definition of insanity "cannot distinguish fact from fantasy," then if Avon shoots Blake as revenge because he truly believes Blake has betrayed him, he's not insane. Hot-tempered and displaying bad judgement, yes, but not insane. If, OTOH, he knows Blake has not betrayed him and shoots him anyway, just for the hell of it, then yeah, he's insane. But I don't think that's what's going on. I think the closest Avon comes to genuine insanity in the series is when he makes the decision to kill Vila in "Orbit." He twitches and looks very strange. IMO he is very close to becoming completely nonfunctional and just standing there twitching until they both die, because he is having so much difficulty bringing himself to do what he knows must be done if anyone is to survive at all. But in the end he pulls himself together and forces himself to function. Suzanne said: >Neil Faulkner, your observations on religion in the B7 universe are >fascinating. I very much enjoyed reading your post. Thank you so much for >writing it. :) Seconded! Here's hoping that the technical difficulties get solved and you are back with us soonest. Gail Gawlik, thanks for your poem from Gambit! I do like fan poetry when it scans and rhymes. BTW, I believe you have written stories too, yes? If you're willing to have them reprinted on a web page, Vickie McManus would love to have them for her B7 fan fiction archive. She might be interested in poems too-- you could ask her if she'd like to start a poetry section. And the same for any other writers out there, of course. Rab introduced himself: >Greetings All ! >I am Rab from Phildelphia, PA and have apparently subscribed to the >Blake's 7 Newsletter. I would just like to say hello to you all and find >out how this thing works. So this is a bit of a test as well as a >salutation to you others who still can't shake Blake. My wife and I >discovered the series on PBS back in 1983 before we were married. We really >became hooked on our wedding night. But that's another story for another >time. For now I just want to see how this thing works. What a great story! Would love to hear it if it's not too intimate. I myself was first introduced to B7 by a long-since-ex boyfriend in about 1986. At the time I quite resented it, because he kept wanting to watch this weird old British TV show late at night when I wanted to be doing other things! Only much later did I discover its wonderfulness for myself. Clearly we were not really meant for each other or we would have discovered it simultaneously, as you lucky folks did. :) Sarah T. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Nov 1998 21:59:37 EST From: Tigerm1019@aol.com To: blakes7@lysator.liu.se Subject: Re: [B7L] Re: Vila's Past, etc. Message-ID: <3cbdd083.364ba099@aol.com> Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Sarah wrote: << Tiger M. mentioned Vila being unable to unlock the hangar door in "Power." Wasn't the problem not so much the lock, as the bomb that it was boobytrapped with? Though you'd think that bobbytraps would be among the things Vila knew how to deal with. Maybe it was a matter of time. That bomb was on a timer or something, wasn't it? Must rewatch. >> I rewatched the episode today since I was home sick. I was mistaken about the hangar door. It was booby trapped with a bomb on a timer; also they needed a computer code to open the door as well as Vila physically picking the lock. Mea culpa, Tiger M ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 13 Nov 1998 07:44:51 +0000 From: Julia Jones To: blakes7@lysator.liu.se Subject: [B7L]: Guards! Guards! Message-ID: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Just had the Darlington Civic Theatre sneak preview for spring: Mon 22 - Sat 27 February Terry Pratchet's GUARDS! GUARDS! Paul Darrow (Blake's 7) Takes the lead in this outrageous cult sci-fi tale. Tickets: Ģ5 - Ģ14.50 Tickets and information hotline: 01325 - 486555 -- Julia Jones "Don't philosophise with me, you electronic moron!" The Turing test - as interpreted by Kerr Avon. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 13 Nov 1998 08:57:42 +-100 From: Jacqueline Thijsen To: "blakes7@lysator.liu.se" Subject: RE: [B7L] Federation Justice Message-Id: <01BE0EE3.AFB51D80@cmg71700449> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit >Tigerm1019@aol.com writes: >> This does raise the question of what offences would get someone >made >> into a mutoid or sold into slavery. Anyone have any comments? >Annoying a superior? Actually, in "Orac", Travis said that the wife and children of an officer who was supposed to have deserted would be sold into slavery on frontier planets. Servalan then confirmed that this was the usual practice. Jacqueline ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 13 Nov 1998 07:22:43 EST From: AChevron@aol.com To: Blakes7@lysator.liu.se Subject: Re: [B7L] Defending Blake's honor Message-ID: <57a5e791.364c2493@aol.com> Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit In a message dated 98-11-12 08:51:28 EST, you write: << He wouldn't use someone as a stalking horse without telling them or send them into a trap without warning. >> Not to get too carried away, because I like Avon as a bit of a bastard. But 1, Blake has at times sent people into traps without warning, Pressure Point being a notable one. Yes, he wasn't sure it was a trap, but he had good reason to suspect it, and he was breaking the promise he made to others. 2) Avon almost never states his reasons for his actions. We always see someone imputing his motives from their own viewpoint. Such as in Stardrive, where Soolin, a naturally suspicious person, assumes the worst of reasons. Avon never contradicts anyone, but also rarely states what his motive might actually be. As for Avon not being protective, his actions in Terminal were designed to protect them(stress and exhaustion perhaps accounting for his readiness to kill Tarrant; the other being that he knew that only if they truly believed his threat might they not follow; even Vila has figured out Tarrant's bite isn't all its made out to be.) He yields to Pela to protect Dayna, and seems to draw attention away from her in Moloch, as a couple of other points. I think Avon expected others to pull their own weight, and be able to defend themselves. Thus he's not openly protective. As when he castigates himself for allowing Tarrant to bully Vila. But he's quietly watching for them, as when he offers the tracking device. So while I don't think that Avon is a cuddly little teddy bear(well, not exactly...) neither do I see him as the totally self-centered creature others see him to be. Just mostly self-centered, as are all of us, in the end. Deborah Rose ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 13 Nov 1998 14:42:18 +0100 From: Chris To: Blakes7@lysator.liu.se Subject: [B7L] Hello Message-ID: <364C373A.32F4@cityweb.de> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Hello to everybody I am a newbie on the list since a few days and thought I should maybe introduce myself a little bit. First of all I want to tell you how much I enjoyed the discussions on the list the last few days. Itīs nice to know that there are lots of others who like B7 as much as I do. I am quite a newbie to the B7 fandom, got hooked and thrilled after getting some tapes from a friend. I have never seen any eisodes before , because so far as I know it wasnīt shown in Germany. Hey.. yes.. I am from Germany, so please forgive me if my English isnīt that good as it should be, but I try my best:-) I am a Highschool teacher and computer junkie :-) and my fav B7 character is Avon. Looking forward to lots of more interesting discussions. Thanks Christina ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 13 Nov 1998 08:58:17 EST From: SuzanThoms@aol.com To: Blakes7@lysator.liu.se Subject: [B7L] Hello Message-ID: <275b2b84.364c3af9@aol.com> Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit <> Hello, Christina, and welcome. I'm a bit of a lurker myself, but I had to come out to say hello to a fellow Avon fan. I love all the characters but Avon is my very special favorite. I love every bit of the self-centered, nasty little bastard. Suzanne ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 13 Nov 1998 14:06:02 -0000 From: "Gregory Graham" To: "B7" Subject: [B7L] Re: Neil Faulkner on religion Message-ID: <000501be0f0e$bf29d0a0$82ba46c2@barny.ascada.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I still had Neil's great message in my, rather large, backlog. The message used HTML encoding and the UTF8 character set if that means anything to anyone. Also does anyone know if Nicola is "Down and Safe" yet? She's supposed to be in Leeds about now but I haven't heard from her. Greg -----Original Message----- From: Neil Faulkner [mailto:N.Faulkner@tesco.net] Sent: 01 November 1998 04:07 To: lysator Subject: Re: [B7L] religion in the B7 universe Religion in the B7 era: interesting subject. There *are* references in the series with religious overtones (ie; use of the words "God" and "Hell", and Vila likened passing through Horizon's magnetic barrier to Judgement Day), and someone on Freedom City was dressed as a nun (complete with crucifix). So I don't think cognitive awareness of religion has disappeared within Federation society, but it is not widely practiced. 'Pressure Point' implies that the Federation actively sought to suppress religion when it introduced the New Calendar. Judith Proctor in "Nova" suggested that the Federation scapegoated religion as the source of the chaos that almost scuppered civilisation, and thereby built its power on an anti-religious platform. It's a thought, but personally I don't buy it. The evidence in the series suggests to me that the Federation arose out of a society that was already predominantly atheist, and that a religious minority represented a focal point for dissidence that needed to be disposed of. If religious belief was widespread immediately before the Federation, it would have continued in the face of persecution (cf under Communist regimes in this century) and maintained a high profile among dissidents; this was not evident in the case of Blake and his crew. Other dissident factions within the Federation might well have a more theological impetus, but I would expect these to be localised (eg a Muslim/Judaic/Christian etc planet seeking to establish its independence). Did religion persist within Federation society? Well, we can only guess, but I reckon it would, albeit only by a very small percentage of people, and then very discreetly. It may even have been tolerated by the authorities so long as it didn't get out of hand (an unfinished story I started - one of many! - had Travis turning a blind eye to a trooper wearing a crucifix). Beyond the Federation, who can tell? I wouldn't be surprised if the old faiths (not to mention a few new ones) are thriving on isolated colonies. Anyone care to write a story about a planet full of New Scientologists awaiting the return of L Ron Hubbard? There is also the matter of how the series treated religion, especially 'Cygnus Alpha', 'Deliverance' and 'Games'. CA tackled the political aspect of institutionalised religion (ie, considered religion as a sociological process); the other two eps were, to my mind, just plain condescending (through their portrayal of Meegat's naivety and Mecronian savagery respectively). Neil ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 13 Nov 1998 09:57:12 EST From: AChevron@aol.com To: blakes7@lysator.liu.se Subject: Re: [B7L] Hello Message-ID: Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit In a message dated 98-11-13 08:32:21 EST, you write: << I am quite a newbie to the B7 fandom, got hooked and thrilled after getting some tapes from a friend. >> Yea!!! Another one! Welcome to the wonderfully eclectic and entertaining group of fans you'll find here. I suspect that your English is better than many of us, particullary those of us that speak American rather than English. Welcome, and look forward to seeing your posts. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 13 Nov 1998 11:17:36 EST From: "Letitia A. Casebourn" To: Blakes7@lysator.liu.se Subject: Re: [B7L] Babylon 5 Message-Id: Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Judith wrote: > I notice channel 4 are showing Babylon 5 again. The first episode 'Midnight on > the Firing Line' is on this Sunday, so maybe they're going to do a rerun of the > whole series. > > If you missed it the first time round, it's well worth catching, though at that > hour of night you'd proabably tape it and watch it later. B5 may not seem to make sense unless you do begin at the beginning ... episodes are all interwoven ... But, it is wonderful !!! Give it a try. tisha@purdue.edu ------------------------------ Date: 13 Nov 98 17:14:13 America/Fort_Wayne From: Allison Polise To: Subject: [B7L] Vila's Past Message-ID: <19981113171413.27756.qmail@www0i.netaddress.usa.net> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit One of the things I don't understand about Vila's character is how he got so good with locks, with no explanation about how he learned. Also, why didn't his head stay adjusted. From what I have heard, psychotherapists are pretty effective. And why didn't the drugs in the water supply affect Vila? What did his family or friends think about him? Neat things like that. Allison ____________________________________________________________________ Get free e-mail and a permanent address at http://www.netaddress.com/?N=1 ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 13 Nov 1998 12:26:01 EST From: AChevron@aol.com To: blakes7@lysator.liu.se Subject: Re: [B7L] Vila's Past Message-ID: <6d4e3d2f.364c6ba9@aol.com> Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit In a message dated 98-11-13 12:16:51 EST, you write: << I don't understand about Vila's character is how he got so good with locks, with no explanation about how he learned. >> Of even more interest, where did he learn the sleight of hands tricks and magical tricks he uses occasionally? I could imagine him learning the lockpick business 'on the streets" but I find it intriguing that these skills are still around to be learned... D. ROse ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 13 Nov 1998 15:18:03 EST From: Tigerm1019@aol.com To: blakes7@lysator.liu.se Subject: [B7L] Vila's Past Message-ID: Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit In a message dated 98-11-13 12:29:26 EST, Deborah wrote: << Of even more interest, where did he learn the sleight of hands tricks and magical tricks he uses occasionally? >> The slight of hand used in magic tricks is very similar to that used in three card monte and cup-and-balls, two of the oldest slight of hand cons known. I have no doubt that they are as popular in the Federation as they are in modern cities. I could easily see Vila running a three card monte con to get some quick money. Alternatively, perhaps Vila used the magic tricks as a way to keep his hands limber for pickpocketing, etc. without others knowing (just a harmless parlor trick). I'm really enjoying this thread. Tiger M ------------------------------ Date: 13 Nov 98 21:16:11 America/Fort_Wayne From: Allison Polise To: Subject: [B7L] Vila's Past Message-ID: <19981113211611.6185.qmail@www0q.netaddress.usa.net> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Some of those lockpicking skills could not be learned by trial and error. Who could have trained Vila, and how? I could see him spying on someone -else- learning these things, but why would they be learning? Allison ____________________________________________________________________ Get free e-mail and a permanent address at http://www.netaddress.com/?N=1 -------------------------------- End of blakes7-d Digest V98 Issue #284 **************************************