From: blakes7-d-request@lysator.liu.se Subject: blakes7-d Digest V98 #113 X-Loop: blakes7-d@lysator.liu.se X-Mailing-List: archive/volume98/113 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 113 Today's Topics: [B7L] Horizon/Diva/Redemption Re: [B7L] Merlin [B7L] Gravity Re: [B7L] model orac Re: [B7L] Gravity Re: [B7L] Liberator & Orac [B7L] Re: Liberator Re: [B7L] Gravity Re: [B7L] Power Re: [B7L] Liberator & Orac Re: [B7L] Gravity [B7L] Re:Cancer [B7L] Orac (was Re: Liberator) RE: [B7L] Gravity RE: [B7L] Gravity [B7L] Sardos Re: [B7L] Sardos Re:[B7L]Silent Witness Re: [B7L] A Hard-Wired Seven (long) Re: [B7L] Re: Liberator Re: [B7L] Liberator & Orac Re: [B7L] Orac (was Re: Liberator) Re: [B7L] Liberator & Orac Re: [B7L] Liberator & Orac [B7L] You can help Blake's 7! Re: [B7L] Orac (was Re: Liberator) [B7L] Re: Liberator ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 15 Apr 1998 20:43:46 +0100 From: JMR To: Blakes7@lysator.liu.se Subject: [B7L] Horizon/Diva/Redemption Message-Id: <3.0.2.32.19980415204346.006b4eb4@clara.net> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Judith Proctor wrote: >To be fair, we don't know that Diva is part of Horizon and thus should not >automatically blame them for any opinion of hers. I've never recieved any >complaints from Horizon, nor from any member of the Deliverance con committee. > >However, if Diva is giving people the impression that she speaks for Horizon, >then I think she needs to be very careful indeed in what she says. > > > Judith > Many thanks to Judith P. for hitting the nail squarely on the head. "Diva" isn't part of Horizon, if you deem "part of Horizon" to mean the club's committee etc. Diva's interest in "Deliverance" came simply as from someone who had worked very hard over the weekend of the convention to ensure that the maximum number of people had a great time. I may be wrong, but I'm sure that Diva did, at some point, state that he/she was making a personal statement, not speaking on behalf of anyone, or any group of people. ---------- Concerning another issue, "Horizon", as an entity, hasn't made any kind of fuss about Deliverance/Redemption copyrighted names. It should be remembered that "Deliverance" was simply a convention supported by "Horizon", not part of the club. Initially, only Diane Gies formed any direct link between them. Judith Smith is not a member of the "Horizon" committee, and I, myself, was on the "Deliverance" committee for nearly a year before joining the "Horizon" committee. The point being, that though many "Horizon" staff worked very hard before and during the convention, the only direct link between club and con. at committee level was Diane herself. Club and convention should always be viewed as completely seperate entities. "Deliverance" (NOT "Horizon") has yet to officially comment on the subject of the "After Deliverance Comes Redemption" slogan. All comment until this time has come from other parties, not from "Deliverance", much less "Horizon". For the first time, then, our position as "Deliverance", regarding the name "Redemption" is as follows: Our concern is not, as some have suggested, that "Redemption" could be viewed as exploiting the name "Deliverance" (in much the same way, incidentally, as they could be viewed as exploiting the "Who's 7" name in some of their advertising) for publicity or whatever, but that those fans "not in the know", may, quite reasonably, assume that "Redemption" is the official follow-up to "Deliverance". As far as I am aware, neither "Redemption" as a whole, nor any of it's committee, have ever claimed that the two conventions are connected, and I'm certain that they would never do so, but they are using a slogan that says "After Deliverance Comes Redemption"... We agree that it's a witty slogan, and if "Redemption" HAD been an official follow-up to "Del'nce", it would have been a God-send, but it's a very ambiguous slogan at best. Put simply, our concern is that someone who enjoyed "Deliverance", but who is not, perhaps, as "clued up" on cons, clubs and organised fandom as some, would book for "Redemption" expecting a certain product and may find themselves at an event totally different to the one they imagined they had booked for. "Redemption" has stated often enough in the past that it intends to be a more "fan-based" convention than "Deliverance", which is fine, and it is also including a B5 content. Variety is the spice of life, and all that. However, I'm sure everyone would agree that one fan misled, however innocently or inadvertantly, into believing they were purchasing product "A" when they were actually getting product "B" is one fan too many. If you desperately wanted to buy a "Star Trek" video, picked it up and paid for it in good faith, honestly believing from the packaging that "ST" was what you were getting, you'd be disappointed to find, once it was too late, that you'd bought "Star Wars" by mistake, no? "Deliverance" was a one-off event. There will not be another, though some of the people connected to it may move on to other projects. We rest our case. Judith J.M. Rolls jager@clara.net ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 15 Apr 1998 07:50:23 +0100 (BST) From: Judith Proctor To: Lysator List Subject: Re: [B7L] Merlin Message-ID: Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII On Tue 14 Apr, John J. Doherty wrote: > Blaze (I've usually seen it as Blaise) is Merlin's mentor/teacher/student, > depending on which parts of the legend you read. The Brits may remember > Don Henderson playing Blaise in the BBC's "Merlin of the Crystal Cave" a > few years ago. I suspect the spelling of Blaze is quite deliberate. I've got one picture where he appears to be casting a small fireball. (Try on my web page under 'picture gallery' or under 'Gareth Thomas' - TV) In this particular version, Blaze is Merlin's mentor. All I know beyond that is that it was filmed in Scotland and has recently had some redubbing work done on it. Oh, I think Merlin has spent much of his early life in a monastery! Judith -- http://www.hermit.org/Blakes7 Redemption 99 - The Blakes 7/Babylon 5 convention 26-28 February 1999, Ashford International Hotel, Kent http://www.smof.com/redemption/ ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 15 Apr 1998 21:05:38 +0100 From: "jenni-alison" To: Subject: [B7L] Gravity Message-Id: <199804152003.WAA11513@samantha.lysator.liu.se> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Here's a question for all you physicists and space scientists out there ;-) In B7, and many other Sci-Fi shows, when space ships are hit by debris/weapons, or crash into other space-borne objects, the occupants of the ships fall over, shake about, and generally act like their on a bus in a mild prang. If a space vehicle has artificial gravity, surely this isn't correct? Isn't the centre of gravity going to move with the ship, making the vibration etc. inappropriate? I'd expect the gravity to fail, possibly, but I'm complete layman, so I'd be happy to be proved wrong. Also, if the I'm right and that isn't the "correct" or most probable result of damage, is there any explanation which would make the normal reaction (falling over, crashing into eachother - fun - etc) correct? Jenni ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 15 Apr 1998 15:51:42 -0500 From: "Reuben Herfindahl" To: , Subject: Re: [B7L] model orac Message-ID: <018101bd68b0$4bdf2550$660114ac@misnt> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I'd be interested in this as well. Reuben -----Original Message----- From: Patrick Bean To: blakes7@lysator.liu.se Date: Wednesday, April 15, 1998 12:27 PM Subject: [B7L] model orac >Are the Horizon Oracs available yet? The web site ways they have 7 orders and >need a minimum of 10 to do a production run, is this information still current? >Dose anyone know how good they are/will be? I would pay the 260 ukp for a >really good replica. > >-- > __ __ __ __ __ ___ _____________________________________________ >|__||__)/ __/ \|\ ||_ | / pdbean@argonet.co.uk (Patrick David Bean) >| || \\__/\__/| \||__ | /...Internet access for all Acorn RISC machines >___________________________/ Web http://www.argonet.co.uk/users/pdbean > > > ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 15 Apr 1998 23:09:45 +0100 From: Alison Page To: Lysator Subject: Re: [B7L] Gravity Message-ID: <892678018.1023910.0@alisonpage.demon.co.uk> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Jenni - > In B7, and many other Sci-Fi shows, when space ships are hit by > debris/weapons, or crash into other space-borne objects, the occupants of > the ships fall over, shake about, and generally act like their on a bus in > a mild prang. If a space vehicle has artificial gravity, surely this isn't > correct? Isn't the centre of gravity going to move with the ship, making > the vibration etc. inappropriate? I'd expect the gravity to fail, possibly, > but I'm complete layman, so I'd be happy to be proved wrong. > Also, if the I'm right and that isn't the "correct" or most probable result > of damage, is there any explanation which would make the normal reaction > (falling over, crashing into eachother - fun - etc) correct? The Trek people thought of this after the event and called it inertial damping. The theory as far as I understand it is that there is some kind of force field which protects the occupants of the ship from the effects of sudden acceleration and the other stresses relating to how the ship is moving about in space, and keeps 'down' in a regular predictable place. That means they can film it in an ordinary studio set, which is pretty handy. Then, to explain the falling over, they said that 'ah, but when some sudden unexpected random shock hits the ship, the inertial damping field can't cope properly, like it can with the predictable effects of movement' hence the occupants get thrown about a bit. I actually think this is pretty good, given what they had to explain, but like the universal translator it hasn't really been thought through properly and it isn't applied consistently. I think B7 took the same idea over, more or less unexamined, because it makes good TV without costing too much. I think it would be great, Jenni, if you wrote a story where the gravity goes wierd. zero-g seems too good an idea to go to waste. Another example of how the B7 in our heads is better than on the TV. Alison ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 15 Apr 98 21:44:49 BST From: pdbean@argonet.co.uk (Patrick Bean) To: blakes7@lysator.liu.se Subject: Re: [B7L] Liberator & Orac Message-Id: Content-Type: text/plain On Wed 15 Apr 98 (21:45:57 +0200), blakes7-d-request@lysator.liu.se wrote: > If this is the case, then he might have relied on Zen's memory banks to > record all the details of Liberator's design and have lost them when > Liberator was destroyed. Even so, he knew about the other DSV(s) and 'space world' so could have obtained the data from there. Part of the problem with Orac was that in the episode 'orac' we were given the impression that he should have been capable of bringing the federation to it nees within a matter of weeks if not days, Yet he could not even locate control for them. There is however one thing that I can think of that could have reduced Orac's capabilities. In 'shadow' Avon added a 'disruption bomb' to orac in order to prevent any future takeover attempts. Now we know today that high powered radio waves can trigger detonators, so maybe Orac's power output had to be reduced. So anything close could be controled (Zen, slave, the teleports, The flier) BUT Federation ships, central control NO. This still dose not explain why Orac could not tell them where start one was! Any ideas anyone? -- __ __ __ __ __ ___ _____________________________________________ |__||__)/ __/ \|\ ||_ | / pdbean@argonet.co.uk (Patrick David Bean) | || \\__/\__/| \||__ | /...Internet access for all Acorn RISC machines ___________________________/ Web http://www.argonet.co.uk/users/pdbean ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 16 Apr 1998 11:08:42 +1200 From: "Lucas Young" To: Subject: [B7L] Re: Liberator Message-ID: <007001bd68c3$759a4d80$c3a4fea9@lucas> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In response to Patrick, I think the bomb Avon fitted ORAC with was just to stop any telepathic transmission, after Cally went all loopy. ORAC had many research projects of his own (or so he claimed) so it would be unusual for him NOT to know everything there was to know about the Liberator, and didn't he do something in Redemption to the computer system used by Liberator's builders, implying he had knowledge of their systems? Lucas ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 16 Apr 1998 11:13:16 +1200 From: "Lucas Young" To: Subject: Re: [B7L] Gravity Message-ID: <008701bd68c4$194b83e0$c3a4fea9@lucas> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I think the inertial damping system was a subsystem of the artificial gravity - you simply "angle" the artificial gravity to compensate for changes in velocity of the ship so the occupants still feel that "down" is "down". This has to be a temendously powerful field when you consider that when manoeuvring at less-than-light speeds you're still going horrendously fast. Such a huge field would probably not be able to respond quickly enough to small, sudden changes in the ship's velocity, ie when it crasjes into the walls of the set or falls off it's string 8) Lucas -----Original Message----- From: Alison Page To: Lysator Date: Thursday, 16 April 1998 10:07 Subject: Re: [B7L] Gravity >Jenni - > >> In B7, and many other Sci-Fi shows, when space ships are hit by >> debris/weapons, or crash into other space-borne objects, the occupants of >> the ships fall over, shake about, and generally act like their on a bus >in >> a mild prang. If a space vehicle has artificial gravity, surely this >isn't >> correct? Isn't the centre of gravity going to move with the ship, making >> the vibration etc. inappropriate? I'd expect the gravity to fail, >possibly, >> but I'm complete layman, so I'd be happy to be proved wrong. > >> Also, if the I'm right and that isn't the "correct" or most probable >result >> of damage, is there any explanation which would make the normal reaction >> (falling over, crashing into eachother - fun - etc) correct? > >The Trek people thought of this after the event and called it inertial >damping. The theory as far as I understand it is that there is some kind of >force field which protects the occupants of the ship from the effects of >sudden acceleration and the other stresses relating to how the ship is >moving about in space, and keeps 'down' in a regular predictable place. >That means they can film it in an ordinary studio set, which is pretty >handy. > >Then, to explain the falling over, they said that 'ah, but when some sudden >unexpected random shock hits the ship, the inertial damping field can't >cope properly, like it can with the predictable effects of movement' hence >the occupants get thrown about a bit. > >I actually think this is pretty good, given what they had to explain, but >like the universal translator it hasn't really been thought through >properly and it isn't applied consistently. > >I think B7 took the same idea over, more or less unexamined, because it >makes good TV without costing too much. > >I think it would be great, Jenni, if you wrote a story where the gravity >goes wierd. zero-g seems too good an idea to go to waste. Another example >of how the B7 in our heads is better than on the TV. > >Alison > ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 16 Apr 1998 09:33:13 +1000 From: Bill Billingsley To: blakes7@lysator.liu.se Subject: Re: [B7L] Power Message-Id: <3.0.1.32.19980416093313.006ae298@rabbit> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Doh! Done it again! This was meant for the list. >Date: Thu, 16 Apr 1998 09:32:20 +1000 >To: "Ophelia" >From: Bill Billingsley >Subject: Re: [B7L] Power >In-Reply-To: <01bd6781$529e7380$LocalHost@waltersmith> >> >>Nah, the way I see it, Avon was doing his cold, >>intellectual, harsh Mills & Boon hero act to >>impress little Peri. And Tarrant was doing his butch, >>swaggering macho impression for ditto reason. >>It's sooooo funny, and one of the reasons I think >>Assassin is a cruelly under-rated gem. >>Teh ther two reasons are, of course, that it is a >>Divine Soolin episode and that we get to >>see Servalan buy Avon as a slave. >>oooohhh What a >>*tease* that episode is. >> > >Does anyone else here think it would have been much better if the old man had been Cancer? If nothing else it would have meant we didn't have quite such a bad actor as the villain for the episode... > >I actually quite liked the beginning of the episode. The end was rather predictable and weakly done (broaches turning into spiders, etc.) > > > -------------------------------------------------------- The Loch Mess Monster (occaisionally mistaken as Bill Billingsley) ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 16 Apr 1998 10:53:52 +1000 From: Bill Billingsley To: blakes7@lysator.liu.se Subject: Re: [B7L] Liberator & Orac Message-Id: <3.0.1.32.19980416105352.006a9cb0@rabbit> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At 21:44 15/04/98 BST, pdbean wrote: T Federation ships, central control NO. > >This still dose not explain why Orac could not tell them where start one was! >Any ideas anyone? > Because it wasn't recorded anywhere. Possibly Orac could read communications arriving from Star One in Federation computers, but how could Orac tell where they're from? Presumably in the 'where from' clause of the messages from Star One would just say "from Star One". Not terribly helpful. As to why noone had tried to use some directional sensors out to notice all these messages coming from the edge of the Galaxy (Star One would have to put out some pretty hefty communications traffic to control everything) and then tried a little triangulation, I'm not so sure. A second possibility that never seemed to be tried: Any decent control system needs some feedback, so something somewhere would have been set up to transmit to Star One. Find that and see where it's pointing and Bob's your uncle. (Of course the Federation could have been bastards and had lots of dummy transmitters beaming off into nothing too.) -------------------------------------------------------- The Loch Mess Monster (occaisionally mistaken as Bill Billingsley) ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 16 Apr 1998 11:02:24 +1000 From: Bill Billingsley To: blakes7@lysator.liu.se Subject: Re: [B7L] Gravity Message-Id: <3.0.1.32.19980416110224.006a9180@rabbit> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At 23:09 15/04/98 +0100, Alison wrote: >Jenni - > >> In B7, and many other Sci-Fi shows, when space ships are hit by >> debris/weapons, or crash into other space-borne objects, the occupants of >> the ships fall over, shake about, and generally act like their on a bus >in >> a mild prang. If a space vehicle has artificial gravity, surely this >isn't >> correct? Isn't the centre of gravity going to move with the ship, making >> the vibration etc. inappropriate? I'd expect the gravity to fail, >possibly, >> but I'm complete layman, so I'd be happy to be proved wrong. > >> Also, if the I'm right and that isn't the "correct" or most probable >result >> of damage, is there any explanation which would make the normal reaction >> (falling over, crashing into eachother - fun - etc) correct? > >The Trek people thought of this after the event and called it inertial >damping. The theory as far as I understand it is that there is some kind of >force field which protects the occupants of the ship from the effects of >sudden acceleration and the other stresses relating to how the ship is >moving about in space, and keeps 'down' in a regular predictable place. >That means they can film it in an ordinary studio set, which is pretty >handy. > >Then, to explain the falling over, they said that 'ah, but when some sudden >unexpected random shock hits the ship, the inertial damping field can't >cope properly, like it can with the predictable effects of movement' hence >the occupants get thrown about a bit. > Of course there's a much easier explanation that would have worked instead. If you can apply an artificial gravity field then you are capable of applying an accelerating force to the entire contents of the ship, including passengers. With an appropriate bit of McGuffin, you can also apply an accelerating force to the entire contents of the ship to accelerate it. ie the engines don't simply 'push' the hull along the way the engines in a car do, but 'push' every particle in the ship with the same force. So, no tensile or compressive strains would be felt, and no falling over would occur either. Of course an object hitting the hull of the ship would still be pushing the hull and not the occupants, so then the occupants would fall over. Problem solved! -------------------------------------------------------- The Loch Mess Monster (occaisionally mistaken as Bill Billingsley) ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 16 Apr 1998 11:14:48 +1000 From: Wainwrights To: blakes7@lysator.liu.se Subject: [B7L] Re:Cancer Message-Id: <3.0.5.32.19980416111448.007c1100@mail.eisa.net.au> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" I must admit, even though I liked "Assassin", I at first believed that the old fellow was Cancer when Avon was slung into the cell with him.It seemed interesting too, that Avon felt inclined to take him along during the escape.[A little bit of that humanity showing through].I know the ending was a little trite with broaches turning int beetles etc, but at least we got to see Avon all tied up and nowhere to go!!On the question of Tarrant's macho behaviour-painful as usual. I only appreciated Tarrant , once, in the final episode and by then it was too late!! Cheers, Jacqueline. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 15 Apr 1998 21:58:17 -0400 From: Harriet Monkhouse <101637.2064@compuserve.com> To: "INTERNET:blakes7@lysator.liu.se" Subject: [B7L] Orac (was Re: Liberator) Message-ID: <199804152158_MC2-3A04-482C@compuserve.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Disposition: inline Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Reuben replied to Bill, who was replying to Judith: >>>The real $64,000 is what difference taking Orac's key out actually made. >> >>Turned off the flashy lights. :-P > >And don't forget that ahhhh noise that made him say. Apart from all that... my thesis is that Orac could communicate with Tarial cell-based entities all the time, but needed the key to communicate with humans, telepathic alien invaders etc. I know Headhunter messes this up, but Headhunter messes up a lot of things, chiefly one's aesthetic sensibilities. Bill also replied to Jeroen: >>PS: Secondly ... where IS orac. > >Still in the flyer?... Ah. Had flash of blinding light re this last week. Last time we see Orac, Avon's carrying him, n'est-ce pas? And what is Avon carrying next time we see him? Orac WAS that snubnosed gun. Following the success of his shrinking act in Gambit, he has spent the intervening years perfecting the art of complete metamorphosis. That was why he was always so busy on important research. And he'd said that Blake's trail ended on Gauda Prime, so he wanted to make sure the prediction worked. Harriet ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 16 Apr 1998 15:23:55 +1200 From: "Graham, Gregory" To: Lysator Subject: RE: [B7L] Gravity Message-ID: <710458B7BCD3D011897D0000F8003AB791D92B@invex.agresearch.cri.nz> Content-Type: text/plain Actually the explaination for people bouncing around inside a dampner feild is really easy to explain. If the damper worked perfectly people would be bouncing all over the place. No one would get hurt, because changing velocity(ie bouncing) would be so easy, but you'd never get any work done. Thus the dampner must have a cut-off point( or a sliding scale which produces the same thing). Any force below the threshold would bounce people around, anything above would have no affect. The threshold would probably be placed at a level where they wouldn't be hurt by an impact but could do things like run, jump, or press a button quickly. UTs are just impossible to explain but absolutely brilliant for letting a show like ST actually do something each week. > =============================================== > The opinions of this person have little to do with reality let alone > ==================AgResearch==================== > EvangeList, http://www.evangelist.macaddict.com/ > > > -----Original Message----- > From: Alison Page [SMTP:alison@alisonpage.demon.co.uk] > Sent: Thursday, April 16, 1998 10:10 AM > To: Lysator > Subject: Re: [B7L] Gravity > > Jenni - > > > In B7, and many other Sci-Fi shows, when space ships are hit by > > debris/weapons, or crash into other space-borne objects, the > occupants of > > the ships fall over, shake about, and generally act like their on a > bus > in > > a mild prang. If a space vehicle has artificial gravity, surely this > isn't > > correct? Isn't the centre of gravity going to move with the ship, > making > > the vibration etc. inappropriate? I'd expect the gravity to fail, > possibly, > > but I'm complete layman, so I'd be happy to be proved wrong. > > > Also, if the I'm right and that isn't the "correct" or most probable > result > > of damage, is there any explanation which would make the normal > reaction > > (falling over, crashing into eachother - fun - etc) correct? > > The Trek people thought of this after the event and called it inertial > damping. The theory as far as I understand it is that there is some > kind of > force field which protects the occupants of the ship from the effects > of > sudden acceleration and the other stresses relating to how the ship is > moving about in space, and keeps 'down' in a regular predictable > place. > That means they can film it in an ordinary studio set, which is pretty > handy. > > Then, to explain the falling over, they said that 'ah, but when some > sudden > unexpected random shock hits the ship, the inertial damping field > can't > cope properly, like it can with the predictable effects of movement' > hence > the occupants get thrown about a bit. > > I actually think this is pretty good, given what they had to explain, > but > like the universal translator it hasn't really been thought through > properly and it isn't applied consistently. > > I think B7 took the same idea over, more or less unexamined, because > it > makes good TV without costing too much. > > I think it would be great, Jenni, if you wrote a story where the > gravity > goes wierd. zero-g seems too good an idea to go to waste. Another > example > of how the B7 in our heads is better than on the TV. > > Alison ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 16 Apr 1998 13:39:33 +1000 From: Bill Billingsley To: blakes7@lysator.liu.se Subject: RE: [B7L] Gravity Message-Id: <3.0.1.32.19980416133933.006b0730@rabbit> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At 15:23 16/04/98 +1200, GrahamG wrote: > >UTs are just impossible to explain but absolutely brilliant for letting >a show like ST actually do something each week. > Unfortunately TNG went in for a habit of trying to explain obvious flaws with even worse pseudoscience. For instance why all aliens were humanoid, and could interbreed with humans (I think they've now had a half-human half-other for every alien but the gaseous and microbe ones now...) For some reason TNG decided to try to explain this by saying that an original alien species long before life had developed on planets 'seeded' their DNA on various planets, and we all developed from that and so did the Klingons, Romulans... ...which kinda leaves you wondering whatever happened to produce nudibranchs, squid, octopi, jellyfish and lots of other non-bipedal forms of life... -------------------------------------------------------- The Loch Mess Monster (occaisionally mistaken as Bill Billingsley) ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 15 Apr 1998 22:27:52 +0100 (BST) From: Judith Proctor To: Lysator List Subject: [B7L] Sardos Message-ID: Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII On Wed 15 Apr, Patrick Bean wrote: > On Tue 14 Apr 98 (23:09:17 +0200), blakes7-d-request@lysator.liu.se wrote: > > What a great ship, still trying to find time to build a 3D model. > > Now, if Liberator could "self-regenerate" one assumes it has a copy of > > it's own blueprints some where (probably on a SCSI drive...8)) > > all you'd need to make a NEW Liberator (which we all want) is to get hold of > > another regenerator and fire in the blueprints, you'd think ORAC would know > > the specs for the Liberator... > > Yes, didn't the people in 'Moloc' have large replicaters (I know we only see > the small one), so take ORAC to Sardos connect him to one of them and there you > are. :-) Sardos is an irritating loose end in the series. Servalan clearly used the replicators there to build herself three pursuit ships as they are seen in pursuit of Liberator at the end of the episode. But why did neither she nor Avon ever return there? It was clearly of immense value to both sides. My best guess is that the Sardoans found a way to move thier planet. After all, it was (If I recall correctly) without a sun, which suggests that they had moved it once already. Once Grosse and his men were removed, I think they moved the planet again and although both Avon and Servalan searched for Sardos, neither found it. It could have made a rather interesting episode - both of them trying frantically to prevent the other getting there, and then finally finding an empty space. Shades of 'Pressure Point'. Judith -- http://www.hermit.org/Blakes7 Redemption 99 - The Blakes 7/Babylon 5 convention 26-28 February 1999, Ashford International Hotel, Kent http://www.smof.com/redemption/ ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 16 Apr 1998 16:38:46 +1000 From: Bill Billingsley To: blakes7@lysator.liu.se Subject: Re: [B7L] Sardos Message-Id: <3.0.1.32.19980416163846.006b5c34@rabbit> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At 22:27 15/04/98 +0100, Judith wrote: >Sardos is an irritating loose end in the series. Servalan clearly used the >replicators there to build herself three pursuit ships as they are seen in >pursuit of Liberator at the end of the episode. But why did neither she nor >Avon ever return there? It was clearly of immense value to both sides. > >My best guess is that the Sardoans found a way to move thier planet. After all, >it was (If I recall correctly) without a sun, which suggests that they had moved >it once already. Once Grosse and his men were removed, I think they moved the >planet again and although both Avon and Servalan searched for Sardos, neither >found it. It could have made a rather interesting episode - both of them trying >frantically to prevent the other getting there, and then finally finding an >empty space. Shades of 'Pressure Point'. That or they do find it... "What do you mean it won't work without Moloc being there himself?!" After all, if only as a guard against greedy Sardoans I'm sure Moloc would have made himself indispensible. -------------------------------------------------------- The Loch Mess Monster (occaisionally mistaken as Bill Billingsley) ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 16 Apr 1998 08:42:29 +0100 From: julie@ipsys.co.uk (Julie Horner) To: blakes7@lysator.liu.se Subject: Re:[B7L]Silent Witness Message-Id: <199804160742.IAA00343@sun500.Fishnet> Josette Simon appeared in last night's (Wednesday) episode of BBC's 'Silent Witness'. This is the first of a two-part story, the second part being tonight (Thursday). She plays a DI in the drugs squad and her character is clearly involved in some murky goings on. She was pretty good and (as was said about all the women characters at Deliverance) did not look much different to how she was back in B7. Sorry if someone as already posted this but I have not had chance to check my home mail since Monday and I am posting this from work where I don't have read access to the list. Julie Horner ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 16 Apr 1998 09:18:53 +0100 From: Russ Massey To: Iain Coleman Cc: blakes7@lysator.liu.se Subject: Re: [B7L] A Hard-Wired Seven (long) Message-ID: In message , Iain Coleman writes > >Just a couple of random thoughts on cyberseven. I don't think it's true to >say that B7 came too early to be cyberpunk: there are various >proto-cyberpunk novels by authors such as Bester and Dick which could have >served as inspiration. Indeed, if you want an idea of what a cyberpunk B7 >might look like, I can recommend Bester's "Tiger Tiger" (published in the >US as "The Stars My Destination" for some reason). This has a whole lot of >elements that would later be identfied as cyberpunk (bodily enhancements >through technology, corporate intrigue, etc), but is still a fast-moving, >grand interplanetary tale with spaceships and big explosions. A damn good >book, actually. > One of my top five for sure, and your're right - there's a lot of proto- cyberpunk in 'Tiger Tiger'. On the other hand, it was essentially about the effect that universal personal teleportation would have no society (just as Bester's 'The Demolished Man' was about the effects of telepathy on same) and so many of the other aspects might have been neglected. >Furthermore, I don't agree that this would really be updating B7. >Cyberpunk is starting to look pretty dated these days, as 80s as >legwarmers and thrash metal. Moving the show on by less than ten years >doesn't really seem like that great an advancement. > Dated as in 'no longer cutting-edge', I have to agree (that now seemingly belongs to nano-technology and genetic modification), but I'd say that the tropes of cyberpunk are being absorbed into general SF, so that no serious future work can now fail to take into account their existence. The trendy thing to do at the moment strikes me as being to assume implants and their effects without bothering about the details or making a big deal of them - they become background like 3D-TV and regular Earth-Luna shuttles. >Finally, cyberpunk seems too cynical a genre for B7. That might sound a >bit daft - doesn't B7 have a cynical streak a mile wide? - but bear with >me. Idealism plays a big part in B7, if only to be attacked or subverted. >In cyberpunk universal cynicism is pretty much taken for granted, so >there's nothing for it to contrast with. > I don't really know if you're right or wrong there. There're plenty of figures in cyberpunk who live by a personal code that they don't break. That doesn't make them saints, but it does give a basis of comparison with the main figures in B7. Even Servalan was not completely amoral - she genuinely worked for what she perceived as being the good of the Federation despite putting her own desires first. >Of course, all this could simply be a manifestation of my own tastes and >prejudices. I for one would like to see B7 as Philip K Dick might write >it. Blake falls hopelessly in love with a cruel dark-haired woman, Avon >and Cally are married but Avon throws it all away for a futile >relationship with a manipulative sixteen-year-old with leukemia, Vila is >the only character to survive psychologically unscathed and Orac turns out >to be God. > LOL. Chillingly accurate. I hate Dick. The only one of his books I ever enjoyed was 'Do Androids Dream...?'. If Dick had written 'Blake', the final scene would have ended with Avon being gunned down, Blake then standing back up and shaking hands with the troopers while the scene shifts so that we are watching events on a monitor. The camera pulls further back to show Avon watching the monitor. He turns to Orac, pulls out the activator and everything goes dark. Roll credits. The announcer then says that a new series of B7 will be screened in August. But it never is. Aargh... -- Russ Massey ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 16 Apr 1998 10:12:10 +0100 From: Ian Lay To: Lucas Young , blakes7@lysator.liu.se Subject: Re: [B7L] Re: Liberator Message-ID: <01bd6917$bcbfe9a0$407a0439@Ian_Lay.es.lon.sita.int> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Lucas wrote: >In response to Patrick, I think the bomb Avon fitted ORAC with was just to >stop any telepathic transmission, after Cally went all loopy. ORAC had many >research projects of his own (or so he claimed) so it would be unusual for >him NOT to know everything there was to know about the Liberator, and didn't >he do something in Redemption to the computer system used by Liberator's >builders, implying he had knowledge of their systems? >Lucas Orac knew everything about the Liberator. In the episode "Rescue", he told Dorian "I of course took the opportunity to study all the systems on the Liberator. A few, a very few were of mild interest. I would not, however, count the Teleport in that." or something similar to that anyway. I'm at work so can't check the quote. It always made me wonder which systems he did find mildly of Interest. Zen maybe....the main drive unit, maybe the auto repair system. Ian "I don't suffer from insanity. I enjoy every minute of it" Lay //// :-) \\\\ Watford Internet Football Club Ian@pacific-cc.demon.co.uk or wifc@wfc.net ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 16 Apr 1998 02:26:33 PDT From: "Don Trower" To: blakes7@lysator.liu.se Subject: Re: [B7L] Liberator & Orac Message-ID: <19980416092634.24218.qmail@hotmail.com> Content-Type: text/plain >Any decent control system needs some feedback, so something somewhere >would have been set up to transmit to Star One. Find that and see >where it's pointing and Bob's your uncle. (Of course the Federation >could have been bastards and had lots of dummy transmitters beaming >off into nothing too.) Based on networking ideas. Orac only knew what it could glean from other sources, either by evesdroping or intruding, it's power was to compile this information and extrapolate it to the point of prediction. The Fed's IT department would be aware of the evesdroping hole in security, common with any open network today. If Orac was unable to read any form of communications header information that would have given a communications path to Star One I assume that this was because it wasn't there, like the empty and sourceless emails we have seen here from time to time ! The Federation IT coders must have been pretty good as the crew had to obtain a decoder thingy to read the high security messages, as I think they had Orac by then. If that is the case you would include the ablity within your standard Fed computer operating system to generate false sourced Star One messages from time to time, or if in the event of getting a broadcast token that triggered you to generate those false Star One messages. The effect of this would make Star One appear to come from every where, Orac may translate this as "It can't be every where at the same time therefore I can't track it's source". Not a brilliant answer, but I'me busy at the moment. However I think that the problem with Orac is the similar to the luggage in The Diskworld books, if it can do everything without effort then there is little story left for the people. Don. ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 16 Apr 1998 10:18:05 +0100 From: Ian Lay To: Harriet Monkhouse <101637.2064@compuserve.com>, blakes7@lysator.liu.se Subject: Re: [B7L] Orac (was Re: Liberator) Message-ID: <01bd6918$900acb40$407a0439@Ian_Lay.es.lon.sita.int> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Harriet wrote: >Ah. Had flash of blinding light re this last week. Last time we see Orac, >Avon's carrying him, n'est-ce pas? And what is Avon carrying next time we >see him? Orac WAS that snubnosed gun. Following the success of his >shrinking act in Gambit, he has spent the intervening years perfecting the >art of complete metamorphosis. That was why he was always so busy on >important research. > >And he'd said that Blake's trail ended on Gauda Prime, so he wanted to make >sure the prediction worked. Harriet that is brilliant. Imaginative, plausible, thought provoking, silly and very simply Blake's 7. I would take my hat off to you, if I was wearing one. Ian "I don't suffer from insanity. I enjoy every minute of it" Lay //// :-) \\\\ Watford Internet Football Club Ian@pacific-cc.demon.co.uk or wifc@wfc.net ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 16 Apr 1998 10:08:48 +0100 From: Ian Lay To: pdbean@argonet.co.uk, blakes7@lysator.liu.se Subject: Re: [B7L] Liberator & Orac Message-ID: <01bd6917$4480d4e0$407a0439@Ian_Lay.es.lon.sita.int> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Patrick wrote: >This still dose not explain why Orac could not tell them where start one was! >Any ideas anyone? It's very simple. Orac probably couldn't be bothered to tell them. Let's not forget that in the episode Stardrive, he refused to answer questions precisely because he wasn't going to make up for their "Amazing lack of observation". Therefore he helped Blake gather information on Control and Star One, but wasn't willing to do the thinking for him, as he beleived (and quite rightly) that the answer was within the bounds of human reasoning. Another example of not giving the answer when asked was in the episode Power when he wouldn't tell Tarrant how Pella got into the base. He eventually gave in on that one because it was better than being blown up by the Nuclear Compression Charge. So therefore Orac will help but never really get involved with things which interupt the more taxing projects he's working on. Ian "I don't suffer from insanity. I enjoy every minute of it" Lay //// :-) \\\\ Watford Internet Football Club Ian@pacific-cc.demon.co.uk or wifc@wfc.net ------------------------------ Date: 16 Apr 1998 11:55:55 +0200 From: Calle Dybedahl To: blakes7@lysator.liu.se Subject: Re: [B7L] Liberator & Orac Message-ID: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII "Don Trower" writes: > The Federation IT coders must have been pretty good as the crew had to > obtain a decoder thingy to read the high security messages, as I think > they had Orac by then. No. They steal the decoder in "Seek-Locate-Destroy" (episode 6) and get Orac in "Orac" (episode 13). -- Calle Dybedahl, UNIX Sysadmin qdtcall@esavionics.se http://www.lysator.liu.se/~calle/ ------------------------------ Date: 16 Apr 1998 15:00:08 +0200 From: Calle Dybedahl To: blakes7@lysator.liu.se Subject: [B7L] You can help Blake's 7! Message-ID: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII During the panel with Chris Boucher on Deliverance, it came to the attention of Mr. Boucher and Mr. Maloney that there seems to have been shovings of "Blake's 7" that they don't know of and which they haven't been paid for. This understandably annoyed Mr. Maloney[1], so he decided to try to investigate. And I offered to try to get the mailing list to help. Specifically, I said that I ask you people when and were you've seen Blake's 7 on the air. Physical location, approximate (or exact, if you know it) time, station (preferably with some sort of contact information) and just about anything else that might be relevant is of interest. If you have any information like this, please send it to... b7hunt@lysator.liu.se ...and I will collect it and send it on to David Maloney. -- Calle Dybedahl, UNIX Sysadmin qdtcall@esavionics.se http://www.lysator.liu.se/~calle/ [1] The producer for the entire series, if you didn't already know. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 16 Apr 1998 11:02:55 -0400 From: ay648@yfn.ysu.edu (Carol A. McCoy) To: blakes7@lysator.liu.se Subject: Re: [B7L] Orac (was Re: Liberator) Message-ID: <199804161502.LAA21532@yfn.ysu.edu> Harriet wrote: >see him? Orac WAS that snubnosed gun. Following the success of his >shrinking act in Gambit, he has spent the intervening years perfecting the >art of complete metamorphosis. That was why he was always so busy on >important research. > >And he'd said that Blake's trail ended on Gauda Prime, so he wanted to make >sure the prediction worked. I'd tell you how clever that was, but Iain has already said it all. Bravo for a refreshingly new theory that slips right into canon. I hope you'll consider writing a story based on that idea. Carol McCoy ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 17 Apr 1998 01:16:25 +1000 (EST) From: werry@netspace.net.au (John Werry) To: blakes7@lysator.liu.se Subject: [B7L] Re: Liberator Message-Id: <199804161516.BAA06313@hurricane.netspace.net.au> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Patrick wrote >Yes, didn't the people in 'Moloc' have large replicaters (I know we only see >the small one), so take ORAC to Sardos connect him to one of them and there you >are. :-) > >It is worrying to think that is could have been exactly what Servilan could >have done after GP. The other way to get one would be to pop along to 'Space >World' and see if they have got around to building DSV3 yet. :-) Umm - I'd find it even more worrying to have 2 (or more) ORACs around. Could you imagine? Regards: John ________________________________________________ Secord's Law of Good and Bad - "Anything that is good and useful is made of chocolate." DOHwerry@netspace.net.au (I don't play unless you take away the DOH) http://netspace.net.au/~werry/indexb.htm -------------------------------- End of blakes7-d Digest V98 Issue #113 **************************************