From: blakes7-d-request@lysator.liu.se Subject: blakes7-d Digest V98 #114 X-Loop: blakes7-d@lysator.liu.se X-Mailing-List: archive/volume98/114 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 114 Today's Topics: [B7L] Oh no, not Tarrant... [B7L] Liberator and Orac [B7L] Orac (was Re: Liberator) Re: [B7L] model orac Re: [B7L] Liberator & Orac [B7L] Re: Liberator & Orac [B7L] Cancer (was Re: Power) RE: [B7L] Oh no, not Tarrant... Re: [B7L] Re: Liberator Re: [B7L] Oh no, not Tarrant... Re: [B7L] Re: Liberator & Orac Re: [B7L] Liberator [B7L] friends [B7L] Visions Re: [B7L] orac (was liberator) [B7L] Re: sardos Re: [B7L] Orac (was Re: Liberator) ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 16 Apr 1998 17:46:01 +0100 From: Russ Massey To: blakes7@lysator.liu.se Subject: [B7L] Oh no, not Tarrant... Message-ID: Here's another of Neil's musings on fan fiction writing. No reproduction for profit, and no copying unless the author's name is retained if you please. OH NO, NOT TARRANT... Thoughts on writing the B7 characters by Neil Faulkner (from AltaZine #4) ...or Dayna, or Servalan, or Gan, or... I suppose most fan writers have come up against it at some time or other: the fact that some B7 characters are harder to write for than others. This can be a real problem because a fan writer is often stuck with the presence of a character he or she would rather not have to handle. I can't speak for other writers, only myself, but I detect three different aspects interlocking (or rather, failing to interlock) with each other: the characters I like the most; the characters I particularly want to write; and the ease with which I can handle them when writing. When all three fall together, then fine. Otherwise, big problem. I know who my favourite character is - Cally. Not just for looking at (though I don't deny that comes into it) but for all the things I associate with Cally. Energy, determination, practicality, courage, sensitivity, level-headedness. And some less positive aspects as well - her loneliness, fanaticism, a potential for ruthlessness, self-absorption, guilt. I can see them all. They fit in with how I've come to see Cally over the years, as a woman who has seen, and has done some pretty awful things on Saurian Major, been driven to the point of self-destruction, and then been offered a chance to start again, rebuild herself into what she might have wanted to have been. Basically, I see Cally as a distressed war veteran, struggling to come to terms with her past. If that doesn't square with the Cally you saw in the series, then that only highlights another conflict facing the fan writer: the character as portrayed in the canon, and the character you ideally want him or her to be. I don't think anyone would deny that fan writers idealise the characters they write about. I think it's one of the primary motives for writing fanfic in the first place. I don't think readers object too strongly, either. They seem to lap up all the various interpretations of their favourites, except for the ones they take a real objection to. And the interpretations certainly do vary - compare Judith Seaman's Blake to Sondra Sweigman's for a real contrast of extremes (and I know which of the two I prefer. Not the one that merely uses Blake as a means of sticking Avon on a pedestal). I'm hardly one to complain, since I do it with Cally, but I find it an interesting process and I'm not sure all fan writers go about it the same way. My concept of Cally arose partly out of the kind of Cally I would like to have seen in the series (and therefore also the kind of Cally I would like to write about), but also through thinking over what the aired series offered to write about in the first place. Which isn't all that much on its own. What it comes down to is getting a grip on the character. Call it empathy if you want, though I'm not sure that's the best word in all cases. But somehow you've got to get a foot in the door, as it were, and sometimes the door can be hard to find Sometimes you have to knock a hole in the wall. But I don't think you can write for a character without finding first some identifiable common territory, that bit of them that you can also see in yourself. Cally might be my favourite character, but I actually find Tarrant and Travis easier to write for. Perhaps it's because they both have military backgrounds, which is a bit odd since I haven't worn a uniform since I left school. But the military thing still appeals (like a lot of people, I'm rather interested in military hardware whilst not exactly liking what it does), and the tension between image/ideal and the underlying reality automatically puts a tension within those two characters. They have something to live up to, but they can't necessarily manage it all the time. It's the same with Blake: he has a fairly obvious personal agenda, namely blitzing the Federation off the face of the galaxy. But he also has the ability to see all (or at least most) sides of an issue and weighing them up against each other. I find Blake most interesting when he is pulled between the course he wants to take and the one he feels he ought to - which will win out? Cally likewise, I see as someone with ideals that can't always be met. Again, there is a tension there. Other characters I find much harder to get to grips with. I would once have said that Jenna was probably the hardest B7 character of all to write, though I've since found a door to stick my foot in. As with Cally, it took a bit of figurative carpentry on my part, but her initial antipathy to Cally was a useful lead. What if a pig-headed xenophobic bigot lurked in the depths of Jenna's psyche? Not very flattering, true, but I've always found the murkier depths of the mind to be far more interesting than the bright and shiny bits, and a character is all the more interesting for his or her flaws. From that slender thread I wove a whole tapestry of Jenna's past, though I've yet to get it down in a complete story. Some characters are just plain impossible. What the hell do I do with Gan, for example? I have actually written a Gan story, which I took on mainly as a challenge, but he soon got overshadowed by an original character of my own devising. Gan ended up just sort of being there, as a line of argument for the broader philosophical themes of the story. Dayna is also a problem, which is odd because she has the most detailed background of any character in the series, but it doesn't offer much to get a hold on. Besides, I'm not terribly interested in Dayna (no, not even in *that* way). Or Gan for that matter. Soolin ought to be a real pull for me. She's virtually a blank canvas, and there's a lot of space to splash paint on. I know the kind of Soolin I want to write - hopelessly screwed up behind her cold, calculating facade - and the fact that she was 4th Season only gives me no qualms about redesigning the character any way I see fit. I suspect that it's because she *was* 4th Season only that puts me off writing her in, because to do that I would have to either redesign the feel of that season or go along with all the junk that I had to endure on screen (Slave springs horribly to mind). Basically, I hate the infantile series 4 and half-wish they hadn't made it. I've only written one S4 story, set entirely on Xenon, and there wasn't a part in it for Soolin even if I'd wanted to include her. Servalan is a problem too, but for another reason. I can't find a way of getting her into a story. Being a stickler for what I regard as plausibility, I can't just dump her into the action when I know she ought to be halfway across the galaxy sitting behind a desk. As yet, none of the plots that I've felt compelled to write have given so much as half an excuse for Servalan to encounter the crew. So if I ever write for Servalan, it's going to be her and her only as far as the regulars are concerned. And what about Avon and Vila? I like them both in the series. They got more than their fair share of the action, and some of the best lines. But I find it a hard slog writing for either of them, which is a bit of a problem because they're neither of them easy to marginalise in a story. In some ways I find them both difficult to approach. I mean, I can walk right up to Gan or Soolin and find little more than empty space (thank you, scriptwriters), but I can't get near Avon or Vila. Or if I can, then I can't seem to get my foot in the door. There are too many doors to choose from, and they all lead into an unnavigable labyrinth. It's not too difficult to pick on one aspect of Avon or Vila, but then there's the problem of squaring it with all the others. No, I don't like writing either of them. It might be because I can't find the angle that pulls me into Blake or Travis or Cally. If there's a common thread running through my stories, the serious ones at any rate, it's of people struggling to climb out of the muck of demand and need and to do themselves justice as human beings. That near-hopeless inner struggle doesn't really apply to Avon or Vila. Vila's all too human to start with, and Avon doesn't give a squit (I know Sondra, for one, would loudly disagree with that, but I have to be true to the way I perceive the characters, just as any fan writer does). *Last Stand at the Edge of the World* creates an inner conflict for Vila, but it doesn't really suit him. He goes with the flow and takes what comes too easily. The wracking torments that fan writers devise for Avon are equally lacking in conviction, and the one episode that hints of an inner pull within the character - *Terminal* - has "Plot Device" stamped all over it. True there is a dichotomy between what Avon said he wanted (get rich and hide somewhere) and what he did (stay with Blake), but I can't for the life of me reconcile it. I can't accept any of the reasons various fan stories offer, least of all the slash ones, and until I can come up with a reason of my own, I'm going to approach Avon in my fiction very cautiously. At the beginning of this article, I mentioned three ways in which the characters can pull a fan who wants to write B7 fiction. How do they pull me, or rather who pulls me in what direction? Well, the ones that I most enjoy watching would be Cally, Avon and Vila, probably in that order. The ones I find I most want to write about are Cally, Jenna and Blake, in no real order at all. But the ones I find easiest to write are Tarrant, Travis and - limping in third place - Cally. Since only Cally seems to be going all three ways at once, perhaps it's no surprise that she tends to figure more highly than most in the bulk of the fiction that I write. Do other fan writers experience the same problem in the same way? I wouldn't mind knowing. -- transcribed by Russ Massey ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 16 Apr 1998 19:47:31 +0100 (BST) From: Judith Proctor To: Lysator List Subject: [B7L] Liberator and Orac Message-ID: Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit On Thu 16 Apr, Bill Billingsley wrote: > 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. It's quite possible that tariel comminications utilise a different dimension and thus cannot be triangluated. We know that Orac's carrier wave does not use normal space (Shadow). Against this is the fact that Orac's communicatios were said to be faster than anything else (Star One) which suggests he did something that normal tariel communications did not. I certainly believe that Star One's location was not recorded. My personal hypothesis is that Travis was lying when he said Central Control was moved 20 years ago (Lureena's unchanged apparance and Docholli's survival on the run both point to this) I think it was moved when Orac came onto the scene. AS soon as it was known what Orac could do (and Servalan knew that before Blake got hold of it), it was evident that Central Control was at risk. Star One was then set up in a hurry, utilising a pre-existing station designed to control the alien defence grid. They made sure its location was never recorded on a computer. There are also implied limits to Orac's abilities. Although Orac could control other computers, they never used Orac to try and control Central or Star One from a distance. This suggests that an aggressive firewall could keep Orac out, or else that his abilities were limited to data extraction unless the computer was small/close by. All known cases of Orac controlling other computers occur when Orac is physically close to the computer in question. Judith PS. Although I don't know details of Horizon's replica Orac, I'd expect it to be good. Their Liberator handgun was excellent. -- 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 17:24:30 EDT From: penny_kjelgaard@juno.com To: blakes7@lysator.liu.se Subject: [B7L] Orac (was Re: Liberator) Message-ID: <19980416.141717.16943.2.Penny_Kjelgaard@juno.com> Harriet! Brilliant. I concur with the others. Very inventive and completely B7. Peace, Penny _____________________________________________________________________ You don't need to buy Internet access to use free Internet e-mail. Get completely free e-mail from Juno at http://www.juno.com Or call Juno at (800) 654-JUNO [654-5866] ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 16 Apr 1998 20:39:08 +0100 From: JMR To: blakes7@lysator.liu.se Subject: Re: [B7L] model orac Message-Id: <3.0.2.32.19980416203908.0069e2fc@clara.net> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At 00:38 15/04/98 BST, pdbean@argonet.co.uk wrote: >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. > Though I'm only dealing with "Horizon" zines, the position on the model Oracs is, as I understand it, that there have been enough orders for construction to commence. Anyone still wishing to place orders is not too late as long as they act promptly. All queries re. the Oracs and "Horizon" merchandise in general should be directed to Diane Gies at: diane@horizon.org.uk Diane is more than happy to answer all queries, and is definitely the best person to contact for any "Horizon" information. Judith J.M. Rolls jager@clara.net ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 17 Apr 1998 09:34:09 +1000 From: Bill Billingsley To: blakes7@lysator.liu.se Subject: Re: [B7L] Liberator & Orac Message-Id: <3.0.1.32.19980417093409.006baa38@rabbit> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At 11:55 16/04/98 +0200, Calle wrote: >"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). They then have to steal another decoder crystal in "Killer" when they certainly do have Orac. -------------------------------------------------------- The Loch Mess Monster (occaisionally mistaken as Bill Billingsley) ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 16 Apr 1998 21:55:38 -0400 From: Harriet Monkhouse <101637.2064@compuserve.com> To: "INTERNET:blakes7@lysator.liu.se" Subject: [B7L] Re: Liberator & Orac Message-ID: <199804162155_MC2-3A26-D351@compuserve.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Disposition: inline Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Calle replied to Don: >> 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). But aren't they after another decoder on Tynus's base in "Killer" (episode 20)? Harriet ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 16 Apr 1998 21:56:24 -0400 From: Harriet Monkhouse <101637.2064@compuserve.com> To: "INTERNET:blakes7@lysator.liu.se" Subject: [B7L] Cancer (was Re: Power) Message-ID: <199804162156_MC2-3A26-D35B@compuserve.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Disposition: inline Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Bill asked: >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 thought they should have turned out to be a husband-and-wife team. Piri: "How could you possibly believe I cared about you, Tarrant, when I have a Real Man like Nebrox at my side?" Harriet ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 17 Apr 1998 14:21:31 +1200 From: "Graham, Gregory" To: blakes7@lysator.liu.se Subject: RE: [B7L] Oh no, not Tarrant... Message-ID: <710458B7BCD3D011897D0000F8003AB791D934@invex.agresearch.cri.nz> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Wow! Another cool article, thanks Russ, these articles are really interst/educational. I've never tried to write fanfictn but you, almost, have me ready to take it on. Now for the comments. I understand your three main points and appreciate the difficultly with getting a handle on some the characters. Soolin and Dayna I have always had a problem with, they seem very thinly developed and illdesigned. Dayna had at least a desire for revenge against Servalan but Soolin always seemed to be hanging around because she had nothing better to do. I could be wrong I really haven't watched that many eps of her. Avon and Vila seem to a lot easier though. Surely Avon's character is based around traumatic events in his past (the F***ed Up Heist et al) and his desire never to hurt so much again. Thus he maintains the Avon First, Avon Only front while actually, deep deep down, caring and wanted to be loved (God help me, I must be channelling a Judith). Basically the Cold Bastard (apologies to sensitive readers) is a front. The front starts to crack after Blake disappears and all of Avons plans come to naught. Being deliberately cold and shallow doesn't allow Avon to care about anything and thus robs him of direction and commitment. His schemes are thus automatically doomed when set against Servalan's drive and total focus. Despite himself Avon recognises this, as any intelligent person would, and seeks out the only person he can subordinate himself to (thus removing the need to be driven), Blake. When Blake seems to be another shallow betrayer the whole world crashes down around Avon as he no longer has an escape route from his own failure. I would like to suggest this is a reason why we should be thankful there was no fifth series. Anyway Avon is a man who has fought and defeated his own past but doomed by his own victory. Vila on the other hand is always worried about the future and completely oblivious to his past. Unfortunately his past has been such a downer it colours his view of the future. What he really wants, like any engineer type, is a nice quiet place to rest and tinker, possibly bring up some kids, that sort of thing. What he gets is Galactic Rebellions, assassins around every corner, constant fights and retreats, and friends who think this is normal. Hell I'd drink myself to unconsciousness in that situation( "three more gargleblasters thank you barkeep" :]). I always liked "the end of the world" ep because it finally showed Vila having fun fighting an enemy he understood and finding what he actually wanted. Why he is still with B7 and Avon is an interesting question. I think it's because he's weak and feels he needs someone else to be strong for him. Avon looked like a good candidate until "Orbit". Possibly a good story could be woven around Vila's resentment at needing someone else to fight his battles? Gan always struck me as important but not actually interesting. His place seemed to be in being a pillar of strength and a point of referance for the rest of the crew. While everyone else stole the limelight with their tantrums and schemes, Gan just showed that there was nothing really all that exciting happening. Damned useful when the whole galaxy is trying to kill you and you're one panic attack from losing the fight. The unfortunate problem is this makes him damned hard to use interestingly. Flashbacks are probably the only way to use his character without upsetting his place in B7. Ooops this quick reply is getting longer than the article. I'd better get back to work and continue later. TTFN Greg > =============================================== > The opinions of this person have little to do with reality let alone > ==================AgResearch==================== > EvangeList, http://www.evangelist.macaddict.com/ > > > -----Original Message----- > From: Russ Massey [SMTP:russ@wriding.demon.co.uk] > Sent: Friday, April 17, 1998 4:46 AM > To: blakes7@lysator.liu.se > Subject: [B7L] Oh no, not Tarrant... > > Here's another of Neil's musings on fan fiction writing. No > reproduction for > profit, and no copying unless the author's name is retained if you > please. > > > > OH NO, NOT TARRANT... > Thoughts on writing the B7 characters > > by Neil Faulkner (from AltaZine #4) > > ...or Dayna, or Servalan, or Gan, or... I suppose most fan writers > have come > up against it at some time or other: the fact that some B7 characters > are > harder to write for than others. This can be a real problem because a > fan > writer is often stuck with the presence of a character he or she would > rather > not have to handle. I can't speak for other writers, only myself, but > I detect > three different aspects interlocking (or rather, failing to interlock) > with each > other: the characters I like the most; the characters I particularly > want to > write; and the ease with which I can handle them when writing. When > all three > fall together, then fine. Otherwise, big problem. > > I know who my favourite character is - Cally. Not just for looking at > (though > I don't deny that comes into it) but for all the things I associate > with Cally. > Energy, determination, practicality, courage, sensitivity, > level-headedness. > And some less positive aspects as well - her loneliness, fanaticism, a > potential > for ruthlessness, self-absorption, guilt. I can see them all. They fit > in with > how I've come to see Cally over the years, as a woman who has seen, > and > has done some pretty awful things on Saurian Major, been driven to the > point > of self-destruction, and then been offered a chance to start again, > rebuild > herself into what she might have wanted to have been. Basically, I see > Cally > as a distressed war veteran, struggling to come to terms with her > past. If that > doesn't square with the Cally you saw in the series, then that only > highlights > another conflict facing the fan writer: the character as portrayed in > the canon, > and the character you ideally want him or her to be. > > I don't think anyone would deny that fan writers idealise the > characters they > write about. I think it's one of the primary motives for writing > fanfic in the > first place. I don't think readers object too strongly, either. They > seem to lap > up all the various interpretations of their favourites, except for the > ones they > take a real objection to. And the interpretations certainly do vary - > compare > Judith Seaman's Blake to Sondra Sweigman's for a real contrast of > extremes > (and I know which of the two I prefer. Not the one that merely uses > Blake as > a means of sticking Avon on a pedestal). I'm hardly one to complain, > since I > do it with Cally, but I find it an interesting process and I'm not > sure all fan > writers go about it the same way. My concept of Cally arose partly out > of the > kind of Cally I would like to have seen in the series (and therefore > also the > kind of Cally I would like to write about), but also through thinking > over what > the aired series offered to write about in the first place. Which > isn't all that > much on its own. > > What it comes down to is getting a grip on the character. Call it > empathy if > you want, though I'm not sure that's the best word in all cases. But > somehow > you've got to get a foot in the door, as it were, and sometimes the > door can > be hard to find Sometimes you have to knock a hole in the wall. But I > don't > think you can write for a character without finding first some > identifiable > common territory, that bit of them that you can also see in yourself. > > Cally might be my favourite character, but I actually find Tarrant and > Travis > easier to write for. Perhaps it's because they both have military > backgrounds, > which is a bit odd since I haven't worn a uniform since I left school. > But the > military thing still appeals (like a lot of people, I'm rather > interested in military > hardware whilst not exactly liking what it does), and the tension > between > image/ideal and the underlying reality automatically puts a tension > within those > two characters. They have something to live up to, but they can't > necessarily > manage it all the time. It's the same with Blake: he has a fairly > obvious > personal agenda, namely blitzing the Federation off the face of the > galaxy. > But he also has the ability to see all (or at least most) sides of an > issue and > weighing them up against each other. I find Blake most interesting > when he is > pulled between the course he wants to take and the one he feels he > ought to - > which will win out? Cally likewise, I see as someone with ideals that > can't > always be met. Again, there is a tension there. > > Other characters I find much harder to get to grips with. I would once > have > said that Jenna was probably the hardest B7 character of all to write, > though > I've since found a door to stick my foot in. As with Cally, it took a > bit of > figurative carpentry on my part, but her initial antipathy to Cally > was a useful > lead. What if a pig-headed xenophobic bigot lurked in the depths of > Jenna's > psyche? Not very flattering, true, but I've always found the murkier > depths of > the mind to be far more interesting than the bright and shiny bits, > and a > character is all the more interesting for his or her flaws. From that > slender > thread I wove a whole tapestry of Jenna's past, though I've yet to get > it down > in a complete story. > > Some characters are just plain impossible. What the hell do I do with > Gan, > for example? I have actually written a Gan story, which I took on > mainly as a > challenge, but he soon got overshadowed by an original character of my > own > devising. Gan ended up just sort of being there, as a line of argument > for the > broader philosophical themes of the story. Dayna is also a problem, > which is > odd because she has the most detailed background of any character in > the > series, but it doesn't offer much to get a hold on. Besides, I'm not > terribly > interested in Dayna (no, not even in *that* way). Or Gan for that > matter. > > Soolin ought to be a real pull for me. She's virtually a blank canvas, > and > there's a lot of space to splash paint on. I know the kind of Soolin I > want to > write - hopelessly screwed up behind her cold, calculating facade - > and the > fact that she was 4th Season only gives me no qualms about redesigning > the > character any way I see fit. I suspect that it's because she *was* 4th > Season > only that puts me off writing her in, because to do that I would have > to either > redesign the feel of that season or go along with all the junk that I > had to > endure on screen (Slave springs horribly to mind). Basically, I hate > the > infantile series 4 and half-wish they hadn't made it. I've only > written one S4 > story, set entirely on Xenon, and there wasn't a part in it for Soolin > even if I'd > wanted to include her. > > Servalan is a problem too, but for another reason. I can't find a way > of > getting her into a story. Being a stickler for what I regard as > plausibility, I > can't just dump her into the action when I know she ought to be > halfway > across the galaxy sitting behind a desk. As yet, none of the plots > that I've felt > compelled to write have given so much as half an excuse for Servalan > to > encounter the crew. So if I ever write for Servalan, it's going to be > her and > her only as far as the regulars are concerned. > > And what about Avon and Vila? I like them both in the series. They got > more > than their fair share of the action, and some of the best lines. But I > find it a > hard slog writing for either of them, which is a bit of a problem > because > they're neither of them easy to marginalise in a story. In some ways I > find > them both difficult to approach. I mean, I can walk right up to Gan or > Soolin > and find little more than empty space (thank you, scriptwriters), but > I can't > get near Avon or Vila. Or if I can, then I can't seem to get my foot > in the > door. There are too many doors to choose from, and they all lead into > an > unnavigable labyrinth. It's not too difficult to pick on one aspect of > Avon or > Vila, but then there's the problem of squaring it with all the others. > No, I don't > like writing either of them. > > It might be because I can't find the angle that pulls me into Blake or > Travis or > Cally. If there's a common thread running through my stories, the > serious > ones at any rate, it's of people struggling to climb out of the muck > of demand > and need and to do themselves justice as human beings. That > near-hopeless > inner struggle doesn't really apply to Avon or Vila. Vila's all too > human to > start with, and Avon doesn't give a squit (I know Sondra, for one, > would > loudly disagree with that, but I have to be true to the way I perceive > the > characters, just as any fan writer does). *Last Stand at the Edge of > the > World* creates an inner conflict for Vila, but it doesn't really suit > him. He > goes with the flow and takes what comes too easily. The wracking > torments > that fan writers devise for Avon are equally lacking in conviction, > and the one > episode that hints of an inner pull within the character - *Terminal* > - has > "Plot Device" stamped all over it. True there is a dichotomy between > what > Avon said he wanted (get rich and hide somewhere) and what he did > (stay > with Blake), but I can't for the life of me reconcile it. I can't > accept any of the > reasons various fan stories offer, least of all the slash ones, and > until I can > come up with a reason of my own, I'm going to approach Avon in my > fiction > very cautiously. > > At the beginning of this article, I mentioned three ways in which the > characters can pull a fan who wants to write B7 fiction. How do they > pull me, > or rather who pulls me in what direction? > Well, the ones that I most enjoy watching would be Cally, > Avon > and Vila, probably in that order. The ones I find I most want to write > about > are Cally, Jenna and Blake, in no real order at all. But the ones I > find easiest > to write are Tarrant, Travis and - limping in third place - Cally. > Since only > Cally seems to be going all three ways at once, perhaps it's no > surprise that > she tends to figure more highly than most in the bulk of the fiction > that I > write. > > Do other fan writers experience the same problem in the same way? I > wouldn't mind knowing. > > > -- > transcribed by > Russ Massey ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 17 Apr 1998 07:55:43 +1000 From: Kathryn Andersen To: "Blake's 7 List" Subject: Re: [B7L] Re: Liberator Message-ID: <19980417075543.46794@welkin.apana.org.au> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii On Fri, Apr 17, 1998 at 01:16:25AM +1000, John Werry wrote: > 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? Or Orac could be like Jane in Orson Scott Card's "Speaker For the Dead" - it's only actually possible for there to be one of him. That is, most of him resides in the Tarriel net, and if you built another of him, it would simply be another access-point to the one, original Orac. My take on Sardos is that once Moloch died, the system broke down somewhat, because Moloch had made himself into the system. Servalan would have had to have replicated those ships before Our Heros killed Moloch anyway, because of the time it would have taken. But moving the planet was a good idea too. -- _--_|\ | Kathryn Andersen / \ | http://connexus.apana.org.au/~kat \_.--.*/ | #include "std/disclaimer.h" v | ------------| Melbourne -> Victoria -> Australia -> Southern Hemisphere Maranatha! | -> Earth -> Sol -> Milky Way Galaxy -> Universe ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 17 Apr 1998 07:08:45 +0100 From: Russ Massey To: "Graham, Gregory" Cc: blakes7@lysator.liu.se Subject: Re: [B7L] Oh no, not Tarrant... Message-ID: <9JhLzCAtHvN1EwSn@wriding.demon.co.uk> In message <710458B7BCD3D011897D0000F8003AB791D934@invex.agres earch.cri.nz>, "Graham, Gregory" writes >Wow! Another cool article, thanks Russ, these articles are really >interst/educational. I've never tried to write fanfictn but you, >almost, have me ready to take it on. > Go on! What've you got to lose? By the way, I should emphasise that Neil Faulkner is the actual author of the bulk of the articles I've been posting - I'm just the muggins who wears his typing fingers to bloody nubs. >Now for the comments. > >I understand your three main points and appreciate the difficultly with >getting a handle on some the characters. Soolin and Dayna I have always >had a problem with, they seem very thinly developed and illdesigned. >Dayna had at least a desire for revenge against Servalan but Soolin >always seemed to be hanging around because she had nothing better to do. >I could be wrong I really haven't watched that many eps of her. > It was okay to set Dayna up with a revenge motivation, but then it became tricky for the writers to provide explanations for why she *didn't* kill Servalan when she had a chance. I'm actually starting to get more comfortable with the idea of writing Soolin, after a long period where I couldn't really see anything in her character that wasn't stereotypical. >Avon and Vila seem to a lot easier though. Surely Avon's character is >based around traumatic events in his past (the F***ed Up Heist et al) >and his desire never to hurt so much again. Thus he maintains the Avon >First, Avon Only front while actually, deep deep down, caring and wanted >to be loved (God help me, I must be channelling a Judith). Er. I'd say that this view of Avon is out towards one of the far ends of that fanfic dimension that has the interpretations of Avon on it. Not that I don't think it couldn't be valid - it's just not the way I see him. Avon first isn't a front, in my view. It's a reflection of his solipsistic belief that his life is *genuinely* more valuable than that of the average person because of his intelligence and abilities. I'd tend to see his abrasiveness as deliberately cultivated from youth to hide a nervousness about his possible emotional naivety. > Basically >the Cold Bastard (apologies to sensitive readers) is a front. The front >starts to crack after Blake disappears and all of Avons plans come to >naught. I agree that his self-confidence gets badly shaken in the last two series. -- Russ Massey ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 17 Apr 1998 10:10:58 +0100 From: Ian Lay To: Harriet Monkhouse <101637.2064@compuserve.com>, blakes7@lysator.liu.se Subject: Re: [B7L] Re: Liberator & Orac Message-ID: <01bd69e0$bc46f6c0$407a0439@Ian_Lay.es.lon.sita.int> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Harriet wrote: >>No. They steal the decoder in "Seek-Locate-Destroy" (episode >> 6) and get Orac in "Orac" (episode 13). > >But aren't they after another decoder on Tynus's base in "Killer" (episode >20)? Yes and no. They are after a crystal which they need to break the Federations new codes. 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: Fri, 17 Apr 1998 14:24:05 +0100 From: "Julie Horner" To: Subject: Re: [B7L] Liberator Message-Id: <199804171322.PAA26474@samantha.lysator.liu.se> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit ---------- > From: Reuben Herfindahl : > >At 18:54 14/04/98 +0100, Judith wrote: > > > >>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. > > Reuben I hear it more as a ngeeee than a ahhhh - and doesn't he say it when they switch him on as well? Julie ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 17 Apr 1998 07:48:20 +0100 (BST) From: Judith Proctor To: Lysator List Subject: [B7L] friends Message-ID: Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII Now and then, I think I've done virtually all I can do in B7 fandom and I contemplate moving on elsewhere. Then something small will happen to remind me the reason why I stay. It isn't so much the fandom (wonderful though the characters are) but the fans. That mental surge of 'wonderful' when I realise that I've got an opportunity to meet another fan friend in the flesh once more makes me remember just how much I enjoy the company of fans. I've had other interests over the years, but I look around my life now, and all the people I really enjoy being with (outside family) are people I met via fandom. So, 'happy unbirthday' everyone, I'm feeling happy today because I'm meeting more friends next month. 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: Fri, 17 Apr 1998 15:58:05 +0100 (BST) From: Judith Proctor To: Lysator List Subject: [B7L] Visions Message-ID: Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII I'm told by the organisers for Visions that Gareth will be dressing as Blake again on the Saturday. Those who missed him at Wolf 359 have got another opportunity. 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: Fri, 17 Apr 98 17:43:42 BST From: pdbean@argonet.co.uk (Patrick Bean) To: blakes7@lysator.liu.se Subject: Re: [B7L] orac (was liberator) Message-Id: Content-Type: text/plain On Thu 16 Apr 98 (21:13:30 +0200), blakes7-d-request@lysator.liu.se wrote: > didn't he do something in Redemption to the computer system used by > Liberator's builders, implying he had knowledge of their systems? That was before 'shadow' ie. before the bomb was installed. -- __ __ __ __ __ ___ _____________________________________________ |__||__)/ __/ \|\ ||_ | / pdbean@argonet.co.uk (Patrick David Bean) | || \\__/\__/| \||__ | /...Internet access for all Acorn RISC machines ___________________________/ Web http://www.argonet.co.uk/users/pdbean ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 17 Apr 98 18:35:17 BST From: pdbean@argonet.co.uk (Patrick Bean) To: blakes7@lysator.liu.se Subject: [B7L] Re: sardos Message-Id: Content-Type: text/plain On Thu 16 Apr 98 (21:13:30 +0200), blakes7-d-request@lysator.liu.se 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. In Terminal, 2 epsodes after Moloc there was a lot of reference to 'duplication' as in; AVON "do you really think you can duplicate the liberator" SERVERLAN "I have assembled a team of scientists who are sure they can....." Now it is anyone's guess, this could mean just copy, but.... -- __ __ __ __ __ ___ _____________________________________________ |__||__)/ __/ \|\ ||_ | / pdbean@argonet.co.uk (Patrick David Bean) | || \\__/\__/| \||__ | /...Internet access for all Acorn RISC machines ___________________________/ Web http://www.argonet.co.uk/users/pdbean ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 17 Apr 1998 22:01:45 +0100 From: Julia Jones To: blakes7@lysator.liu.se Subject: Re: [B7L] Orac (was Re: Liberator) Message-ID: In message <199804152158_MC2-3A04-482C@compuserve.com>, Harriet Monkhouse <101637.2064@compuserve.com> writes > >I know Headhunter messes this up, but Headhunter messes up a lot of things, >chiefly one's aesthetic sensibilities. > Speak for yourself, dear. Having watched it on UK Gold last week, I quite enjoyed the "Avon with tousled hair" count, especially when combined with the "Avon unconscious" bit. -- Julia Jones "Don't philosophise with me, you electronic moron!" The Turing test - as interpreted by Kerr Avon. -------------------------------- End of blakes7-d Digest V98 Issue #114 **************************************