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blakes7-d Digest Volume 99 : Issue 58
Today's Topics:
[B7L] Not Necessarily The Flat Robin 11a
[B7L] Not Necessarily The Flat Robin 11a
Re: [B7L] Avon's background-- speculation
Re: [B7L] Flat Robin #11, by Penny
Re: [B7L] Avon's background-- speculation
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 10 Feb 1999 18:45:27 PST
From: "Penny Dreadful" <pdreadful@hotmail.com>
To: blakes7@lysator.liu.se
Cc: arkaroo@hotmail.com, egomoo@geocities.com
Subject: [B7L] Not Necessarily The Flat Robin 11a
Message-ID: <19990211024531.15187.qmail@hotmail.com>
Content-type: text/plain
(a) I'm calling this the end of the segment I submitted yesterday (or
rather *very* early this morning) but if it conflicts in the *least*
with *anything* someone else was inclined to add (hint hint nudge nudge
wink wink) then it may be disregarded. I don't want the Flat Robin
turned into a Squashed Robin or the Penny Dreadful Monomaniacal No-Life
Society Minutes...I just *gotta* post now you see I'm on a roll (twitch
twitch).
(b) Jeroen, I really didn't mean that to sound so *menacing* as it does
on a re-read. It was a friendly invitation, I swear! Maybe I *should*
start using emoticons...
----------
>Hex's quill laboriously spelled out: +++ Danger, Will Robinson! +++
>
>Ponder stood, fully alert now, and deeply concerned. *How* will it
>'robinson'? he wondered. And when?
***
"Ah, Bursar!" Archchancellor Ridcully grinned broadly as the dart he had
just thrown at the back of his office door embedded itself in Mr.
Imbecile's eyepatch. The Bursar had naturally had the foresight to duck
the instant the door was flung open.
Travis pulled the dart out of his face, looking aggrieved. Servalan
quickly snatched it out of his hand before he could attempt to adhere to
any biblical precepts. Plenty of time for unfortunate incidents after
the job was done. Travis smacked the nearest mutoid in the back of the
head, but rather halfheartedly.
"What brings you here?" Ridcully continued, addressing the Bursar. He
exuded such a convincing obliviousness to the other four people in the
doorway that the Bursar decided they *must* be figments of his
imagination after all, and wandered off without comment to engage in
matters Bursary.
Servalan, on the other hand, was not prepared to be ignored. She swept
imperiously into the room, displaying her charms to full advantage since
that tactic had worked even better than usual with the last two male
humanoids she'd encountered. She leaned over Ridcully's desk even as he
rose to his feet, and extended her hand. Ridcully shook it heartily, and
it took some effort for her not to wince.
"Archchancellor Ridcully at your service," the ruddy wizard said
heartily. "And you would be...?"
"Su-PREME Com-MAN-der Servalan," she responded, extracting her hand
delicately from his. "Perhaps you've heard of me?"
Ridcully assessed her thoughtfully. "No, I don't go into those places
all that often -- you're not the one who does the trick with the
watermelon, are you?"
The mutoids averted their eyes.
"Great abdominal strength, that one," Ridcully said admiringly. "And
remarkable aim, for a girl."
Servalan appeared nonplussed. "Well, never mind that," she said at
length. "You ARE in charge of this city-state, am I correct?"
"Yes," he said. 'In charge of' being a phrase open to so many
interpretations.
"Good," she said. "I and my compatriots have come to warn you of the
great threat which is even now erupting in your midst--"
"The kitchen staff *has* been favouring legumes rather heavily of
late--"
"The great threat which has very recently descended from above,"
continued Servalan, unfazed. "A band of remorseless terrorists from
beyond the stars, armed with weapons beyond your wildest imaginings--"
At this Ridcully seemed for the first time to actually hear what was
being said. Visions of atomized wildlife danced in his head. "--and
intent on wreaking mayhem on the innocent populace of your fair city!"
"Well if it's only the *innocent* populace they're after we're not in a
great deal of danger," Ridcully replied. In Ankh-Morpork the nuns
carried switchblades, and not for self-defense either. Still, all this
talk of armaments had fired up his blood. "And where might these
remorseless terrytowels of yours be found?"
"*That*," said Servalan, "is the question. They could be *anywhere*.
They have *magical* powers of teleportation." She waited in vain for at
least a little of the colour to drain from his face.
"Ah." Ridcully looked disappointed. "More wizards." The fantastickal
engines of destruction in his fantasy crumbling into just another
variation on Mostowski's Collapsing Fireball. "Well, this may not be my
jurisdiction after all." There was a wad of paperwork on the desk in
front of him which had suddenly caught his eye. "You might want to try
the Mended Drum, wizards being wizards. That's just down the block and
across the street from your, ah, place of employ, madam."
And they were invisible again.
***
They walked across the lawn, Servalan's stiletto heels aerating it
viciously with every angry step. A butterfly -- a real one -- fluttered
around Travis' head and he took a bead on it with his gun-arm. Then
lowered the weapon and walked on with a dismissive wave. Servalan eyed
him curiously. They continued in silence toward the main gate.
"Nice day," Travis said eventually. Servalan halted and spun on her
heel, which motion brought a tear to Modo the Groundskeeper's eye a full
mile away[1].
"Nice...day," she repeated slowly. "Travis, what is *wrong* with you?"
"Well, my trousers are a little tight, but other than that I'm doing
quite nicely, thank you."
"I *beg* your *pardon?" Servalan asked icily.
"Sorry, Supreme Commander, I meant to say 'Doing quite nicely, thank
you, Supreme Commander,' Scream Pomander."
"Travis, have you gone completely insane?"
"Frequently," he answered, gazing serenely skyward. "Why look, I do
believe the moon is in the seventh House. Jupiter should be aligning
with Mars any time now, if I'm not mistaken."
Servalan ground her sharp heel into Travis' toe as hard as she could. He
flinched, but made no move to cuff either of the mutoids, though both
were within easy reach and had instinctively braced themselves at the
first sign of the Supreme Commander going on the offensive. Then she
stalked off seething in the direction of the main gate, the mutoids
trailing on either side. Eventually Travis followed.
***
[1] When it comes to feeling disturbances in the Force, the Jedi are
rank amateurs next to Professional Landscape Artists.
______________________________________________________
Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 10 Feb 1999 18:45:39 PST
From: "Penny Dreadful" <pdreadful@hotmail.com>
To: blakes7@lysator.liu.se
Cc: arkaroo@hotmail.com, egomoo@geocities.com
Subject: [B7L] Not Necessarily The Flat Robin 11a
Message-ID: <19990211024541.2566.qmail@hotmail.com>
Content-type: text/plain
(a) I'm calling this the end of the segment I submitted yesterday (or
rather *very* early this morning) but if it conflicts in the *least*
with *anything* someone else was inclined to add (hint hint nudge nudge
wink wink) then it may be disregarded. I don't want the Flat Robin
turned into a Squashed Robin or the Penny Dreadful Monomaniacal No-Life
Society Minutes...I just *gotta* post now you see I'm on a roll (twitch
twitch).
(b) Jeroen, I really didn't mean that to sound so *menacing* as it does
on a re-read. It was a friendly invitation, I swear! Maybe I *should*
start using emoticons...
----------
>Hex's quill laboriously spelled out: +++ Danger, Will Robinson! +++
>
>Ponder stood, fully alert now, and deeply concerned. *How* will it
>'robinson'? he wondered. And when?
***
"Ah, Bursar!" Archchancellor Ridcully grinned broadly as the dart he had
just thrown at the back of his office door embedded itself in Mr.
Imbecile's eyepatch. The Bursar had naturally had the foresight to duck
the instant the door was flung open.
Travis pulled the dart out of his face, looking aggrieved. Servalan
quickly snatched it out of his hand before he could attempt to adhere to
any biblical precepts. Plenty of time for unfortunate incidents after
the job was done. Travis smacked the nearest mutoid in the back of the
head, but rather halfheartedly.
"What brings you here?" Ridcully continued, addressing the Bursar. He
exuded such a convincing obliviousness to the other four people in the
doorway that the Bursar decided they *must* be figments of his
imagination after all, and wandered off without comment to engage in
matters Bursary.
Servalan, on the other hand, was not prepared to be ignored. She swept
imperiously into the room, displaying her charms to full advantage since
that tactic had worked even better than usual with the last two male
humanoids she'd encountered. She leaned over Ridcully's desk even as he
rose to his feet, and extended her hand. Ridcully shook it heartily, and
it took some effort for her not to wince.
"Archchancellor Ridcully at your service," the ruddy wizard said
heartily. "And you would be...?"
"Su-PREME Com-MAN-der Servalan," she responded, extracting her hand
delicately from his. "Perhaps you've heard of me?"
Ridcully assessed her thoughtfully. "No, I don't go into those places
all that often -- you're not the one who does the trick with the
watermelon, are you?"
The mutoids averted their eyes.
"Great abdominal strength, that one," Ridcully said admiringly. "And
remarkable aim, for a girl."
Servalan appeared nonplussed. "Well, never mind that," she said at
length. "You ARE in charge of this city-state, am I correct?"
"Yes," he said. 'In charge of' being a phrase open to so many
interpretations.
"Good," she said. "I and my compatriots have come to warn you of the
great threat which is even now erupting in your midst--"
"The kitchen staff *has* been favouring legumes rather heavily of
late--"
"The great threat which has very recently descended from above,"
continued Servalan, unfazed. "A band of remorseless terrorists from
beyond the stars, armed with weapons beyond your wildest imaginings--"
At this Ridcully seemed for the first time to actually hear what was
being said. Visions of atomized wildlife danced in his head. "--and
intent on wreaking mayhem on the innocent populace of your fair city!"
"Well if it's only the *innocent* populace they're after we're not in a
great deal of danger," Ridcully replied. In Ankh-Morpork the nuns
carried switchblades, and not for self-defense either. Still, all this
talk of armaments had fired up his blood. "And where might these
remorseless terrytowels of yours be found?"
"*That*," said Servalan, "is the question. They could be *anywhere*.
They have *magical* powers of teleportation." She waited in vain for at
least a little of the colour to drain from his face.
"Ah." Ridcully looked disappointed. "More wizards." The fantastickal
engines of destruction in his fantasy crumbling into just another
variation on Mostowski's Collapsing Fireball. "Well, this may not be my
jurisdiction after all." There was a wad of paperwork on the desk in
front of him which had suddenly caught his eye. "You might want to try
the Mended Drum, wizards being wizards. That's just down the block and
across the street from your, ah, place of employ, madam."
And they were invisible again.
***
They walked across the lawn, Servalan's stiletto heels aerating it
viciously with every angry step. A butterfly -- a real one -- fluttered
around Travis' head and he took a bead on it with his gun-arm. Then
lowered the weapon and walked on with a dismissive wave. Servalan eyed
him curiously. They continued in silence toward the main gate.
"Nice day," Travis said eventually. Servalan halted and spun on her
heel, which motion brought a tear to Modo the Groundskeeper's eye a full
mile away[1].
"Nice...day," she repeated slowly. "Travis, what is *wrong* with you?"
"Well, my trousers are a little tight, but other than that I'm doing
quite nicely, thank you."
"I *beg* your *pardon?" Servalan asked icily.
"Sorry, Supreme Commander, I meant to say 'Doing quite nicely, thank
you, Supreme Commander,' Scream Pomander."
"Travis, have you gone completely insane?"
"Frequently," he answered, gazing serenely skyward. "Why look, I do
believe the moon is in the seventh House. Jupiter should be aligning
with Mars any time now, if I'm not mistaken."
Servalan ground her sharp heel into Travis' toe as hard as she could. He
flinched, but made no move to cuff either of the mutoids, though both
were within easy reach and had instinctively braced themselves at the
first sign of the Supreme Commander going on the offensive. Then she
stalked off seething in the direction of the main gate, the mutoids
trailing on either side. Eventually Travis followed.
***
[1] When it comes to feeling disturbances in the Force, the Jedi are
rank amateurs next to Professional Landscape Artists.
______________________________________________________
Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 11 Feb 1999 10:20:09 GMT
From: kminne@camtech.net.au (Ken Minne)
To: <blakes7@lysator.liu.se>
Subject: Re: [B7L] Avon's background-- speculation
Message-ID: <36c2327f.5010908@mail.camtech.net.au>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
Good day all,
Having spent some time catching up on my backlog of messages
downloaded from this list, I thought I might delurk long enough to
post in response to this post.
On Sun, 07 Feb 1999 11:12:00 -0700, Helen wrote:
>Has anyone ever worked with a story where Avon _was_ political himself
>at one time? The Federation thought he was or they wouldn't have
>assigned Bartolomew to 'run' him. Further, he must have been doing
>something to attract their attention _before_ 'Bartolomw' was assigned,
>since B. was Anna, and Avon's motive was supposedly to take her with him
>into the realm of the 'too rich to touch'.
>Why was he afraid of being 'touched' by the Federation? Obviously, he
>was aware of its attitude toward people who upset the status quo in any
>way, and believed that he might be seen as a threat.
>Could it be his reluctance to follow Blake may have had its roots in
>direct experience-- an interest in rebellion/ political dissent that had
>previously been disappointed? It would be very interesting if Avon had
>been attracted to Blake's original Freedom Party (was that the right
>name?) until Blake publically recanted its efforts.
>Obviously, Avon has always been the sort to try to keep the risks
>minimal by hiding his sympathies, but isn't their a saying about a cynic
>being an idealist with experience?
>
As a couple of other posters have already pointed out, under the
Federation, any sufficiently large crime would be considered
political.
Suppose Avon had once been an idealistic young rising star in the
Federation computer services ( I know, I know, I am skating close to
the edge with that image, >;-) ). Unfortunately for Avon, and probably
through no fault of his own, he wound up on the wrong end of a
political power-play, that probably would have involved corruption and
coercion ( like most of the higher level politics in the Federation ).
Though due to his brilliance ( read value to the Federation, not
escapology ), he survived, he was left cynical and disillusioned
because he had discovered that just being honest and good in what you
do was no protection in Federation society.
During the series, Avon is often portrayed as seeking safety, and he
wants enough money to buy his safety. The Federation, and later Avon
himself, consider safety as coming from power.
So Avon's Great scam is designed to gain enough cash to buy out of the
Federation completely, and have enough to make sure that the
Federation does not send assasins to tidy up.
Unfortunately, the No. One computer guy in the Federation has decided
to keep an eye on his rival ( Avon ), and when Avon begins the first
stage of his plan, tips off Federation security that Avon is up to
something. Fed Security, unsure if Avon is working alone or as part of
a larger conspiracy and if he is want to catch the rest, set
Bartholomew ( Anna ) to investigate.
Anna and Avon fall in love, and Anna thinks they can get away with it.
They go a head with the plan, but it fails. Anna pretends to have been
loyal to the Federation and gets Avon tossed on the London rather than
executed, and goes on to hatch other plots against the Federation
leadership.
Although overt dissent tended to be ruthlessly suppressed in the
Federation, there was also a constant tension between different parts
of the Federation. That the lawyers from The Way Back even existed in
the Federation shows that there was at least a pretense of the rule of
law, or that one faction could act against another if they had
sufficient excuse. Different factions would have had different policy
priorities, whether from altruism ( ie killing innocent civillians is
not a good idea ) or pragmatism ( ie those innocent civillians cost me
a fortune to train/feed/transport ). The original Freedom Party may
have started as a particularly altruistic faction, that crossed the
line whne it tried to become a mass movement.
Now, have I duplicated the backstory to anyone's fanfic?
Comments Welcome,
Walter Minne
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 11 Feb 1999 18:21:12 +0000
From: Julia Jones <julia.lysator@jajones.demon.co.uk>
To: blakes7@lysator.liu.se
Subject: Re: [B7L] Flat Robin #11, by Penny
Message-ID: <F3IGFJAY+xw2Ewzi@jajones.demon.co.uk>
In message <19990210093534.1128.qmail@hotmail.com>, Penny Dreadful
<pdreadful@hotmail.com> writes
>But the Senior Wrangler wasn't listening. He was staring at Servalan and
>turning a rather alarming shade of maroon. And she, in her turn, seemed
>uncustomarily enthralled by the Senior Wrangler. Perhaps it was his
>dressing gown -- a relatively (on the U.U. Tackiness Scale) sedate
>number in red velvet, gold lame, white ostrich feathers, silver sequins,
>black satin lining, sparklers all around the collar and the lips and
>eyelids of five unique endangered species for trim. "My God, Travis,"
>she whispered huskily, "we've finally landed on a planet where the
>natives have some *taste*."
<hysterical giggling>
Keep going, ladies, I'm enjoying it immensely.
--
Julia Jones
"Don't philosophise with me, you electronic moron!"
The Turing test - as interpreted by Kerr Avon.
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 12 Feb 1999 00:13:12 EST
From: Pherber@aol.com
To: kminne@camtech.net.au, blakes7@lysator.liu.se
Subject: Re: [B7L] Avon's background-- speculation
Message-ID: <3ba788f0.36c3b868@aol.com>
Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit
In a message dated 2/11/99 3:23:15 AM Mountain Standard Time,
kminne@camtech.net.au writes:
<< Suppose Avon had once been an idealistic young rising star in the
Federation computer services ( I know, I know, I am skating close to
the edge with that image, >;-) ). Unfortunately for Avon, and probably
through no fault of his own, he wound up on the wrong end of a
political power-play, that probably would have involved corruption and
coercion ( like most of the higher level politics in the Federation ).
Though due to his brilliance ( read value to the Federation, not
escapology ), he survived, he was left cynical and disillusioned
because he had discovered that just being honest and good in what you
do was no protection in Federation society. >>
Sounds quite plausible to me. Avon's potential must have made him fairly
conspicuous and a tempting target for some unscrupulous superior to try to use
for their own motives. It also provides a possible explanation for why Avon
was banished instead of 'rehabilitated.' A life sentence to Cygnus Alpha
always struck me as a rather extreme penalty to impose on someone of Avon's
abilities for a first offense, even one of that magnitude. But add to it a
history of being on the losing side of a political fight and a bad case of
Attitude, sending him off-planet permanently might suddenly seem like a good
idea to the authorities. Certainly it would be cheaper than keeping him under
surveillance constantly.
Nina McClure
--------------------------------
End of blakes7-d Digest V99 Issue #58
*************************************