Harriere wrote
Jenny replied to me:
He relates the prophecy to the new aliens, arriving in the aftermath of the Galactic War.
But doesn't he go on to say something like "hunt the strangers down and kill them?"
Yes - but in the context he appears to mean the strangers who have just arrived, ie Captain Yates and the other bloke (and, later, Avon).
But he does use this on all of them, doesn't he?
But my point was that he *hadn't* got rid of the Mellanbys and, although they had killed some of the locals, they hadn't actually destroyed their society yet.
Doesn't mean they won't :-)-- and it's useful that they haven't because it keeps the threat still potential. The Sarran do see a connection between the newcomers and the Mellanbys anyway, and when they find the hatch they do try to break in.
(It's interesting that we *never* see the prophecy fulfilled - traditionally, these things do come to pass
Really? ISTM the best prophecies are the ones that *never* get fulfilled, so that people are always waiting for something that never comes.
Certainly, but I meant that traditionally, if we're told about a prophecy during a story, we get to see it worked out during the story.
But this is Blake's 7, so it could be a bit of cynical political realism? But in the cases where we see a prophecy worked out in a story, it's usually because the prophecy's central to the plot-- here it's just peripheral, isn't it?
, so perhaps Servalan decided to launch a revenge attack to teach them how to be polite to visiting dignitaries.)
Think she'd bother?
If she had nothing better to do. Servalan is not one of those people who only kills when it is strictly necessary. She likes it.
But once she got back she'd've had a whole ton of supporters of the last President to kill :-)-- and there's not much of the Federation left to carry out her orders at this point.
I'm sure the Sarrans would always have been very wary of alien arrivals, but that doesn't mean they couldn't have had preliminary negotiations when Hal arrived (and if that was 20 years ago, he might have negotiated with Chel's predecessor).
They don't negotiate with the people out of the capsules.
This is true, but doesn't immediately prove what tactics an earlier ruler might have adopted 20 years earlier when the first aliens arrived.
If they have a prophecy though, they're not that likely to ignore it or bend it. Especially if it looks like it deals with the destruction of the tribe-- a leader who ignored that would lose popular support if nothing else.
I am inclined to think that the Sarrans' experiences with the Mellanbys have made them more hostile to aliens
Probably the prophecy made them hostile to Mellanby, which made Mellanby hostile to them, which made them not likely to ignore the prophecy.
(though not sufficiently to launch an all-out effort to destroy the original arrivals - 20 years, and Lauren's slip-up is the first chance they've had?),
Remember though that the Mellanbys have the technology.
but Chel specifically states that today is *the day*. Probably the firework display caused by the battle fits the prophecy better than Mellanby's ship landing safely.
Yes but there's no reason he couldn't say that Mellanby was the vanguard-- or that "the day" is open to interpretation. Like the Christian groups who predicted the end of the world for 1900 and then revised the date upwards when it didn't happen.
The Mellanbys have the advantage in terms of technology. The Sarrans couldn't find the escape hatch, either.
My statement above - they only need to get lucky once, as they do with Lauren, and if they were really concentrating on the effort, they shouldn't have had to wait for 20 years.
Maybe the Mellanbys have been being clever for 20 years and only slip up now. Also the Sarrans may be making more of a concerted effort now that the day of prophecy has finally arrived.
Checking the script again, Dayna says the Sarrans were a problem when her father first arrived, but now leave them alone. This could undermine my thesis, but I'm still prepared to argue for (a) preliminary negotiation (b) breakdown (c) intense skirmishing (d) stalemate (e) leaving each other alone, as Sarrans decide there's no immediate sign of their world being destroyed.
But then, why didn't Dayna say "Father said we got along well with them when we first arrived, but now they just attack us?" And why do the Mellanbies treat them like animals to be conditioned or killed?
I think most of Dayna's explanations can be read as summaries of longer explanations not required by the situation. Avon needs only to know what sort of threat the Sarrans pose; she reassures him, while mentioning that they were a problem in the past.
This is a script though, not real life. If they give an explanation in the script we can assume that it stands unless something happens later to contradict it. And the alternative line I gave is pretty brief too I think.
This may help to
impress him ("They're really very dangerous, but we're so powerful we can shrug them off") and perhaps also to justify her violence towards them ("This is the only language they understand, and it keeps us safe."). Her account isn't inconsistent with (a) Mellanby attempting to negotiate for a week or two, then fighting them off for several months/a couple of years. Or (b) starting off with the fight, then establishing an uneasy truce.
Not inconsistent maybe but why create such a complicated backstory and then not use it? That's why I prefer to take what Dayna says as read.
Incidentally, I take it that the Sarrans are nomads, and don't live next to the Mellanbys all the time
I didn't think they lived next to them at all but I thought they came down from somewhere else-- just over those bluffs maybe?
(otherwise I can't see how Hal managed to
sink a spaceship and construct tunnels to dry land without being noticed).
I think he was noticed but they were too scared to come near.
So as well as Chel being a different generation from the Sarrans Hal first met, he could be from a different tribe.
I think you're saying maybe there's more than one tribe of Sarrans, and Mellanby encountered one and fell out with them and Lauren was from there, and then there's this other one (led by Chel) who are fighting the Mellanbys now. But then, why would *two* tribes have a grudge against them? And why do we need to postulate that he fell out with the first tribe at all? And how would Chel know Lauren and why would he say "Welcome back to your people?" It seems too complicated.
This would also make it less easy to extrapolate the behaviour of any given Sarran from what he does.
But we don't need to know the behaviour of any given Sarran. Just Chel.
Jenny
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