Carol wrote: <Except if this isn't Blake's base there isn't any reason to keep her there. It's not a good idea to keep her there. Fudging records is something that could bring attention to them.>
It's a dangerous game, true, but as I said, this is not a law-abiding planet, and therefore the niceties - the need to keep to the straight and narrow - isn't really an issue. There's no reason to assume that anyone on GP would particularly *care* what happened to the criminals, as long as they were ostensibly out of the way. And I'm assuming that Deva is good, so the chances of getting caught are lower than the risk of taking someone unchecked to the real base.
If Arlen turned out to be an honest crook <g> there'd be enough time to take her to a safe house later.
<The other point you're overlooking is how and why Arlen got on the base. The Federation used her to infiltrate "Blake's" base.>
Yes, and getting Blake to trust her is just the first step in that. And I have no doubt that *Arlen* thought she'd gotten to Blake's base, and so called in the troops. She was just wrong about that (IMO). After all, she may have passed the test process, but she's still very very new - no reason why Blake and/or Deva should promptly sit down and spill *everything* to her. She just didn't realise she'd only got a foot in the wrong door. Then Tarrant arrived and things started getting out of hand ...
<But the Scorpio crew appears to have gained a degree of infamy. Belkov identifies Scorpio, Avon and Tarrant without an introduction.>
Possibly knew them through his acquaintance with Gerren, who was scheming with Avon (and not quite as bright as he thought he was). There are other cases in S4 where they're not recognised (the dealers in Assassin for one, the doctor on the Space Princess - yes, I know I've said he's an idiot, but Our Heroes went into that clearly expecting no one, drugged or undrugged, to recognise them).
<And in GAMES, Keiller explains how he knows so much about them: "On the grapevine, my friend. You're getting to be big news.">
:-) Not that I'd accuse Keiller of saying the first sweet-talking thing that came into his head, no way he'd ever do *that* ...
<Except he has been spotted, which is why Arlen is there.>
But none of the bounty hunters have, or he'd have bben taken before she got to him.
<But whether or not Blake is willing to risk his own life - and Deva clearly regards it to be a risk--would he risk Avon and Avon's crew?>
As I said, he doesn't know it's Avon. Yes, to be blunt, I think he'd risk it rather than take a chance on betraying the real base (this is Blake, who was prepared to see them all killed before surrendering the Liberator in Horizon).
<It would take just one sharp-eyed bounty hunter to make things very messy.>
That's a risk they have to take - that's a risk they have all *chosen* to take, both Blake and Deva by working here, and Avon and co by coming here. These people have all lived with the threat of bounty hunters for years, after all. Is it any riskier than taking all those back-stabbing vainglorious warlords to Xenon? Needs must, after all, needs must.
<Also, remember, Blake doesn't know *for certain* that it was Avon following him.> <He seems near to certain; certain enough that I can't see him putting Avon down in the midst of real bounty hunters.>
The odd thing is, though I'm far more a of Blakey person than I think you are, I *can* (and I think Avon would understand it). He might try to protect him, but until he's sure, there's *no way* he'd take complete unknowns to the real base, or draw in someone who might be an enemy. As the Liberator has to be put before one or more people, so the base has to be put before one person (yes, even Avon). That's the harsh fact of their lives.
Have to mention, I don't have a *serious* problem with the idea that Blake's real base might have been infiltrated (heck, look what happened on Xenon, *they* let a traitor in too, and it would make rather a nice repeating pattern if Blake was doing the same thing on Gauda Prime). It's just that I don't see it as *this* base, this way.
<From the rehearsal script:>
Rehearsal script doesn't count; it remains uncanonical. Of course, point [a] isn't proof in itself that this *isn't* Blake's base, it's just emphasising that it can't canonically be said that it *is*.
<There's no indication of that. All of them are careful to use dissembling language, such as referring to Blake as a bounty hunter, because they don't want to slip up at the wrong time, as in when Blake brings in a prisoner.>
That's your assumption, you're entitled to it (and it's quite possible that everyone will agree with you instead of me :-)), but I don't see that myself. She sounds both casual and genuine to me.
<But Klyn's dedication to duty isn't that of a civil servant; her behavior is that of a dedicated rebel. She doesn't slink away and hide when there is trouble ...>
Ummm ... no fair :-) I've *been* a civil servant, and I've met a hundred Klyns. Bad PR to the contrary, a lot of them are dedicated and do 'stay on watch' and try to do the right thing (and quite a few of them are in dangerous jobs as well). I see her as one of the smaller, genuinely want-to-be-respectable-again natives. There's no reason to expect that someone who is working - even in a small way - to clear the planet of rabble is going to be less likely to try to do what she sees as the right thing than anyone else.
<The base is obviously well secured. Strangers aren't allowed to wander around unless they've been cleared, which is why we see Klyn question Tarrant.>
All of which would be just as true if it were a proto-police base in the midst of a completely lawless community.
<If this were a wide open base, she had no reason to stop him.>
Didn't say it was. The bounty hunters Deva deals with are quite clearly 'on his books', collect information from him about targets, and are known to *his* superiors, whoever (and wherever) they are (the central computer sends that message making Blake a 'law enforcement officer' - again, an indicator that it's not the genuine rebel base, since would someone as cautious as Deva have the computers there linked up to a central one?) They would therefore be given the location. It certainly wouldn't be advertised freely (so that the real criminals could find and attack it).
Tarrant comes in with a registered hunter; Klyn challenges him only when she sees him alone. Makes sense to me.
<Or one might say it didn't work because he's about to be dead.>
It's about to stop working, true. But that 'beginnings of an army' quite possibly has more than a handful of people (more than five, perhaps? :-)) and for *them*, the procedure worked.
<And as I said, Arlen might not have been the first/only agent they employed. Others might not have made it that far.>
We've no proof of that, and if in fact it's true, that earlier attempts to infiltrate have failed, that would indicate further that Blake's defences are better than commonly assumed.
<There's something else you're overlooking. When Blake goes to Avon, he calls him by name. He identifies himself as "Blake." Now he wouldn't do that in an unsecure base that has real bounty hunters wandering in and out.>
There is no one else in the gallery to hear him. The alarm's going off, he's got no time - and in any case, you may recall that I believe Blake goes into something of a state of shock himself when he sees Avon so obviously torn up and stumbles badly from that point on.
<Then there's Deva's cry that the base is under attack. Deva isn't running in to warn Blake that the two of them need to make like rabbits and run. It's the entire base he's worried about. Blake's base.>
He doesn't say so, just again that 'they've found *us*' which could mean all of them, or just the two of them. We don't know) and again, *the* base is under attack. We'll have to agree to disagree on this, I think, since there's no proof.
<And there are Arlen's words; she calls the base "a nest of rebels.">
and I repeat from above - Arlen was just plain wrong.
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