Carol asked: <Sally, you've said that it's a vigilante police base before.>

IMO, of course, I don't insist on it for everyone else, but it's the only thing that makes sense to me :-)

<How can it be a vigilante police base when Arlen goes from being a wanted criminal to a member of the security team?>

Easily. For a start, Deva is obviously [a] in charge of the computers, if not the whole base, and [b] one of the main authorities *on* the base (remember, Blake ostensibly goes to get his targets - in effect, his 'orders' - from Deva). So he fudges Arlen's records, tells the other workers she turned out to be innocent, or just turned (wouldn't mind betting that quite a few of the scummier bounty hunters started out that way too). This isn't a proper police station with an eye to the niceties of law and order - the people of GP, having spent years as an open planet, are unlikely to be that particular. They just want the place cleared up. If 'ex'-criminals kill or capture the still-criminals, so what? (I've been reading on Tudor 'law and order' again, can anyone tell? :-))

That's what *makes* it a good set-up, because Our Heroes (well, I do count both Blake and Deva as two of Mine) can subvert the Gaudian gallop to respectability.

<There's also this conversation that recognizes Blake is in charge and that Arlen has joined *his* team.>

That's between the three of them. No one else on the base is involved. Notice that Klyn always takes her orders from *Deva*, even if Deva gets them first from Blake:

KLYN: [V.O.] There's a flyer just put down in the silo. It had all the right signals, but it isn't one of ours. BLAKE: Let them through. DEVA: [into intercom] Let them through. [intercom link breaks] Is that wise?

<There's also the fact that it would be very dangerous for Blake to lure Avon onto the base if it is a vigilante base. Avon has a "particularly" large price on his head. If this is a vigilante base, it's a very dangerous place for him to be. Any passing bounty hunter might kill him to collect the reward.>

A very *old* very large price., as Tarrant mentions: TARRANT: Well, it might. There's still a price on our heads from the old days. SOOLIN: Not on G-P, there isn't.

Why should any of the GP people recognise him? He wasn't that famous in his own right (Shrinker and other Federation officials *on Earth* didn't recognise him), and much of the information about Blake's people was suppressed. The worries the crew express are about *Blake* (if he's a real bounty hunter) selling them.

There's probably an old price on Blake's head as well (there certainly was at the time of City: "You're top of the Federation's Most Wanted list - after Blake," and it's clear that many people in the Federation don't think he's dead towards the end of S3 - Grose, Moloch, Shrinker, Rumours), and it's unlikely that Servalan spread the Jevron story among the rulers-to-be of the Federation, since it was in her interest to keep it dubious.

But he's wandering around among genuine bounty hunters without being spotted (moving away from on-screen evidence, there's also the fact that no one recognise the damned ex-President, who *also* has a price on her head IIRC. People just *don't* :-)).

Also, remember, Blake doesn't know *for certain* that it was Avon following him. The Galactic Information Superhighway got bombed in the war along with everything else; we don't know if Blake knew much - or anything - about what has happened to the Liberator, his people, his people's new people ... one reason he can't trust Tarrant. He may *hope* it's Avon, but when he finds the Scorpio, he really has no idea where Avon and Vila are (and possibly Cally, if he doesn't know she's dead), what's happened to them, if they *were* with Tarrant at the time, if they've been dead for ages ... nothing.

He draws the following ship in because it might be Avon; he doesn't lure it to his real base because it might not.

Now to why I actually believe that it's a proto-police station rather than Blake's real base ... anyone who recognises this, sorry, I can't recall exactly where on when I posted it:

[a] There's no canonical proof it *is* Blake's real base (he calls it 'a base, the beginnings of an army'. Not *this* base.)

[b] Klyn obviously believes Blake to be a genuine bounty hunter: KLYN: Someone's operating a distress beacon. It's on the official frequency. BLAKE: Nothing in it for me, then. Outlaws tend not to use distress beacons.

- and that Deva is in charge. Therefore, she *cannot* be part of his organisation. Since she's in a fairly important position - right at the front desk - this cannot *be* his organisation, QED (Of course, it could be argued for fictional purposes that she is, and is pretending not to know, but then it means the people around them are not part of Blake's organisation. Same difference, methinks).

Similarly, the bounty hunters hanging around and getting their orders are genuine (and some of them complete scum). Blake's become jaded and suspicious, not suicidally stupid ("I'm still alive,") so that completely rules out this being the rebel base for me.

[c] Blake takes both Arlen and Tarrant there *before they've been tested*, not something someone as suspicious as he's become would do with the real base. He certainly wouldn't have survived to this point (even if 'to this point' isn't very long, see below) if he'd taken all and every candidate there before Deva could run checks on them (one thing that must be remembered when judging Blake's risky policy - up to this point, by all the evidence we have - *it has worked*, since he's still alive :-). Maybe it was bound to come a cropper, but since we don't know how many people they've successfully recruited before this, we can't judge).

So, if it's not the base Blake is talking about to Deva, what is it? Clearly one of the (presumably multiple) bases from which the attempt to clear GP of criminals is being carried out. There is no formal law and order, we are told, and therefore no 'legal' police bases. The people of GP appear to be funding the non-legal use of bounty hunters (after all, Our Heroes may have Federation prices on their heads, it's unlikely that the general riff-raff do, and the bounties have to come from somewhere) to do their house-cleaning for them. How this is done, we don't know, but in the absence of strong government my opinion is that money is being channelled from the wealthy wanna-be-respectable GP citizens - the mining corporations, maybe? - through people like Deva to set up bases from which the bounty hunters can operate and be paid.

JMO, as usual.

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