Steve Rogerson wrote: <I was watching Seek-Locate-Destroy last night and was thinking about what happened to Cally during her capture. We know she was tortured and we know from Project Avalon a few episodes later that the Federation have torture methods that will get prisoners to tell all they know.>

Mmmm, yes, though do remember, Centero was a communications base, not a prison like the ice planet in Project Avalon. The equipment used on Avalon (and for that matter, on Blake back on Earth) would be unlikely to be duplicated where it's not of use, and didn't exactly look portable; also, it appears from the torture scene in SLD that the actual torture is carried out in the medical section, and Cally is *then* transferred to the 'interrrogation room', but not questioned further when there (just dumped there as bait).

We're given several different types of torture scenes in the series, not always cohesive; there's

[a] the heavy-duty, irresistable torture machines, set up IMO in maximum-security prisons and used on VIP victims like Blake and Avalon;

[b] the 'interrogation division' which travel to places like Centero (and presumably bring their own equipment);

[c] your more common-or-garden human torturers like Shrinker in RoD (which does raise the question of why they'd bring in the 'top' torturer for this nameless prisoner but not whack him into an Avalon-type machine - and why Avon and co were obviously confident that they wouldn't do the latter. Either said machines *were* so rare that they were only used for the most important prisoners, or maybe the security centres they were housed at were some of the main targets during the just-squashed rebellion and they were all destroyed.

[d] machines like those used on Horizon, obviously not as effective as those in [a] though possibly more lethal.

Back to Steve: <What did Cally tell them during her torture. She obviously had detailed knowledge of Auron freedom fighters as well as Auron society and cloning information - was that where Servalan got the idea from for her cloning escapade on Auron?>

Nice idea, but I doubt that Travis was much interested in Auron dissidents at that point. Just one very human one :-)

<As to the Liberator, the identities of the crew were already known to the Federation, so no damage there.>

Are we sure about that? The Federation knows that Blake's collected together a group of ex-convicts from the London, and would definitely know that Jenna and Avon had gone with him onto the Liberator, but possibly not exactly who of the Cygnus Alpha dumpees made it through that escapade and got a berth. OTOH, would he *care* about Gan and Vila?

<Though she knew some of the capabilities of the Liberator itself, this was surely little more than could have been gleaned from watching it in action a couple of times. What else could she tell them?>

The *precise* range of the teleport, which he does know half-way through SLD and which I can't see anyone working out without actual testing (e g - outsiders would only know via one of the crew). Maybe about the bracelets? (Though he probably already suspected, given that the base workers saw Blake speaking into one and two minutes later, the backup team appeared out of thin air. OTOH, he seems more interested in Cally's gun than her bracelet, which indicates he *doesn't* have the full story yet.) Anything and everything they could drag from her about the Liberator's capabilities, especially where these could be attacked (such as how much power the power banks *hold,* so he could calculate when it might be drained and vulnerable a la Duel?) Anything she might know about Blake's plans or contacts (like - though it's early - that he's made tentative contacts with people like Avalon?)

Travis does make his priorities clear: "We'll want to know about Blake, the ship, his crew, his plans."

<2. What did Federation torture methods consist of? We saw in S-L-D them preparing some sort of liquid, but we learned very little of what actually was done. Any ideas?>

Most of it (in S1-2) seems to involve messing with the mind rather than physical stuff (The Way Back, SLD, Avalon, Horizon ... someone tell me if I've forgotten something). This would of course be 'helpful' in any following trials, since the accused is unmarked and no signs of 'coercion' are visible ...

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