Pat wrote, in her follow-up to a post I admired so much I've filed it for future reference:
I guess Boucher and Nation run the risk of possibly having their audience see the tactics of say the IRA as legitimate political actions, no less legitimate than Blake's.
Well, some did, you know.
In the original:
(A big aside here: This move, for any of you American lefties out there, seems to echo the old Communist Party USA's late 1930's and early 1940's "popular front against fascism" in which the American Communists -- who were the only real organized force actively fighting white racism on the streets as well as in the courts -- actively supported American National interests during the war and even adopted patriotic rhetoric.
Suppose you could also cite the Suffragettes, most of whom abandoned their "war" on the British government to support the war against Germany and her allies. But not all (eg Sylvia Pankhurst, who is often portrayed as more "pure" in her commitments).
Er... somehow this brings me to Animals, not a subject I think of very often without brute force from Una... I've always been rather puzzled by Justin's remark about the Galactic war: "That war was a terrible, terrible mistake." Mistake by whom? It doesn't sound as if Justin means "only an immense cockup could have left us in such danger" - I think it's the policy he's criticising. Was there a faction which favoured surrender to the Andromedans, or thought there was a genuine possibility of a negotiated settlement? Blake and co never even contemplate an option other than fighting back against the alien invasion.
Harriet
From: Harriet Monkhouse 101637.2064@compuserve.com <<Er... somehow this brings me to Animals, not a subject I think of very often without brute force from Una... I've always been rather puzzled by Justin's remark about the Galactic war: "That war was a terrible, terrible mistake." Mistake by whom? It doesn't sound as if Justin means "only an immense cockup could have left us in such danger" - I think it's the policy he's criticising. Was there a faction which favoured surrender to the Andromedans, or thought there was a genuine possibility of a negotiated settlement? Blake and co never even contemplate an option other than fighting back against the alien invasion.>>
I think it might actually be that Allan Prior lost touch with who was fighting who and why. Certainly Justin's remark suggests a failure of diplomacy rather than an unprovoked (?) invasion.
There is also a reference to the other members of Justin's team being shot down by an *enemy* gunship. This does not rule out the Andromedans, but he could just as easily have said 'alien' rather than 'enemy'.
What Justin actually said was "Most of my pupils of your time are...are dead, perished in the Galactic War. That war was a terrible, terrible mistake."
You can get really, really picky here (so I'm going to:) ). A *galactic* war needn't mean the war with the Andromedans at all, but the warfare that implicitly broke out across the galaxy as a result of the Federation's losses fighting the Andromedans. We know that the post-war galaxy is in chaos (Servalan, 'Children of Auron'), that a coup on Earth has failed, and that Servalan's Federation doesn't add up to much (Grose, 'Moloch') - all indicators of a fragmented galactic community. It doesn't necessarily follow that the Andromedans themselves did all that, only that they permitted the circumstances in which it could happen. They did, after all, destroy Star One as they approached their final defeat, and that more than anything might have precipitated the plunge into chaos.
OTOH, there are no references to an *inter*galactic war. A *galactic* war is cited several times in Volcano, and by CA-1 on Auron, and by Justin. Children of Auron explicitly links the Galactic War with the Andromedans, since it was they who deployed the virus used to wipe out the Auronar.
As is so often the case with B7, there is a lot of hints and ambiguous references from which a number of scenarios might be constructed, all of them perfectly valid subcanonically.
(FWIW, there was never any reference to an Andromedan War either - that is pure fanon. And the Andromedans were never referred to as anything but 'the aliens'.)
But I can't see most fans taking any interest in all this because it's got nothing to do with shagging.
Neil
Neil wrote:
What Justin actually said was "Most of my pupils of your time are...are dead, perished in the Galactic War. That war was a terrible, terrible mistake."
You can get really, really picky here (so I'm going to:) ). A *galactic* war needn't mean the war with the Andromedans at all, but the warfare that implicitly broke out across the galaxy as a result of the Federation's losses fighting the Andromedans. We know that the post-war galaxy is in chaos (Servalan, 'Children of Auron'), that a coup on Earth has failed, and that Servalan's Federation doesn't add up to much (Grose, 'Moloch') - all indicators of a fragmented galactic community. It doesn't necessarily follow that the Andromedans themselves did all that, only that they permitted the circumstances in which it could happen.
That is all extremely interesting stuff.
(FWIW, there was never any reference to an Andromedan War either - that is pure fanon. And the Andromedans were never referred to as anything but 'the aliens'.)
But I can't see most fans taking any interest in all this because it's got nothing to do with shagging.
I'm interested, Neil. I'm wondering if I can work it all into that new theory that the 'aliens' came to our galaxy to bring us democracy whereupon Blake helps the Federation destroy them.
Una
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Harriet Monkhouse -
Neil Faulkner -
Una McCormack