On Thu, 22 Feb 2001 Bizarro7@aol.com wrote:

In a message dated 2/22/01 5:35:18 AM Eastern Standard Time, ijc@bas.ac.uk writes:

<< > the Declaration of Independence and the American flag. If anyone can point to

...

something distinctly British within the entire run of the B7 series, it'll

be

...

news to me; I've never noticed.

'Horizon'. >>

Sorry. I don't get you. I've watched this episode many times since the early 1980's and never saw anything that struck me as British. Can you be more specific? (And if you have to be more specific, than it might have been in the eye of the beholder.)

Horizon is based, in some detail, on the British rule of India. The people of Horizon have a caste system, and are played by actors of Indian origin. The Federation encourages the ruling caste of Horizon to send its children to Earth to be educated, thus creating a native-born ruling class which is indoctrinated in and sympathetic to Federation culture. Horizon is economically exploited, but not physically colonised: there are no ships full of Earth settlers. The two (white) Federation men even have appropriate accents -- and my memory may be failing me, but I think both their outfits and Ro's suit echo 19th century India.

This is hardly coincidence. It's very natural for a British writer, writing about a vast colonial power, to draw on the British Empire. The most important part of the British Empire was India, not just economically but culturally, so it's not surprising that its influence should be felt even in a cheap sci-fi show.

It occurs to me that I really should have raised this example at the 'Political System in SF' panel. It might just have got us away from the rather disturbing (not to say embarrassing) anti-American jingoism that kept rearing its ugly head.

Iain