David >>> Servalan was a cadet under Kasabi's tutelage during Veron's lifetime.

Harriet >> I think not; it's a lot more difficult to escape with a baby than alone, or when slightly pregnant.

David Here is a theory / hypothesis explaining why Veron was born on Earth you might like to consider.

Servalan is impregnable (I am looking at this through a male's eyes) and possibly virginal (see post 9047). She can reproduce only by dealing to someone else's children, like the cuckoo bird. She did this in Children of Auron. Servalan is impregnable because she has no inner being. (And when they have done your work, and the machines have done your thinking, what is there left in you that feels? - Jarvik, Harvest.). As her fine clothes permit, everything about her is on the outside.

She identifies herself with the outer world, which, in her case, is the Federation. The trap Travis lays in Pressure Point has nothing inside it, merely an empty room in a verboten area. It is a metaphor for the Supreme Commander of the Federation. Hence Servalan's closeness in the episode.

As the Federation was attacked by the aliens in Aftermath, Servalan's own being was attacked. As the Federation shrunk, Servalan's being had to collapse in on itself. Her change from spotless white clothes to black in Series 3 - lavender in Powerplay and red in Gambit notwithstanding - is the pictorial representation of the implosion. I suppose the implosion stopped about the time she took over the Pylene Pacification Programme (before, say, P. Cancer).

Jenna is similar in being mainly external: She goes for the fine, showy clothes, knows many people, and fills the cosmos with her being insofar as she ferries things from planet to planet. Whereas Servalan, when she seized the presidency, became the chief smuggler of Shadow, Jenna specifically avoided it, however.

Servalan seems to have been modelled after two 20th cent. individuals: a male who in a certain respect could be thought of as having seized high office; and a female who rose from low beginnings and married into high office. They are the leader of the Soviets who ruled in the second quarter of the last century, and the Argentine First Lady, whose lifetime was roughly concurrent (died 1952, age 33).

The predecessor of the former wrote a testament that denounced him, hence Kasabi's confidential assessment that listed Servalan as unfit for command. The latter felt herself as having two sides, called Eva and Evita, hence Servalan's occasional vulnerability punctuates her regular hardness. This duality comes to a head in Season 4 with Piri Cancer. She has two sides, too, which possibly is what draws Servalan to her.

Kasabi, at the time we meet her, contrasts Servalan in that she is warm, earthly, and a plenum. She is nurturing the rebellion on an Earth that does not want the Federation. I hope my story won't make Kasabi too much of an Earth-Mother type (because it doesn't suit her earlier period) but at the very least Veron will have been either conceived on Earth, or born here, or both. It is part of the process that attracts her to Earth (regardless of domicile). And that is why Servalan was a cadet under Kasabi's tutelage during Veron's lifetime.

Ellynne wrote (on difficult to escape with infant) > Not necessarily. Oh, sure, fleeing ahead of armed troops, it's not the way to go. But, if you're trying to look innocent while passing a particular check point or if you need the sympathy of a guard, the mother and child thing has been shown to work in the past.

(snipped pre-hunt escape, sympathetic guard)

David Thanks for the ideas; some of them are bound to appear later. And then there is Veron's father. He is there somewhere and may be involved in Kasabi's escape.

What ages do you and Harriet think Kasabi and Servalan are? I guess Kasabi, like Plaxton, is late forties, early fifties, and Servalan is almost 34 (Diverting idea - Weapon). If Servalan was a cadet in Veron's lifetime, and I am saying she was, she was under Kasabi as a seventeen year old at the earliest (33-16=17).

DC

http://tezcatlipoca.algonet.se/cgi-bin/getbyid.pl?id=9047 http://www.evitaperon.org/