"JenTravis on Trial

Is the argument Travis uses at his trial it a 'far more sophisticated' version of Par's 'only obeying orders' or is it something else? His justification and the response could be used in a discussion of political theory/military studies.

The relevant parts of the exchange are (I have removed 'non-relevant' text)

PAR: [Travis] gave the order. We just did the shooting.

TRAVIS: A field officer, like myself, is frequently required to make fast, unconsidered decisions. You were all field officers, you know that's true. Time to think is a luxury battle seldom affords you. You react instinctively. Your actions, your decisions, all instinct, nothing more. But, an officer's instincts are the product of his training. The more thorough the training, the more predictable the instinct, the better the officer. And I am a good officer. I have been in the service all my adult life. I'm totally dedicated to my duty and highly trained in how to perform it. On Serkasta I, I reacted as I was trained to react. I was an instrument of the service. So if I'm guilty of murder, of mass murder, then so are all of you!

SAMOR: [in reply] Space Commander, we have considered your sentence at some length. Your contention that what happened on Serkasta was a direct result of your training concerned us greatly. We accept that you are trained to kill. As are we all. What we cannot accept is that this training leads inevitably to the murder of innocents. Your behaviour was not that of a Federation officer, but rather that of a savage, unthinking, animal. We cannot find it in our hearts to absolve you in any way of the responsibility for these murders.

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Jenny replied to me:

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He relates the prophecy to the new aliens, arriving in the aftermath of the Galactic War.

But doesn't he go on to say something like "hunt the strangers down and kill them?"

Yes - but in the context he appears to mean the strangers who have just arrived, ie Captain Yates and the other bloke (and, later, Avon).

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Of course, it's possible that he cited it every time some aliens turned up (we know the Mellanbys had visitors, such as Justin), but his people might have got a bit sceptical after a while.

Would they? People can be very stupid, and if he took a "See-- we got rid of those ones but the next ones could kill us" line, wouldn't it have kept them in a nervous and easily controlled state?

But my point was that he *hadn't* got rid of the Mellanbys and, although they had killed some of the locals, they hadn't actually destroyed their society yet.

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(It's interesting that we *never* see the prophecy fulfilled - traditionally, these things do come to pass

Really? ISTM the best prophecies are the ones that *never* get fulfilled, so that people are always waiting for something that never comes.

Certainly, but I meant that traditionally, if we're told about a prophecy during a story, we get to see it worked out during the story.

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, so perhaps Servalan decided to launch a revenge attack to teach them how to be polite to visiting dignitaries.)

Think she'd bother?

If she had nothing better to do. Servalan is not one of those people who only kills when it is strictly necessary. She likes it.

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I'm sure the Sarrans would always have been very wary of alien arrivals, but that doesn't mean they couldn't have had preliminary negotiations when Hal arrived (and if that was 20 years ago, he might have negotiated with Chel's predecessor).

They don't negotiate with the people out of the capsules.

This is true, but doesn't immediately prove what tactics an earlier ruler might have adopted 20 years earlier when the first aliens arrived. I am inclined to think that the Sarrans' experiences with the Mellanbys have made them more hostile to aliens (though not sufficiently to launch an all-out effort to destroy the original arrivals - 20 years, and Lauren's slip-up is the first chance they've had?), but Chel specifically states that today is *the day*. Probably the firework display caused by the battle fits the prophecy better than Mellanby's ship landing safely.

The Mellanbys have the advantage in terms of technology. The Sarrans couldn't find the escape hatch, either.

My statement above - they only need to get lucky once, as they do with Lauren, and if they were really concentrating on the effort, they shouldn't have had to wait for 20 years.

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Checking the script again, Dayna says the Sarrans were a problem when her father first arrived, but now leave them alone. This could undermine my thesis, but I'm still prepared to argue for (a) preliminary negotiation (b) breakdown (c) intense skirmishing (d) stalemate (e) leaving each other alone, as Sarrans decide there's no immediate sign of their world being destroyed.

But then, why didn't Dayna say "Father said we got along well with them when we first arrived, but now they just attack us?" And why do the Mellanbies treat them like animals to be conditioned or killed?

I think most of Dayna's explanations can be read as summaries of longer explanations not required by the situation. Avon needs only to know what sort of threat the Sarrans pose; she reassures him, while mentioning that they were a problem in the past. This may help to impress him ("They're really very dangerous, but we're so powerful we can shrug them off") and perhaps also to justify her violence towards them ("This is the only language they understand, and it keeps us safe."). Her account isn't inconsistent with (a) Mellanby attempting to negotiate for a week or two, then fighting them off for several months/a couple of years. Or (b) starting off with the fight, then establishing an uneasy truce.

Incidentally, I take it that the Sarrans are nomads, and don't live next to the Mellanbys all the time (otherwise I can't see how Hal managed to sink a spaceship and construct tunnels to dry land without being noticed). So as well as Chel being a different generation from the Sarrans Hal first met, he could be from a different tribe. This would also make it less easy to extrapolate the behaviour of any given Sarran from what he does.