Me, then Jenny:

...

Time and chance happen to them all. ... The Liberator conveniently turning up like that can only be put down to luck.

Interesting isn't it? There are two takes. The first is that many rebels have been transported and this is the story about one who got a ship.

Seems fairly plausible, but I think there's a bit more too it than that. Blake and co could have taken over the London according to plan A; it was only bumbling on the part of Vila and others that prevented the original plan from succeeding. In that case, good plans, appropriate skills and bravery would have been behind their success.

As it is, however, these things all fail, and the escape comes down to blind chance.

Or secondly, you take The Logic of Empire view that Blake has been set up by the Federation to escape. That the Federation wants, in fact *needs* an enemy, and Blake has been set up to fulfil that role.

I haven't seen/heard Logic of Empire, but that interpretation seems only to make sense symbolically.

I've covered this in my Leylan/Raiker analysis, but basically the London

is

carrying a cargo of very dangerous prisoners. Women don't usually get done for rape and serial killing. It happens, but not often.

There must have been some women transported to Cygnus Alpha otherwise the colony wouldn't have survived. I don't know what ratio you'd need for viability, though. Judging by Victorian family sizes, 15--20 children in a reproductive lifetime wouldn't be unusual but I'd estimate a 50% child mortality rate, so you'd probably want at least 10 or 15% fertile young women for a viable colony ?

Tavia