Jacqui wrote:
Does nobody have anything to say then?
Where have all the controversies gone (g)?
It's summer holiday here and everyone has gone abroad to escape the bad weather (which then promptly changed for the better).
Summer always is a quiet time, isn't it? February seems to be the time for fireworks :-) But here are some musings:
In Headhunter, why does Avon say that the robot's head has to be put in place by Vila or him? As weapon designer Dayna must be a good enough technician for the job - and far more likely to volunteer. :-) I think Avon has decided all along to do it himself, and is merely teasing Vila.
In Assassin, why are the two slavers who are holding Avon not surprised when he addresses "Sleer" as Servalan? And does this mean that she later kills them to keep their mouths shut? Or even kills all the slavers? And if the latter is the case, would she get a medal for it, or would the Federation elite be peeved about having lost its illegal slave market?
Marian
At 08:21 30/07/01 +0200, you wrote:
In Assassin, why are the two slavers who are holding Avon not surprised when he addresses "Sleer" as Servalan? And does this mean that she later kills them to keep their mouths shut? Or even kills all the slavers? And if the latter is the case, would she get a medal for it, or would the Federation elite be peeved about having lost its illegal slave market?
I've always more than half suspected that *everyone* in the Federation knew who Sleer really was, they were just humouring her. I expect that a memo got sent round, saying basically, 'Look, she's having fun, she's a useful genocidal maniac to have running the pac. prog., and being busy keeping her secret is stopping her having a pop at the new Pres. Let's all just go along with, shall we?'
Marian
love Anna
--- Marian wrote:
In Assassin, why are the two slavers who are holding Avon not surprised when he addresses "Sleer" as Servalan? And does this mean that she later kills them to keep their mouths shut? Or even kills all the slavers? And if the latter is the case, would she get a medal for it, or would the Federation elite be peeved about having lost its illegal slave market?
Reluctantly discounting Anna's elegant theory, I had always assumed that when the slavers were finally ushered into the presence of President Jarriere he found the explanation about Sleer being really Servalan way too complicated, and instead persuaded them to give him the recipie for Deep Fried Mangan.
Seriously, I presume that anyone in that sort of business develops a sort of selective deafness. After all, no-one's going to buy slaves from a planet whose local pirates keep contacting the law whenever they find out some useful piece of information.
I always assumed that the slave buyers were from non-Federation worlds as slavery is legal in the Federation, so the slavers may not have heard of Servalan. If they did try and blackmail her she could arrange to have the planet decimated as part of her ongoing crusade to restore the rule of law to the galaxy.
Stephen.
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In message 20010730144746.89961.qmail@web12207.mail.yahoo.com, Stephen Date stephend999@yahoo.co.uk writes
I always assumed that the slave buyers were from non-Federation worlds as slavery is legal in the Federation, so the slavers may not have heard of Servalan.
While state-sponsored slavery is legal, I don't think there's any indication that privately owned slaves are. The examples we hear about seem to be the property of the military or commercial organisations.
On Mon, Jul 30, 2001 at 08:04:51AM -0700, Julia Jones wrote:
In message 20010730144746.89961.qmail@web12207.mail.yahoo.com, Stephen Date stephend999@yahoo.co.uk writes
I always assumed that the slave buyers were from non-Federation worlds as slavery is legal in the Federation, so the slavers may not have heard of Servalan.
While state-sponsored slavery is legal, I don't think there's any indication that privately owned slaves are. The examples we hear about seem to be the property of the military or commercial organisations.
That's one thing that always confused me about slavery in the Federation... we're told that (a) the families of deserters sold into slavery, there's also reference to the "slave pits of Ursa Prime"; and then we have Rashell, who is referred to as a bond-slave, which might be a different kind of slave.
Then in Assassin we're told that the slave auction is illegal, but we aren't told in what manner it is illegal.
The thing is, I don't think we could say that privately owned slaves were illegal, or that the buyers were from non-Federation worlds where slavery was illegal -- because what were they buying, then? It would be like someone turning up in Australia with a slave; they'd be guilty of kidnapping and wouldn't be able to keep the slave at all!
No, what I think was illegal about the auction is that the slaves themselves weren't legally slaves; but the pirates presumably had fake slavery papers that would pass muster, so the buyers would be able to take them home with relative impunity.
We have no information about whether slavery is illegal outside the Federation.
I also suspect that, from the reference to "bond-slave" that there was also some kind of debt-slavery in the Federation, as well as the families-of-deserters.
Kathryn Andersen -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- "Absolutely nothing! Why should I find nothing terrifying?" -- Vila Restal (Blake's 7: Breakdown [A10])
In message 20010731202223.B32497@welkin.apana.org.au, Kathryn Andersen kat@foobox.net writes
The thing is, I don't think we could say that privately owned slaves were illegal, or that the buyers were from non-Federation worlds where slavery was illegal -- because what were they buying, then? It would be like someone turning up in Australia with a slave; they'd be guilty of kidnapping and wouldn't be able to keep the slave at all!
One of the things I'm thinking of here is in fact the use of convicts as slave labour during white settlement of Australia. IIRC, a lot of the convicts were sold to free settlers as indentured labour, but remained technically the property of the state - and if you turned up with a (white) slave you'd bought elsewhere, you'd be on very dodgy ground indeed.
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Anna Simpson -
Julia Jones -
Kathryn Andersen -
Marian de Haan -
Stephen Date