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blakes7-d Digest Volume 99 : Issue 64
Today's Topics:
Re: [B7L] Too much caffeine
Re: [B7L] Avon's background-- speculation
Re: [B7L] Too much caffeine
[B7L] Re: Zen is not an It
Re: [B7L] Zen is not a IT !!!
RE: [B7L] Oh, come on, it has to happen! -grin-
RE: [B7L] Oh, come on, it has to happen! -grin-
Re: [B7L] Zen is not a IT !!!
[B7L] Re: Too much caffeine
Re: [B7L] Re: Too much caffeine
Re[B7L] Too much caffeine
Re:[B7L] Oh come on - it has to happen
Re: [B7L] Avon's background-- speculation
Re: [B7L] Avon's background-- speculation
Re: [B7L] Re: Too much caffeine
[B7L] Re It had to Happen
Re: [B7L] Re: Too much caffeine
Re: [B7L] Too much caffeine
[B7L] Too much caffeine, too little Einstein
Re: [B7L] Too much caffeine
Re: [B7L] Re: Too much caffeine
Re: [B7L] Avon's background-- speculation
Re: [B7L] Avon's background-- speculation
Re: [B7L] Zen is not a IT !!!
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 16 Feb 1999 20:43:57 +1100
From: Kathryn Andersen <kat@welkin.apana.org.au>
To: "Blake's 7 list" <blakes7@lysator.liu.se>
Subject: Re: [B7L] Too much caffeine
Message-ID: <19990216204357.24460@welkin.apana.org.au>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
On Tue, Feb 16, 1999 at 04:46:41PM +1030, Dunne, Martin Lydon - DUNML001 wrote:
> I have been wondering, what is the difference between Our Heroes, and say
> Travis' crimmers or Baben's crew?
> Is it that Our Heroes are necessarily good and just, or just that we know our
> psychopaths better than the rival criminals?
> Would people watch "Travis' Five"? Is there fan fiction about these other
> crews?
Well, Travis fans do exist.
> Is the "Three Day Sweats" or "Terran Auge" in Killer supposed to be
> the same passing effect as the "Cygnus Malady"? A brief discomfort on
> leaving the Solar System, but ultimately it passes, it bears a
> resemblance. This would mean that none of the crew who suffer from
> this have been in deep space before. This is only possible if,
> presumably, none of them even know of this disease. Gan comes down
> with it, and he is not even from Earth!
No, they are not the same. The Cygnus malady is specific to Cygnus
Alpha - nobody gets it until they arrive on the planet. Wheras the
Terran Ague occurs when going into space for the first time (no, it
wasn't clear whether it was from leaving *Earth* or leaving a
*planet*, IMHO). Just because they have similar symptoms doesn't mean
that they are the same! A heck of a lot of diseases have similar
symptoms; there are only so many ways that a body can react to
disease.
> What on EARTH (and off) did Robert Holmes mean by the word
> "Constellation"? As I and astronomers understand it, it is an apparent
> pattern of stars caused by their lining up due to a unique point of
> reference (the Earth). However, Holmes always (and I use the term in
> the strongest sense) used it as a spatial location. WHY? Does anyone
> have any advances on this?
Well, a constellation is made up of *specific* stars, all of which
have names. Cygnus Alpha is the star designated as the alpha star in
the pattern of stars which from Earth, apparently looks like a swan.
There happen to be... (counts) ten stars which make up the
constellation of Cygnus. Interestingly enough, Cygnus Alpha (unlike,
say, Cygnus Theta or Cygnus Delta) has a well known common name as
well. Cygnus Alpha is actually Deneb.
(Facts courtesy of the star map on my wall.)
Of course, it was Terry Nation who used the specific term "Cygnus
Alpha".
As for generally referring to a constellation itself, and not the
stars which make up the constellation, well, that could be considered
to be a "region" of space, the region of space in which those stars
are.
Are there some specific examples you are thinking of?
> When they mine the radioactive stuff in Horizon, Ro claims it is for the new
> intergalactic ships. Is this a lead into the intergalactic war? Was the
> Federation planning its own attack on Andromeda?
(shrug) Any answer to this is speculation. Show has no data.
> Why was the fight between Avon and the computer dude cut in the 90's release of
> Space Fall? To get a lower rating?
Probably.
> Does anyone else feel that the Platonic Forms of the series would have a
> different running order? Terminal seems to be a watershed, not just the events
> but also Avon's decision to follow the trail before the story starts. Wouldn't
> Rumours of Death be more apt to immediately precede this than Death-Watch?
Well, you couldn't exactly put Death-Watch *after* Terminal, could
you? I think Rumours of Death is fine where it is.
> The motivation in fourth season is easier to understand- desperation.
> Everytime they fly anywhere, Pursuit ships attack, never challenge,
> and just fire. Why then does Soolin join them? She claims she sells
> her skill- what does she ever receives? A miserable death, making
> Servalan rich and the Scorpio a great ship. Doesn't she know that
> people who hang out with this mob DIE HORRIBLY and NEVER GET
> RICH?!?!?!!??!!?!??!??
Maybe she had nowhere else to go. After all, why was she hanging out
with Dorian on that dreadfully isolated planet, when he was away half
the time, and all she had to do all day was program the automatic
hairdresser? Maybe she was so notorious that she figured she was
better off with a bunch of other notorious folk to look out for each
other, than off on her own with no-one to watch her back? She was,
after all, a serial killer and assassin...
Kathryn A.
--
_--_|\ | Kathryn Andersen <kat@welkin.apana.org.au>
/ \ | http://home.connexus.net.au/~kat
\_.--.*/ | #include "standard/disclaimer.h"
v |
------------| Melbourne -> Victoria -> Australia -> Southern Hemisphere
Maranatha! | -> Earth -> Sol -> Milky Way Galaxy -> Universe
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 16 Feb 1999 12:25:55 +0200
From: "422ami" <422ami@nt52.parliament.bg>
To: <blakes7@lysator.liu.se>
Subject: Re: [B7L] Avon's background-- speculation
Message-Id: <199902161024.LAA28896@samantha.lysator.liu.se>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
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I _do_ enjoy the Mistral's ( mistral@ptinet.net ) opinion (form 2/15/99):
<< With regard to Avon, however, he does not appear to have been of any
public note, and so these extreme types of solutions would not have been
necessary; nor would it seem that he was of any particular value to the
Federation (indeed, his attitude seems to support the idea that he
considered himself undervalued and possibly resented it) >>
Nina ( Pherber@aol.com) objects, as follows:
<< How do you square this with Vila's statement in 'Spacefall' that Avon is
"the number 2 man in the Federated worlds" with regard to computers? ...
It still seems likely to me that if he was in fact as brilliant as Vila's
statement suggests, his permanent removal would represent a serious loss of
future revenue potential for his Federation masters.>>
And _I_ think, that Vila's statement is just a metaphoric figure (it is
obvious, at least for me, that Avon has been captured by Anna, but not by
the hypotetic "First One").
It is more conveniently for the Federation authorities to cope with _loyal_
citizens, than with _intelligent_ ones. This is, actually, the way, that
every repressive regime treats it's people. Being noticeable is
disadvantage, more than an asset. (Remember Russia after that called
'revolution' from 1917: the communists prepared lists of the most
remarkable people in every city and killed them 'in alphabetical order'.
Because to prevent appearance of any resist, which could been organised.)
The 'common' people are more easy to be controlled, so it is, obviously,
less dangerous for the Federation to liquidate 'The Avon Case' urgently and
safely.
The Bulgarian Hellen
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 16 Feb 1999 10:43:41 +0000 (GMT)
From: Iain Coleman <ijc@bsfiles.nerc-bas.ac.uk>
To: blakes7@lysator.liu.se
Subject: Re: [B7L] Too much caffeine
Message-Id: <Pine.OSF.3.96.990216103745.7765A-100000@bsauasc>
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
On Tue, 16 Feb 1999, Penny Dreadful wrote:
> Martin the Coffee Achiever inquired:
>
> >What on EARTH (and off) did Robert Holmes mean by the word
> "Constellation"?
>
> Well, let us *graciously* assume he wasn't as absolutely clueless as I
> have known more than one BSc to be..."constellation" means "bunch of
> stars", basically, so perhaps in the (I estimate) several hundred years
> since interstellar flight was achieved the word has naturally taken on a
> different definition befitting mankind's broader perspective. (Note to
> Neil: I don't actually *buy* this...)
>
This is one of my pet peeves as well. While the real-life explanation is
undoubtedly that Holmes knew bugger all about astronomy, I do try to
explain it away in the same way you do: that over the centuries
"constellation" has come to have the same meaning as "star system". After
all, in a society of routine interstellar travel constellations proper
rapidly cease to have any significance.
What's really annoying is that the series so often gets its astrophysics
right. It's especially good on stellar end-states: all the stuff about
white dwarfs, black holes and neutron stars is pretty sound. I think maybe
Chris Boucher had read a New Scientist artice on stellar evolution or
something, but had some blind spots when it came to astronomical
terminology.
Iain
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 16 Feb 1999 06:23:49 -0500
From: Harriet Monkhouse <101637.2064@compuserve.com>
To: "INTERNET:blakes7@lysator.liu.se" <blakes7@lysator.liu.se>
Subject: [B7L] Re: Zen is not an It
Message-ID: <199902160624_MC2-6A9A-60F7@compuserve.com>
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Judith wrote:
>The Altas were, as their name implies, altered human beings.
Oh... I always assumed it was Alta as in high (fem), meaning they belonged
to the top social (or whatever) stratum.
Harriet
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 16 Feb 1999 06:46:47 EST
From: AChevron@aol.com
To: Blakes7@lysator.liu.se
Subject: Re: [B7L] Zen is not a IT !!!
Message-ID: <a13746ef.36c95aa7@aol.com>
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In a message dated 99-02-15 04:19:00 EST, you write:
<< I was strongly surprised to
find out what Blake means, telling Jenna "Get HER on manual!"
But, emotionally, I always think about Zen as for "he". And as I don't like
much Orac, he is "it" for me. >>
It's traditional to refer to ships in the feminine gender, even ships with
masculine names. Not sure where it comes from.
As for he vs. it for the pronoun refering to the computers, my own opinion
is that strictly speaking, neither computer is a 'he'. They have no
reproductive organs, and are sufficiently non-organic to rate an it. If I were
to refer to one of them as a "he" though, it would have to be Orac. Orac seems
much more self aware, and fits my idea of sentience better than Zen. Unless
you want to count those last few horrible moments of Zen's "life". D.
Rose
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 16 Feb 1999 13:32:34 +0100
From: Jacqueline Thijsen <jacqueline.thijsen@cmg.nl>
To: blakes7@lysator.liu.se
Subject: RE: [B7L] Oh, come on, it has to happen! -grin-
Message-ID: <39DCDDFD014ED21185C300104BB3F99F10FB20@NL-ARN-MAIL01>
Content-Type: text/plain
Penny said:
> >I had Avon repeating PD's ad lib from "Guards Guards!".
>
> Okay, I explained my allusions, now you explain yours. Please!
>
Well, I don't remember who it was that told us all about Paul Darrow's
performance in "Guards, Guards!", but if I remember correctly, the Librarian
let everyone know what he wanted to say by playing charades. Apparently one
evening the actor who was playing the librarian didn't feel like doing the
entire routine and made just a few moves, after which the entire text still
got translated to captain Vimes. I believe Paul then said something like
"You got all that out of just that?"
Someone please correct me if I got it wrong. And it seems kinda lame now
that I'm reading it again. I'm just a sucker for in-jokes, I guess.
Jacqueline
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 16 Feb 1999 13:37:06 +0100
From: Jacqueline Thijsen <jacqueline.thijsen@cmg.nl>
To: blakes7@lysator.liu.se
Subject: RE: [B7L] Oh, come on, it has to happen! -grin-
Message-ID: <39DCDDFD014ED21185C300104BB3F99F10FB21@NL-ARN-MAIL01>
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Penny, the High Priestess of Offler the crocodile god spoke thusly:
> Oh boy, I've got an acolyte! Well now I almost hesitate to mention that
> as far as I know Arkaroo subsists on naught but pepperoni Pizza Pops,
> canned tuna, and the Souls of the Damned.
>
Surely they were damned because they were omnivores?
Jacqueline
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 16 Feb 1999 13:37:56 +0100 (MET)
From: "Jeroen J. Kwast" <jeroenkw@pampus.gns.getronics.nl>
To: blakes7@lysator.liu.se (mailing list)
Subject: Re: [B7L] Zen is not a IT !!!
Message-Id: <199902161237.NAA25488@pampus.gns.getronics.nl>
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Hello,
Wow what a topic, I didn't realize that this was such a sensitive area, good! :)
>
> It's traditional to refer to ships in the feminine gender, even ships with
> masculine names. Not sure where it comes from.
I think is has to do with the "baby feeling" before we are born. Those babies
are protected by the mother.
If you talk about your ship as a she, you hope to get the same protection.
well what do think of that !! :)
> As for he vs. it for the pronoun refering to the computers, my own opinion
> is that strictly speaking, neither computer is a 'he'. They have no
> reproductive organs, and are sufficiently non-organic to rate an it.
Ok ok let's assume I ment that he/she/it's a person! he or she. The fact that
someone/thing has no reproductive organs (debatable) does not mean that it/he/she
is not a person, right?
So I still think that Zen is a person :O)
Thank you,
Jeroen
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 16 Feb 1999 14:46:10 +0200
From: "422ami" <422ami@nt52.parliament.bg>
To: "Kathryn Andersen" <kat@welkin.apana.org.au>,
"Blake's 7 list" <blakes7@lysator.liu.se>
Subject: [B7L] Re: Too much caffeine
Message-Id: <199902161244.NAA04935@samantha.lysator.liu.se>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
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In the message from 16 February 1999 ã. 11:43, Kathryn Andersen
<kat@welkin.apana.org.au> says:
<<...Cygnus Alpha is actually Deneb...>>
I am trying to locate the happening events myself, means, where in our
Galaxy mentioned in the episodes stars and planets are. This is a theme for
a longer conversation, actually...
But, so far, as I can remember, Deneb is very bright star - spectral class
A2 (though the Sun is spectral class G2). Thou, there couldn't exist any
habitable planets around it.
The Bulgarian Hellen
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 16 Feb 1999 14:00:56 +0000 (GMT)
From: Iain Coleman <ijc@bsfiles.nerc-bas.ac.uk>
To: "Blake's 7 list" <blakes7@lysator.liu.se>
Subject: Re: [B7L] Re: Too much caffeine
Message-Id: <Pine.OSF.3.96.990216135641.7765B-100000@bsauasc>
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
On Tue, 16 Feb 1999, 422ami wrote:
>
> But, so far, as I can remember, Deneb is very bright star - spectral class
> A2 (though the Sun is spectral class G2). Thou, there couldn't exist any
> habitable planets around it.
I don't see why not. They'd have to be pretty far away from the star, of
course, and I imagine the harder radiation spectrum would make them pretty
bleak places (hey, B7 got it right!).
There is no reliable theory of planetary formation which can tell us what
kinds of planets are likely to be found at what distance from what kinds
of stars, so SF writers can quite cheerfully make up whatever suits them.
Iain
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 16 Feb 1999 14:06:29 -0000
From: "Julie Horner" <julie.horner@lincolnsoftware.com>
To: <blakes7@lysator.liu.se>
Subject: Re[B7L] Too much caffeine
Message-ID: <01be59b5$8c9bb580$170201c0@pc23.Fishnet>
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charset="iso-8859-1"
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>Is the "Three Day Sweats" or "Terran Auge" in Killer supposed to be the
same
>passing effect as the "Cygnus Malady"? A brief discomfort on leaving
the Solar
>System, but ultimately it passes, it bears a resemblance. This would
mean that
>none of the crew who suffer from this have been in deep space before.
This is
>only possible if, presumably, none of them even know of this disease.
Gan comes
>down with it, and he is not even from Earth!
I never knew that about Gan! Where is he from then? And in which episode
does it get mentioned?
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 16 Feb 1999 14:16:17 -0000
From: "Julie Horner" <julie.horner@lincolnsoftware.com>
To: <blakes7@lysator.liu.se>
Subject: Re:[B7L] Oh come on - it has to happen
Message-ID: <01be59b6$eb2eb7e0$170201c0@pc23.Fishnet>
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Jacqueline said:
>Well, I don't remember who it was that told us all about Paul Darrow's
>performance in "Guards, Guards!", but if I remember correctly, the
Librarian
>let everyone know what he wanted to say by playing charades. Apparently
one
>evening the actor who was playing the librarian didn't feel like doing
the
>entire routine and made just a few moves, after which the entire text
still
>got translated to captain Vimes. I believe Paul then said something
like
>"You got all that out of just that?"
>Someone please correct me if I got it wrong. And it seems kinda lame
now
>that I'm reading it again. I'm just a sucker for in-jokes, I guess.
I saw "Guards! Guards!" last year in Hanley and last week in Wimbledon
and the charades joke was the same in both. The Librarian gives an
extended charade for Carrot to solve. Later on when the Patrician
and Vimes are in the cells the Librarian does a complicated charade
while the Patrician nods sagely throughout and at the end gets the
entire
thing - after which Paul does his "You got all that..." line.
I seem to remember it saying in a Horizon review that in the
earlier performances the second charade was acted in full but
had been cut as above later in the run. Whether this was because
PD did ad-lib and it got more laughs I don't know but it seems to
be an established part of the play now.
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 16 Feb 1999 06:51:20 -0800
From: mistral@ptinet.net
To: blakes7@lysator.liu.se
Subject: Re: [B7L] Avon's background-- speculation
Message-ID: <36C985E7.3CEDC103@ptinet.net>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
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> I said:
> << With regard to Avon, however, he does not appear to have been of any public
> note, and so these extreme types of solutions would not have been necessary; nor
> would it seem that he was of any particular value to the Federation (indeed, his
> attitude seems to support the idea that he considered himself undervalued and
> possibly resented it) >>
Then Nina said:
> How do you square this with Vila's statement in 'Spacefall' that Avon is "the
> number 2 man in the Federated worlds" with regard to computers?
<snip fine argument for brevity>
As much as I love sorting out 'logical' explanations for apparent contradictions
in the canon, this is an issue that appears to me not to need reconciling. It
seems obvious to me (IMHO) that Vila was setting up a joke at the expense of
Avon's ego; therefore, Vila's statement is unlikely, at best, for a source of
'fact'. (Vila may be both clever and amusing, but as a candidate for a 'fountain
of truth and honesty', he leaves a little something to be desired.)
However, even if I were inclined to take these numerical rankings literally (which
I'm not-- see Kathryn's post on the subject for some more excellent reasons),
technical expertise, visibility (both to the public and to the powerful), and
value to the system are not interchangeable. Bill Gates is far and away the most
visible figure in the US computer industry today; but his value to the system can
certainly be argued both ways-- if he were to suddenly drop off the planet, the
effect might be enormous or negligible, positive or negative, and nobody can be
certain which; and as for technical expertise, I doubt if he's even in the top 100
anymore (if he ever was), as he's now really a corporate visionary/bureaucrat. So
even if Avon were number two technically, it doesn't mean that his value to the
system was particularly high (particularly if the gap in expertise between number
two and numbers 3-2000 wasn't all that large).
Furthermore, memory modification and other adjustments certainly seem to be the
exception, rather than the rule; otherwise, surely they would have tried to
condition Jenna, competent pilots being a rather valuable commodity, as we are
told in several eps (I remember this being mentioned in 'Harvest' and 'Moloch',
among others); but there is no hint of them doing anything with Jenna other than
just shipping her off to Cygnus. (We can reconcile this with Vila's conditioning
if we assume that this occurred in childhood, before he was discovered to be
irredeemable. Some forms of simple adjustments for 'at-risk' children might be
considered cost-effective.)
Add to that the Federation's attitude that people are just one more expendable
commodity (i.e. mutoids, the solium device on Albian, etc.), and I'm afraid that
I'll have to stand by my previous conclusion: that Avon simply was not important
enough to bother with the difficulty and expense of conditioning.
I guess that the Federation higher-ups just weren't as perceptive about Avon's
true value as we fen are <evil grin>.
In serious lunacy,
Mistral
--
"And for my next trick, I shall swallow my other foot."--Vila
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 16 Feb 1999 07:39:02 PST
From: "Stephen Date" <stephendate@hotmail.com>
To: blakes7@lysator.liu.se
Subject: Re: [B7L] Avon's background-- speculation
Message-ID: <19990216153903.13765.qmail@hotmail.com>
Content-type: text/plain
Nina said:
>
>> Given that there's no evidence (within the series, anyway) that
>>conditioning was ever tried on Avon at all ...
>> Comments, anyone?
To which Pat replied
>I often wonder if Avon's comment in 'Voice from the past' something
>along the lines of brain-washing being enough to give anyone
>nightmares might not suggest that he did have some personal >knowledge
of it?
I hadn't thought of that. If we're reading things into peoples tone of
voice, then I had always assumed from the way Blake describes himself as
an "Ideal model citizen" in SLD that he was no use to man nor beast
after his brain washing and merely kept around to convince people that
resistance to the Feds was a Bad Thing. From Ravella's insistence that
he not eat or drink for 36 hours they were also drugging Blake to be on
the safe side. I therefore assume that Avon's talents probably wouldn't
have been very useful after Dr Havant and his little chums got their
hands on him.
Apropos of The Way Back it has to include my favourite Great Line they
should have said but didn't. (Courtesy of Dave, my sisters other half).
Ravella: Doesn't it bother you that you spend your life in a drug
induced stupor.
Blake: Nah, I'm a student
Stephen.
______________________________________________________
Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 16 Feb 1999 16:28:13 -0000
From: "Alison Page" <alison@alisonpage.demon.co.uk>
To: "Blake's 7 list" <blakes7@lysator.liu.se>
Subject: Re: [B7L] Re: Too much caffeine
Message-ID: <00d301be59c9$f4c4f680$ca8edec2@pre-installedco>
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Hellen, Iain -
>> But, so far, as I can remember, Deneb is very bright star - spectral
class
>> A2 (though the Sun is spectral class G2). Thou, there couldn't exist any
>> habitable planets around it.
>
>I don't see why not. <snip>
>There is no reliable theory of planetary formation which can tell us what
>kinds of planets are likely to be found at what distance from what kinds
>of stars, so SF writers can quite cheerfully make up whatever suits them.
>
But (I may be way out with this) isn't Hellen right to say those planets
wouldn't be habitable? Doesn't a star like Deneb have a comparatively short
and intense lifespan, and is therefore unlikely to support planets which
have developed an oxygen atmosphere?
Of course we don't know what is necessary for 'life' - it might not be
anything like us. But talking about carbon and oxygen type life like ours, I
think you can make some predictions in advance about what suns are and are
not suitable.
I have heard it argued (but I don't know enough to decide) that double-star
systems can't support life because conditions on the planets are too
variable, and the orbits too unstable. Is that right? And short-lived stars
are out too. So you start to whittle it down a bit.
Alison
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 16 Feb 1999 16:20:16 -0000
From: "Debra Collard" <Debra@whisson1.freeserve.co.uk>
To: "B7L" <blakes7@lysator.liu.se>
Subject: [B7L] Re It had to Happen
Message-ID: <00dd01be59c9$e0c41d00$374c883e@whisson1globalnet.co.uk>
Content-Type: text/plain;
charset="iso-8859-1"
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Jacqueline said>
>>
Well, I don't remember who it was that told us all about Paul Darrow's
performance in "Guards, Guards!", but if I remember correctly, the Librarian
let everyone know what he wanted to say by playing charades. Apparently one
evening the actor who was playing the librarian didn't feel like doing the
entire routine and made just a few moves, after which the entire text still
got translated to captain Vimes. I believe Paul then said something like
"You got all that out of just that?"
I saw Guards! Guards! and if I recall the line ''you got all that out of
just that?'' was said by PD after a particularly difficult piece of
'dialogue' that would have taken ages to really mime.
Debra
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 16 Feb 1999 16:35:45 -0000
From: "Neil Faulkner" <N.Faulkner@tesco.net>
To: "lysator" <blakes7@lysator.liu.se>
Subject: Re: [B7L] Re: Too much caffeine
Message-ID: <004401be59cb$a55e33c0$5f1fac3e@default>
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>> But, so far, as I can remember, Deneb is very bright star - spectral
class
>> A2 (though the Sun is spectral class G2). Thou, there couldn't exist any
>> habitable planets around it.
>
>I don't see why not. They'd have to be pretty far away from the star, of
>course, and I imagine the harder radiation spectrum would make them pretty
>bleak places (hey, B7 got it right!).
The 2300AD SF rolegame suggests that A2 stars are too short-lived to develop
a proper planetary system. Not that I'm prepared to swallow their word on
the matter, but it's worth bearing in mind.
I did some research on Alpha Cygni whilst compiling the Sevencyclopaedia.
It's only 1600 light years from Earth, so the London would have got there at
a speed of about 200 ly/month (ship time) or less than 7 ly/day. Earth is
about 20,000 ly from the edge of the galaxy, so if the London were to go
looking for Star One it would take at least 8-9 years before it even got
close. (Probably more - I don't know where the galactic rim lies on a
straight line between Earth and Andromeda.)
Let's postulate that the fastest Federation ships are perhaps three times
faster than London. They can reach Star One from Earth in as little as
three years - ship time. Presumably 'real' time is longer still. If
distances of that magnitude are commonplace within the Federation, could it
be viable as that repressive military empire we all know and love? I'm not
sure that it could be.
All in all, I'm inclined to think that:
(a) the ships in B7 are very very fast.
(b) Cygnus Alpha (the penal colony) is not Deneb, but somewhere much further
away.
Judith can now chip in and violently disagree with (b), since she always
does whenever I suggest it.
Neil
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Date: Tue, 16 Feb 1999 16:43:44 -0000
From: "Neil Faulkner" <N.Faulkner@tesco.net>
To: "lysator" <blakes7@lysator.liu.se>
Subject: Re: [B7L] Too much caffeine
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Ian wrote:
>This is one of my pet peeves as well. While the real-life explanation is
>undoubtedly that Holmes knew bugger all about astronomy, I do try to
>explain it away in the same way you do: that over the centuries
>"constellation" has come to have the same meaning as "star system". After
>all, in a society of routine interstellar travel constellations proper
>rapidly cease to have any significance.
There is another Holmesian astrophysical error in Traitor, where the duty
tracer deduces that Scorpio must be a spacecraft because it's 'above Roche's
limit'. As far as I can gather, the Roche Limit is the nearest point _below
which_ (not above) an orbiting body gets torn apart by gravitational forces.
And it doesn't apply to spacecraft anyway, whether they're above or below
it.
The most irritating scriptwriter for me when it comes to physics is James
Follett. Why go quoting Newton's laws of motion in the first place? Half
the audience will already know all that stuff, and the other half won't
care. Maybe Follett was paranoid about being unfit to write science fiction
(and if his two B7 scripts are anything to go by, he has good reason to
worry).
Neil
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Date: Tue, 16 Feb 1999 09:07:34 PST
From: "Penny Dreadful" <pdreadful@hotmail.com>
To: blakes7@lysator.liu.se
Subject: [B7L] Too much caffeine, too little Einstein
Message-ID: <19990216170735.18710.qmail@hotmail.com>
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Neil said:
>They can reach Star One from Earth in as little as
>three years - ship time. Presumably 'real' time is longer still.
Why? Are you applying relativistic time-dilation to FTL? Explain, man,
explain!
--Penny "Bright" Dreadful
______________________________________________________
Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 16 Feb 1999 17:32:14 +0000 (GMT)
From: Iain Coleman <ijc@bsfiles.nerc-bas.ac.uk>
To: lysator <blakes7@lysator.liu.se>
Subject: Re: [B7L] Too much caffeine
Message-Id: <Pine.OSF.3.96.990216172015.7765C-100000@bsauasc>
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On Tue, 16 Feb 1999, Neil Faulkner wrote:
> There is another Holmesian astrophysical error in Traitor, where the duty
> tracer deduces that Scorpio must be a spacecraft because it's 'above Roche's
> limit'. As far as I can gather, the Roche Limit is the nearest point _below
> which_ (not above) an orbiting body gets torn apart by gravitational forces.
> And it doesn't apply to spacecraft anyway, whether they're above or below
> it.
>
Nonono! That line is entirely correct, and is such a wonderful example of
using real physics confidently and accurately in a way that genuinely
matters to the plot that it makes me grin whenever I hear it.
Consider two orbiting bodies: a planet going round a star, say. Near the
planet, the planet's gravitational field will dominate and the star's
gravity can be ignored (to a reasonable approximation). In this region, a
freely falling object will orbit the planet.
Near the star, the planet's gravity is negligible and an object will orbit
the star.
The distance from the planet at which its gravity ceases to be dominant is
its Roche limit. If an object is orbiting the planet, but is outwith its
Roche limit, then it is not freely falling but is maintaining its orbit by
additional force from its engines or whatever. The key point being that it
must be some kind of spacecraft.
The business about objects being torn apart merits a small digression.
Consider a binary star system. As above, each star has its own Roche
limit. In the course of stellar evolution, one of the stars may begin to
expand. If it expands so much that its surface crosses the Roche limit of
its companion, some of its material will be dragged onto the companion
star. This is an interacting binary system.
Iain
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 16 Feb 1999 17:51:32 +0000 (GMT)
From: Iain Coleman <ijc@bsfiles.nerc-bas.ac.uk>
To: "Blake's 7 list" <blakes7@lysator.liu.se>
Subject: Re: [B7L] Re: Too much caffeine
Message-Id: <Pine.OSF.3.96.990216174119.7765D-100000@bsauasc>
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On Tue, 16 Feb 1999, Alison Page wrote:
> But (I may be way out with this) isn't Hellen right to say those planets
> wouldn't be habitable? Doesn't a star like Deneb have a comparatively short
> and intense lifespan,
True
and is therefore unlikely to support planets which
> have developed an oxygen atmosphere?
>
On Earth, the oxygen-rich atmosphere is a result of biological activity,
and if the timescale of biological evolution on Earth is typical then a
star like Deneb would have long since burned itself out before
photosynthesis got going.
The planet in "Cygnus Alpha" has an Earth-like atmosphere: if the star in
question is Deneb, this atmosphere must have come from somewhere other
than photosynthesis. I'm going to wave my hands and say that the geology
was such that sufficient oxygen was produced by outgassing from the rocks.
Since I know about this much --> . about geochemistry that speculation is
probably bollocks, mind you.
> Of course we don't know what is necessary for 'life' - it might not be
> anything like us. But talking about carbon and oxygen type life like ours, I
> think you can make some predictions in advance about what suns are and are
> not suitable.
>
You do have to distinguish between habitable planets and planets on which
life-as-we-know-it might arise: the second is a subset of the first.
> I have heard it argued (but I don't know enough to decide) that double-star
> systems can't support life because conditions on the planets are too
> variable, and the orbits too unstable. Is that right? And short-lived stars
> are out too. So you start to whittle it down a bit.
Binary systems aren't necessarily out: if the stars are close together and
the planet is far enough away, the orbit will be stable.
In terms of trying to guess the possibilities or otherwise of
extraterrestrial life, this kind of whittling down is a bit pointless. It
doesn't change the numbers by more than an order of magnitude, and the
other uncertainties are far greater.
Iain
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 16 Feb 1999 07:44:39 +0100 (BST)
From: Judith Proctor <Judith@blakes-7.demon.co.uk>
To: Lysator List <Blakes7@lysator.liu.se>
Subject: Re: [B7L] Avon's background-- speculation
Message-ID: <Marcel-1.46-0216064439-b49Rr9i@blakes-7.demon.co.uk>
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII
> In a message dated 2/11/99 10:58:45 PM Mountain Standard Time,
> storm@catchnet.com.au writes:
>
> << I always wondered why the Federation did not try to condition Avon, in an
> attempt to rehabilitate him in order to retain his highly rated skills.
> One would have thought that such brilliance is rare, even amongst the better
> educated Alpha's. After all, Blake did not seem to loose any of his
> engineering skills when he underwent Federation conditioning. Would not
> Avon's theft and greed be easier to mask then Blake's rebel tendencies ( as
> Blake's rebellion appears to be deeply ingraved into his character ) ..
> Especially if Avon was not originaly anti- Federation, if he had only *just*
> been dis-illusioned with the system and decided to opt out ( needing great
> sums of money to do so ) and take Anna with him.
> Any ideas? >>
It seems to me that Avon's computer skills may have been tied into other parts
of his personality. To be a really good programmer, you need a touch of the
hacker in your soul. Strong curiosity, an unwillingness to accept anything
you're told as gospel truth and the kind of mind that worries away at a problem
are all necessary.
In other words, if they tries to rehabilitate him, they might well have lost the
very qualities that made him so useful.
Judith
--
http://www.hermit.org/Blakes7
Redemption 99 - The Blakes 7/Babylon 5 convention
26-28 February 1999, Ashford International Hotel, Kent
http://www.smof.com/redemption/
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 16 Feb 1999 08:14:54 +0100 (BST)
From: Judith Proctor <Judith@blakes-7.demon.co.uk>
To: Lysator List <Blakes7@lysator.liu.se>
Subject: Re: [B7L] Avon's background-- speculation
Message-ID: <Marcel-1.46-0216071454-bc8Rr9i@blakes-7.demon.co.uk>
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII
> << With regard to Avon, however, he does not appear to have been of any public
> note,
> and so these extreme types of solutions would not have been necessary; nor
> would
> it seem that he was of any particular value to the Federation (indeed, his
> attitude seems to support the idea that he considered himself undervalued and
> possibly resented it) >>
>
> How do you square this with Vila's statement in 'Spacefall' that Avon is "the
> number 2 man in the Federated worlds" with regard to computers?
I think Vila made a lot of throw-away remarks and giving them too much weight is
dangerous. I think Vila had heard of Avon as a criminal because of his trial
and enjoyed the chance to display his knowledge. The more impressive the
knowledge conveyed, the more important it made Vila sound.
Besides, terms like "the number 2 man in the Federated worlds" with regard to
computers" are totally subjective. AS evidenced by the fact that Blake asked
'who's the best' (which implies that he didn't have a particular person in
mind.)
Who would you say was the number 2 computer expert of our times? I'll bet the
members of this list would disagree with one another and in all probability we
would come up with people who are well known, (like Bill Gates) but could easily
miss less famous names.
Just to give you a feeling of how subjective it can be, I recall meeting a
computing student whose reaction on hearing my father's name was 'Do you realise
that your father is *God*?' In his particular area (and we're talking 20 years
ago) my dad was very well known, but someone who wasn't in love with ALGOL might
have come up with a list of top computer people that didn't include him at all.
I forget who said that the danger of him finding about Anna was a good reason
for exiling him, but that makes good sense to me. As was said, Blake needed
regular tapes etc. to help his conditioning hold. The technique wasn't perfect.
Blake got back his memory. Exiling Avon removed him safely from Earth and from
Anna.
Judith
--
http://www.hermit.org/Blakes7
Redemption 99 - The Blakes 7/Babylon 5 convention
26-28 February 1999, Ashford International Hotel, Kent
http://www.smof.com/redemption/
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 16 Feb 1999 08:08:09 +0000
From: Julia Jones <julia.lysator@jajones.demon.co.uk>
To: lysator <blakes7@lysator.liu.se>
Subject: Re: [B7L] Zen is not a IT !!!
Message-ID: <gEW$pSApdSy2Ew0W@jajones.demon.co.uk>
In message <008c01be597e$14a40f00$811cac3e@default>, Neil Faulkner
<N.Faulkner@tesco.net> writes
>I notice that in the Sevencyclopaedia I consistently refer to Zen and Orac
>(and also Gambit) as it. Does anyone think of Gambit as a she?
Yes - and I don't think of the Trek computers as she. This, I think,
supports the view that many of us refer to the computer characters as he
because they are people in the sense of sentient being, even if they
aren't animal lifeforms. English does not have an adequate gender-
neutral pronoun for this situation, so we pick the one that seems
appropriate on the basis of the apparent gender of the voice.
--
Julia Jones
"Don't philosophise with me, you electronic moron!"
The Turing test - as interpreted by Kerr Avon.
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End of blakes7-d Digest V99 Issue #64
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