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From: sas@leadsv.UUCP (Scott Stewart)
Newsgroups: net.sf-lovers
Subject: Re: What an advanced race would come far to get...
Message-ID: <514@leadsv.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 9-Jul-85 15:58:37 EDT
Article-I.D.: leadsv.514
Posted: Tue Jul  9 15:58:37 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 13-Jul-85 16:21:15 EDT
References: <2389@topaz.ARPA> <467@mmintl.UUCP>
Organization: LMSC-LEADS, Sunnyvale, Ca.
Lines: 99

In article <467@mmintl.UUCP>, franka@mmintl.UUCP (Frank Adams) writes:
> 
> 
> In article <2389@topaz.ARPA> you write:
> >From: jcr@Mitre-Bedford
> >> From: looking!brad@topaz.arpa (Brad Templeton)
> >> There's only one commodity a highly advanced race
> >> would travel light-years to take by force, and that's slaves.  It
> >> certainly isn't water.
> >
> >I have to disagree.
> >
> >1)  If you're running out of water, and you don't have the resources
> >to reclaim it or manufacture it, then you've only one option open to
> >you: go get some more! And believe me, you'll go whatever distance it
> >takes to get it!
> 
> The problem is that there are *much* easier ways to get water.  As an
> obvious example, there is considerably more water in the rings and moons
> of Saturn than on the surface of the Earth.  It's frozen, but that hardly
> matters.
> 
> Even more directly, water is made from hydrogen and oxygen, which are two
> of the most common elements in the universe.  It takes a lot less energy
> to make water than it does to cross interstellar space.

But we must remember that the Visitors wanted more than Earth's water. They
were running out of food as well. Now maybe Earth was the nearest planet 
they could find that had food they liked. It's quite possible that we
could have given them plenty of rats and bugs to take home and raise for
food, but maybe we humans were a special delicacy for the very rich. 

Also, I remember Martin explaining to Donovan once that the Visitor's
leader was similar to our Hitler. Neither needed a war for their society
to survive, but wanted the glory of conquest. Therefore the Leader didn't
care about a war, or the cost of a war. He was power hungry.

I too liked the first mini-series. I believe an article I read once said
that _V_ was based on the Nazi of World War II. I saw this in the first
mini-series clearly, the use of a group of people who could be a threat to
the regime as scapegoats who must be destroyed, martial law, and the Youth 
Core to indoctrinate the youth of the society. And the use of lizards as
the Visitors I think was used for shock. What creatures do we think of as
most repulsive, (Reptiles) and what better way to make the need to defeat
the Visitors more expedient, yet least likely for the population to believe.  
The first mini-series ended to soon for me, since nothing ahad been resolved.

The second mini-series I still liked. We finally win over the evil lizards.
Even though the end was hokey. Why couldn't Elizabeth just be a super
intelectual. It seams completely feasible that she could have stopped the
ship from self destructing by breaking the computer security system and
deactivating the bomb, instead of the fancy hokus-pokus trick. After all,
she had been on the mother ship for some time learning the computer, and
was supposed to be very bright. The ending was dumb!

Now comes the series. Why? The Visitors had been defeated. Why shouldn't
they just cral home. The series was doomed from the start. How long can you
keep an audience interested in a war when neither side gains any real
headway. And how can a bunch of Earthlings with only automatic weopons
stand up to all those lasers. In the mini-series, the resistance at least
got hold of the Visitor's weopons and used them. But suddenly, they can't
use lasers anymore. And what about the Visitor's voices?

The one thing I liked about the whole thing in general was that you were
never sure which of our heros might live through any particular battle. 
We get to know each member of the resistance, and then one or two get
knocked of. Most shows, our heros never die, no matter what the odds are.
Of course, our main heros always pull through, but even some of the 
secondary heros, and not the peripheral heros died, like Martin, Elias,
and Elizabeth's Grandfather. 

Our heros weren't always one dimensional and some grew and changed.
Relationships grew, were tested, and some blossomed. Even the bad guys
had varying motives, from vegeance, to loyalty, to personel power. The
bad guys spent about as much time fighting themseleves as they did us. And
was Kyle's Dad a good or bad guy? Kyle and his father hated each other,
yet loved each other, and we were able to see both facets of their
relationship.

I glad they found a good explanation for not being able to use the Red Dust
anymore. Then we would really have a boring war. But the Earth's Eco-system,
which helped to stop the lizards the first time, was their hope the second.
Another use of the dust and Mankind might kill himself.

I personally liked some assets of the entire series (mini-series and weakly),
mostly the character's, except Elizabeth's hokey powers. But I feel the main
flaw with the weakly series was the plotlines. Each weak we saw our conflict
build for about 50 minutes and then get solved in five, leaving five for final 
resolve (counting commercial time) or else the conflict built up in about 15
minutes and the rest wast spent solving it. There just wasn't enough balance
to conflict/resolve reatio. Too many hokey escapes and solutions. We were
just to outclassed and had to relly on some mysterious magic mumbo-jumbo from
Elizabeth, another alien friend, or lucky break. I think too much was going
on in the story for a one hour TV show to handle. That's why the mini-series
were more succesful. I hope the books would also be more succesful, but I've
only read the first one so I can't say. 

						Scott A. Stewart
						LMSC