WMG / Blake's 7

The Fluidic Particles were either...

• Mutant life that escaped Terminal (since it showed up in the same episode), OR
• An embryonic version of a planetary life form like Host... those particles will eventually find an asteroid or small moon and establish itself is a digestive salivary ocean, bringing life to lifelessness.

Interstellar History and the actual time setting of Blake's 7.

• The series is often said to be set in the 27th century, but this is only inferred through context, and in the context, that interpretation of the calendar might be wrong. After all, the Federation refers to the 3rd century of "The New Calendar."
• Although colonization from Earth populated many planets, there are several cases where human-looking populations clearly were present on their homeworlds for more than 300 years, particularly primitive populations who would probably need time to build up their own cultures after botched colonization attempts that left them without technology, or wars that achieved the same result. Blake's 7 has a major case of Ambiguously Human when it comes to the planet of the week. I can buy the Helots as humans as they're specifically said to have been an Earth colony, as was the planet with the "Hiteks" and the "Primitives." However Keezarn and several other planets like the one from "Duel" clearly had Civilizations of either parallel-evolved humans or aliens that closely resembled humans without any distinguishing marks, thousands of years before the series. I think it's more reasonable to assume that B7 takes place farther in the future than in traditionally accepted by fans. The construction of Terminal and the remarkable feat of moving it to another star system suggests power the Federation never demonstrates otherwise (THOUGH it's not clear if the Federation was responsible). Accelerated evolution being the purpose of the planet, it's hard to infer its actual age by loooking at the wildlife there.
• Given all these clues, I submit that B7 takes place at least 1000 years in our future if not more, but that this point has been obscured by Federation propaganda, leading Blake to incorrectly date the ancient K-47 spaceship in "Killer" as only being 700 years old; it was probably much older.

Where did those Platinum-Blonde Humanoids on Terminal come from, what are their origins, allegiances, etc?

I never understood where those two platinum blonde humanoids helping Servalan came from. Were they natives of Terminal, perhaps an evolutionarily accelerated human lineage, split off from the evolution of the "Links," the ape-like creatures that Servalan calls humanity's future? Terminal was supposed to be a laboratory for hyper-accelerated evolution. There is some evidence that they are a form of Mutoid: Later in the series, a group of Mutoids appear who don't look anything like the other Mutoids we see in the series, but they do have long, platinum-blonde hair (previous Mutoids were hairless, their heads capped by a large cybernetic device, and had a different less utilitarian uniform). On Terminal, perhaps a group of such Mutoids (why should we assume there's only one Mutoid model?) were used by Servalan. Only problem: they had names, unlike all other Mutoids, but who knows what Servalan might have modified them for? If you can take away a slave's ID before Mutoid modification (as Travis implies early in the series to a particularly attractive Mutoid) maybe it can be restored or replaced with a different identity. So either they were Mutoids dressed in something other than standard black uniforms, natives of Terminal, or some offshoot of humans or near-human species that Servalan hired for her purposes, but what would she have needed from them if they weren't connected to Terminal in some way? Could they be the descendants of the scientists who built and moved Terminal? Personally I think they evolved on Terminal and they're basically super-evolved humans, genetic cousins of the Ape-like Links, but it's still possible they were an unusual type of Mutoid.

Only Blake and that other woman died on Gauda Prime.

Fans debated the Bolivian Army Ending of the series for almost three decades. Argument: Blake went squibby; the others just fell over.

• Fighting in Blake's Seven was often abysmally choreographed. Or, to put it nicely, fighting in B7 was very much symbolic.
  • Gareth Thomas has confirmed on numerous occasions that his primary stipulation for playing Blake one last time was that the character be seen to die, with absolutely no ambiguity over his fate. That's why blood squibs were used, to underline that Avon's weapon wasn't set to stun. Chris Boucher, the writer of the episode, and Paul Darrow (Avon), have further confirmed that the fates of the other characters were kept deliberately ambiguous to provide flexibility had a fifth series gone into production, which at that time was still a faint possibility. The actors who wanted to come back would have been stunned, the actors who didn't would have been killed. Well, not the actual actors, but their characters. YKWIM.
  • The strongest case for a character (other than Avon, whose survival is Word of Dante) surviving is for Vila, who falls the 'wrong way' for his being shot (although note the note on choreography above). Fanon is that the cowardly thief faked being hit before Playing Possum.
  • How does Vila fall the 'wrong way'? He looks like someone being shot In the Back.

The whole Bolivian Army Ending is an illusion or mind game, like 'Terminal'.

All of a sudden, Soolin is from Gauda Prime? Dead giveaway.

The entire fourth series is a Mind Screw inflicted on Avon.

Servalan concocted the whole ruse of Blake being on Terminal to lure Avon in so she could break him once and for all. The destruction of the Liberator, the constant Trauma Conga Line that was Series 4, Avon being set up to believe Blake had betrayed him—it was all projected into Avon's head while he was attached to the machinery on Terminal. She planned to break him completely. Trouble was, he didn't break. He just went barking mad. So when he's recovered by the rest of the crew they're going to have one hell of a time convincing him what is real and what was part of the projection. Oh, and Soolin? There's a reason she had no real personality. She was Servalan's Mary Sue character!

The gunfight on Gauda Prime was the culmination of The Plan by Servalan to get her hands on Avon and Orac

Here's the plan, in summary: Servalan would love nothing more than to teach the Federation a lesson for ditching her as President. She's been trying to do it from the inside as Sleer, but her freedom of action has been restricted. She needs an external threat to give her that freedom. Avon is the perfect external threat, and one that she can easily manipulate. Getting Orac is necessary for obvious reasons, especially those dealing with protecting her Sleer cover. But to do this, Avon has to be removed from any support system he might have. She has to get rid of Scorpio, its crew, and Blake. She finds out where Blake is, confirms it, and then sets things in motion through her agents on Gauda Prime to bring everyone together to eliminate everyone in one shot. The shots fired after the blackout were Servalan's "cavalry charge" killing the men surrounding Avon, just to make sure that Avon was in her debt. Orac is removed from its hiding place - and off they go.

The only thing she may not have counted on - and knowing her, she has - is how mentally unstable Avon is. If she planned on Avon being the one to kill Blake, this veers the whole plan into Gambit Roulette or Xanatos Speed Chess territory; that's not Servalan's style.

• Remember that Servalan has successfully pulled off plans like this before and made Avon look like a Butt-Monkey in the process. (See "Gold").

Star Trek and Blake's 7 are depictions of the same universe

Neither is entirely true or accurate. Star Trek is big-budget official government propaganda. Blake's 7 is produced on a shoestring by a group of angry malcontents.

This idea has been around for years.

• Then as a follow-up, allow me to suggest that the Federation in this world controls the badly maintained and heavily indoctrinated Mobile Infantry.
• Blake's 7 and Star Trek having the same source is an intriguing idea. It would explain why the Federation symbol from Blake's 7 appears to be very similar to the Starfleet emblem rotated around a bit. They're both based on the same original design.

The Federation of Starfleet deteriorated into the Federation of Blake's 7

This was part civil war, part genocide against most alien species, and part the most militant faction of the Federation (Section 31) coming out on top and ruling the roost.

Look how the upper echelons of the Federation behave in Berman's Trek: the president and people quietly accept martial law, Section 31 is continually scheming; the Federation abandons its own colonists to the Cardassians to appease them, etc. It is NOT much of a stretch. Julian Bashir, who proposed surrender to the Dominion with a straight face, was Avon's grandfather.

• For this this work, transporters and replicators would have to become Lost Technology.

Firefly takes place in the same universe.

The last series of Blake's 7 introduced Pylene-50, which worked in very similar fashion to the Pax only without the side effects, and the domed cities on Earth and the restrictions on outside movement could quite easily have started out as a response to some kind of environmental catastrophe. It would be entirely typical of the Terran Federation to keep a Lost Colony too backwards and resource-poor to be worth annexing embargoed as a proving ground for their latest mood-stabilising drugs or other instruments of totalitarian unpleasantness. Whether the Alliance government is an Unwitting Pawn or willing accomplice is anyone's guess.(Cross-posted from the Firefly WMG page.)

The Doctor's actions in the Waters of Mars caused the existence of Blake's Seven's timeline

• Expanded universe material for Blake's 7 has suggested that it takes place in the same universe as Doctor Who, such as the appearance of a minor guest character in the novel Corpse Marker, written by Chris Boucher himself. However this contradicts some of the show's lore as "The Ark in Space" shows that humanity has already discovered teleportation despite the Liberator being the first example of it in the Blake's Seven universe which would seem to contradict Who. However, as Steven Moffat would say time can be rewritten. One huge difference that the Doctor did cause in "The Waters of Mars" is that now there are two survivors humanity knows that it was alien life forms that were responsible for the destruction of the Mars base. This will likely lead to a much more cautious and likely hostile reaction to any future forms of alien life they may encounter.

In the original timeline Adelie Brook's granddaughter married into an alien dynasty, but growing up with the knowledge that the Water Creatures caused her grandmother's death will leave her much more close minded, and will likely make her campaign to explore space a war of aggression rather than discovery. As a consequence of this aliens will be pushed back and shunned by human advancement, leading to their scarcity and recourses that were originally funnelled into civilian projects like the teleporter will instead be used for the advancement of the military. The reactionary, paranoid climate brought about by the disaster will provide the perfect conditions for the militaristic, fascist federation to begin.

The Blake's 7 universe is the 51st century of Doctor Who

• While Jack and River are out being liberal and omnisexual in the outer colonies, Earth itself degenerates into an insular fascist state that treats human-descended residents of distant planets as aliens. Magnus Greel is last ruler of the Federation before it collapses and gets replaced by a better government.
  • In Big Finish Doctor Who "Dalek Empire" the Galaxy is set back during the late 42nd century. If this is when the new calendar starts it could work.

The Federation was eventually brought down by the Doctor.

• The Doctor does have a habit of bringing entire tyrannical civilisations tumbling down when he runs into them, and he's been in the general area before. (Going by the Chris Boucher connection, I'd say it ought to be the Fourth Doctor and Leela, too). It would make for an interesting dramatic difference between the scale of the two series, too. The crew of the Liberator fight the Federation for years, it's all for nothing and they're nearly all killed... because they could be stuck in a Doctor Who story in the years before the Doctor shows up.

Travis's Sanity Slippage was deliberately caused by Servalan.

• She had the Federation's Psycho Psychologists do some nasty things to him between the two seasons to make him more dangerous to Blake, less likely to turn against her, and less likely to attract sympathisers if he did.

Cygnus Alpha is Krop Tor

• The deity they worship is The Beast.

Blake was originally an artificial personality created by the Federation to lead the resistance.

• This could give the propagandists a #1 public enemy, help the police state root out dissidents, and keep rebel leadership a known quantity. The experiment simply went Horribly Right. Twice.

Soolin's sister survived the massacre of their family, and was turned into a mutoid.

This is a very old fan theory, which springs from Glynis Barber playing one of Travis' mutoids in "Project Avalon".

Blake's 7 takes place in Star Trek's mirror universe.

• Given humanity were imperialistic in the mirror universe it would fit. While the Deep Space Nine episodes had us as the rebels, we were fighting back and there's a good chance we would have ultimately become victorious. Given the last time we tried a more peaceful approach we ended up defeated, it's very likely that if they won their freedom by the end of the 24th century the humans in Star Trek's mirror universe would have returned to their old ways and ultimately created a new empire (keep in mind that Blake's 7 is set much later). Of course, they may have changed the name to something new as part of a rebranding exercise (hence "Terran Federation" rather than "Terran Empire"). The lack of transporters isn't that far out there. In Deep Space Nine there was mention that transporters were redesigned to prevent accidental contact with the prime universe. Perhaps, given the danger posed by the technology, it was eventually banned and knowledge about it was suppressed. Replicators work on a similar principle and that may be why that technology was ultimately banned as well. The lack of Klingons/Cardassians/Romulans is explained by the fact that at some point we wiped out the species who were a major threat to us.

Star Trek's 24th century is Blake's 7's future, the earlier years are propaganda.

Combining together a few different ideas above:

1. Blake's 7 and Star Trek are based on the same reality but with Star Trek being propaganda in favour of the Federation while Blake's 7 is against it by the rebels.
2. The events in Star Trek's 24th century were chronologically after the events in Blake's 7.
3. The series set earlier on in the timeline were a revisionist propaganda designed to portray the Federation/humans as always having similar to how they are in the 24th century.

In "Moloch" Servelan found a planet which, at the end of the episode, was hard to find but poorly defended. This planet had replicator technology. This technology may have taken a few years to research/distribute/make common place (in other words longer than Blake's 7 lasted). However, it's reasonable to think it would have eventually done so.

Also, it's quite possible that the teleport would have been sufficiently intact at the end of "Blake" that the Federation could have studied and replicated the technology.

These new technologies could lead to significant changes in the Federation. In particular, replicator technology where goods can be easily produced without effort and where trading (except of original designs) become meaningless could explain the change in economic structures. If the quality of life in the Federation improved they may even have had more planets joining them willingly and less need to drug people to get them to go along with things. So the Federation could actually be more Star Trek-like meaning the events of 24th century Star Trek and Blake's 7 could both be relatively close to the underlying "truth".

Of course, there are some inconsistencies. Speed is one as, though not formally given, ships in Blake's 7 appeared to be faster. However, going by the Literary Agent Hypothesis it's possible that some of the details presented were incorrect. For example, the aliens in "Star One" might have been from another quadrant rather than another galaxy or may have travelled by wormhole (making the minefield more effective).

The time period is also different. Blake's 7, though not given an exact date, is generally accepted as being 27th century at earliest. However, given the tendency for the Terran Federation to rewrite history (such as pretending Servalan was never president), it's possible they chose to create a new calendar and then began suppressing knowledge of certain time periods to the point where a few centuries went missing.

One way or another the Federation is doomed

• After the intergalactic war the Federation was on the verge of collapse and only regained its' territory again through the use of mind control drugs to suppress their populations. However Avon and co have now distributed the inoculation to their drugs to their enemies so there is no way they can maintain their grip on power.

The Blake killed in the final episode is actually his pacifist clone from the episode 'Weapon' and not the real Blake

Note he never commits any act of violence in the final episode? If it is the real Blake who died then the resistance can use the clone as a figurehead against the Federation.