[Mary Lou Jensen]

Good idea or bad - do you think it carried the story forward or do you thik it cut down on the number of possible storylines?
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[white afro in space]

I liked the idea of Pylene 50 but the makers of the show didn't use it to full potential. They could have encountered, for example, sympathetic leaders who were administering the stuff to their populations because they were told it was some sort of medical aid. Like a lot of things in B7, Pylene 50 was mainly a bit of a MaGuffin to get the characters through to the end of an episode.
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As I was saying, we all have to learn to live with disappointment

[Mary Lou Jensen]

Now that's a good idea. I think the only problem I had with it was the fact that there was no antidote - I know that that was what they were hunting down and all that, but, I don't know. What would be the point of a totally unproductive population.....
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[Futsie]

I don't think it was supposed to make them unproductive, just obedient... People on it were portrayed as rather zombified but as in Traitor, they were also happy to take orders.

I always took the esalator scene in Warlord to be showing that the Federation wanted its citizens to be characterless numbers who would conform without question, rather than showing they were paralysed zombies... A THX 1138 sorta situation maybe...
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[Mary Lou Jensen]

IN that case they needed to show a group of Pyleen-ed citizens actually working - maybe just a production line kind of thing where, when the crew try to talk to them, theyjust didn't react. That way they could be shown as being useful as well as zombified (what a great word.....I think I knew a few people like that )
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[Janov Seldon]

In many ways it's a bad thing, because IIRC it blocks the production of adrenalin. If everyone is on this stuff, where are the Military going to get their troops?

The Pacification Police must have an antidote or at least something that blocks it and I suspect that something similar has been issued to the regular troops.
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"Now then, Butch Harry, tell us about Fulham..."

[Mary Lou Jensen]

[Janov Seldon]

Yes, Avon said it but his alliance of brigands already scared of the Federation encroaching on their territory. Was it really true?

If it was true, I'd suspect that it was used on border worlds that the Federation wanted to take quickly and that pacification drug might not have been Pylene 50. And if the drug is in the water and the air, then the troops would have to have immunisation. Territory already held would have been subjected to the medical laser as Helotrix was.

Anyway, Avon did have the anti-toxin - Forbus gave it to Tarrant and Dayna - he just didn't have the means to produce it, hence the alliance with Zukan.

I've thought about this a great deal - and forgotten quite a bit of it(!) - because it forms a major plot strand of my PGP. And especially the relationship between Space Command and the Pacification Police (or the more Orwellian PaciPol).
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"Now then, Butch Harry, tell us about Fulham..."

[Mary Lou Jensen]

Hadn't Forbus only just come up with the anti-toxin though?
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[Janov Seldon]

He'd developed Pylene 50 initially so he must have been able to come up with an anti-toxin to immunise the troops using it in case of accidents.

I've a feeling he'd made up that batch recently for just such an occasion.
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"Now then, Butch Harry, tell us about Fulham..."

[Mary Lou Jensen]

[Ron]

Good idea, as having a nasty Federation drug is another reason to despise the Federation. In episode one of course there are supressants which are mabye the same.
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Last Watched: Seek, Locate and Destroy, 15/3/2018