Characters of ''Blake's 7''

This is a list of characters from Blake's 7, a media franchise created by Terry Nation.

Kerr Avon

Paul Darrow
Actor Paul Darrow

Kerr Avon is a fictional character from the British science fiction television series Blake's 7, played by Paul Darrow (who is currently recreating the role for the Big Finish Liberator Chronicles and Classic Audio Adventures; in the B7 audio series, Avon is played by Colin Salmon). Initially one of a character ensemble, he increasingly became a lead character.

A child of the colonies, Avon possesses genius-level intelligence, and is an aloof and sardonic computer expert found guilty of an attempt to embezzle five hundred million credits from the Terran Federation banking system. First seen in the second episode, "Space Fall", as a prisoner aboard the London, a cargo vessel transporting a group of convicted criminals to the penal colony on the planet Cygnus Alpha, he assists Blake in his attempted mutiny on the journey, using his skills to take over the ship's computer. He subsequently boards the Liberator along with Blake and Jenna, and becomes a member of the original "seven". The ship's security system causes Avon to see a projection of his brother, nearly killing him until Blake shoots the security field.

Avon acts self-serving but in reality, when it comes to actions, he is more selfless than any of the others, constantly saving the lives of almost everyone he comes across and including the entire crew several times over, with nothing to gain for himself.

Avon was far more paranoid during Blake's leadership. He was much less paranoid after Blake left. Avon was a cautious man. He tended to think first before he leapt. As a result, he didn't tend to take as many uncalculated risks.

Vila says he "feels safe" with Avon, and in the final two episodes Vila is clearly deeply hurt by Avon's (unavoidable) decision (pointed out to him by Orac) to sacrifice Vila when, in the penultimate episode, a shuttle-craft's load must be lightened. The need for this sacrifice is avoided when Avon discovers an alternative solution, but the situation is recalled (and mirrored) when Tarrant offers to risk his life to save Avon's as the Scorpio crashes into Gauda Prime in the final episode. Upon next seeing Avon, Vila is very keen to know what happened to Tarrant.

By the end of the series, Avon and crew rediscover Blake, who now seems to be working as a Federation bounty hunter. Avon reacts badly to the knowledge that Blake has apparently betrayed them all, and responds by shooting Blake. He later discovers that Blake's role as bounty hunter was a masquerade, as revealed by a real Federation agent who herself (unbeknown to Blake) was masquerading as Blake's rebel accomplice. Having witnessed the massacre of Vila, Tarrant, Dayna and Soolin, Avon's final action is uncertain. He smiles as he raises his gun.

20 years later, Avon finds himself stranded on a planet of outlaws and The Quartet, the power that has risen in place of the Federation, attempt to capture him while he tries to take this opportunity to escape the planet. At the end of this adventure, Servalan and Avon have their final confrontation, with Servalan wanting to know the location of Orac; she is killed by Avon's lover and he leaves the planet, recovering Orac on Gauda Prime before leaving in an alien grey ship.^[1]

Avon quickly became the most popular character on the show, owing to his darker nature, unclear motives, and sardonic wit. Paul Darrow's portrayal led to the actor being permanently associated with the character, and he has written one novel (Avon: A Terrible Aspect) which examined the early years of the character prior to the TV series.

Avon had a contentious relationship with Servalan in season three. During the episode "Aftermath", Servalan offers Avon the chance to rule the Federation by her side; however, regardless of whether she is serious or not, Avon pointedly refuses, shoving her to the ground during their embrace and stating, "I'd be dead within a week." In the episode "Rumours of Death", Avon takes pity upon Servalan who is chained to a wall; similarly, it is she who reveals to him the truth about Anna Grant. In the episode "Death-Watch", the two meet on a neutral planet, and after discussing Servalan's latest scheme, embrace and kiss roughly (Servalan also remarked that she viewed Avon not as an enemy, but as a future ally). However, these brief moments do not diminish the attempts of Servalan to kill Avon and the rest of the crew (although, at one point in season four, she does purchase Avon as a slave from a slave trader, grossly outbidding anyone else's offer).

Avon's first name is usually given as 'Kerr', with a double r. However, it is occasionally spelled 'Ker'; in Darrow's noncanonical novel Avon: A Terrible Aspect, this is explained as a short form of his full name 'Kerguelen', roughly meaning "desolation".

Roj Blake

Roj Blake is a fictional character from the British science fiction television series Blake's 7, played by Gareth Thomas (who replayed his role as Blake in Big Finish Productions audio stories) (in the B7 audio series, Blake is played by Derek Riddell).^[2]

A native of Earth, Roj Blake was a leading voice against the corrupt, oppressive Terran Federation approximately four years before the series began. He was captured by Federation forces, led by Space Commander Travis, and his resistance group were massacred ("Seek-Locate-Destroy"). Blake was subsequently brainwashed into denouncing his resistance activities, stripped of his memory of the events and placed back into society as an "ideal model citizen" to break the morale of the resistance. His brother and sister were sent to a distant planet but executed on arrival. Forged tapes were sent to Blake periodically to sustain the illusion that they were alive.

In the first episode of the series, "The Way Back", Blake was approached by members of a new resistance organisation preparing to strike against the Federation once more. As Blake took time to consider the revelations about his past, he witnessed the massacre of the group by Federation troops. Captured once again, the authorities hatched a plan to discredit him by framing him for child molestation and having him sentenced to life on the prison planet Cygnus Alpha. However, during the journey, Blake escaped aboard an abandoned highly advanced spacecraft, the Liberator, with Jenna Stannis and Kerr Avon. He continued on to Cygnus Alpha, recruiting Olag Gan and Vila Restal into the group. By the end of the first series, his group had grown with the addition of the telepathic alien Cally and the super-computer Orac.

These resources gave Blake an unprecedented ability to oppose the Federation. Initially committed to freedom with noble intentions, he began to show increasing levels of stress ("Horizon", "Voice From the Past") and to become more fanatical. Blake began to focus on destroying the Federation's Control centre, the computers controlling climate and commerce for hundreds of worlds—a scheme that Avon and Cally thought to be morally ambiguous because of the thousands of innocent lives it would cost. His first attempt was also his first major failure—an attack on Earth's Forbidden Zone at the location publicly advertised as Control that turned out to be an empty room. It was revealed that the real control was somewhere secret and that the advertised location was bait for potential rebels. This failure resulted in the death of Olag Gan.

When Blake finally found Star One - the genuine control nexus - he discovered that Travis had betrayed humanity to the Andromedans. He subsequently ordered his crew to stop the sabotage so that humanity would have the resources of Star One to fight off the invasion. He also asked Avon to use the Liberator to hold off the invasion fleet until the Federation arrived. Arguably, the events in "Star One" represented his ultimate triumph as the Federation won a Pyrrhic victory in the intergalactic war that severely reduced their power.

Blake disappeared during the Andromedan War and Avon assumed nominal command of the Liberator. Avon would continue to search for Blake, sometimes with disastrous results ("Terminal"). In the series finale, Avon revealed that he had earlier discovered that Blake was alive and living as a bounty hunter on the planet Gauda Prime. In an attempt to recruit Blake for his purposes, Avon and his team travelled to Gauda Prime but their ship was damaged by security forces prior to arrival and the crew was forced to abandon it. Tarrant, the ship's pilot, successfully crash-landed on the planet. Blake encountered Tarrant when examining the crashed vessel, but did not reveal that he was using the guise of a bounty hunter so that he could test those who claim to be against the Federation, all the while running a large anti-Federation recruitment campaign on Gauda Prime. However, Tarrant escaped Blake's custody before Blake could explain everything to him. Unfortunately, Tarrant informed Avon of what he believed to be Blake's betrayal. Avon did not wait for an explanation and shot Blake dead. Avon and his crew were subsequently surrounded by Federation troops led by Arlen, Blake's confidant. Arlen explained that Blake "said he could no longer tell who was Federation and who wasn't. He was right. He couldn't." This revealed that Arlen herself was a Federation spy who secretly knew Blake's real agenda.

Blake's body was to be sold to Servalan along with Avon and the rest of the Scorpio crew. When the Scorpio crew wouldn't fit, they were dumped in a river and only Blake's body was stored. It was later destroyed in the destruction of Gaius 6 when the lightning bomb exploded on the surface, destroying Blake and the planet completely.

Gareth Thomas wished to kill off Blake without any doubt. It was in his contract for that episode. At his request, Avon was to use a different type of gun, not a gun that could be mistaken for a stun ray. Also, upon being shot, lots of blood would be shown along with Blake's dead body. Blake's death was gorier than is normal for BBC television at the timeslot. Fan theories persist that this may have been the Blake clone seen in the second-series episode "Weapon", but Blake's actions and the fact that he knew about Jenna do not support this. In any event, the clone had been depicted as a character with different motivation from that of the real Blake, with one of his prime characteristics being a regard for the Clonemasters' philosophy regarding the sanctity of life. The fate of the Blake clone, in fact, is unknown, and it was mentioned in the episode "Children of Auron" that the Clonemasters had been destroyed.

Cally

Cally was the only alien amongst the original crew, a native of the planet Auron. She left her home world to help the resistance fighters on Saurian Major and was subsequently exiled by her isolationist people. When a chemical poison was dropped on the rebels, she was the only survivor and was determined to make a suicide attack on the base until she met and joined with Blake. She was initially ashamed to return to Auron because she was the only survivor of the resistance.

Cally was the only member of the original seven who was not a convicted criminal. Like other members of the Auron race, Cally was telepathic and her psychic abilities were a great asset to the crew. On the other hand, it occasionally made her susceptible to being taken over by telepathic influence ("The Web", "Shadow", "Sarcophagus"). While her initial role was monitoring communications, she eventually became a skilled medic and pilot. Initially as fanatical as Blake in fighting the Federation, she, along with Gan, became the moral "conscience" of the crew, once even questioning Blake whether destroying Star One was worth the "many many (innocent) people" he would kill as a result. She even questions his entire crusade, wondering if he has made them all 'fanatics', to which Blake becomes defensive. Cally has come a long way from the rebel who would kill until she was killed on Saurian Major, developing the conscience which Blake never showed in his terrorist acts.

While Cally was rather distant and philosophical at first, as the series went on she became more connected to the crew and would display a dry wit on occasion.

Tragedy eventually marked Cally. Servalan, in a gambit to have herself cloned, deliberately infected Auron with a disease to which she alone had the cure. Almost all of the Aurons were killed, including Cally's twin sister Zelda. Cally herself was later killed by Servalan's explosives on Terminal in series-four opener "Rescue", whilst calling out to Vila with her last thoughts.

Avon confirmed her death after returning to the ruined and collapsing tunnels. He was very certain when he tells Tarrant, his voice becoming softer, as it is often when talking to or about Cally, and then he looks away in the distance.

During the show, a romantic attraction was often teased between Avon and Cally. The first indication of this was during the episode "The Web", when Cally tells Avon "I'm interested in your work", and the two share a long, lingering glance (that also has the humorous side-effect of making the normally unflappable Avon somewhat speechless). However, an actual romantic relationship between the two was never explicitly shown during the series. The closest they came to a romantic interaction was during the episode "Sarcophagus", when Cally's body was taken over by an alien lifeform seeking a host through which to live again. The alien tried to win Avon over (the only crew member not intimidated by it) by telling him, "Cally liked you", and that he could be at her side. Avon went so far as to kiss the alien (which was using Cally's body) in a ruse to gain its confidence and defeat it, freeing Cally in the process.

Similar references were made throughout the series; in the episode "Voice From the Past", Blake (under Federation mind control) fools Vila by telling him Cally and Avon have "paired up", which Vila quite readily believes. A slightly more bitter note is shown in the episode "Children of Auron"; when Cally reveals why she has never returned to her homeworld, she quite pointedly snaps, "Why do you imagine I've never gone back...affection for him?" at which point she storms off (and the other characters look towards Avon).

Cally and Avon quite often went on missions together and shared a knack for delivering quick-witted replies to the other's statements, which would somewhat indicate a growing affection for each other. However, Avon quite openly disdained her compassionate nature and her idealism, which he found to be only somewhat more tolerable than Blake's. Similarly, Cally at times openly mocked Avon's "cold" nature and often clashed with his more self-serving instincts. At one point during the episode "Horizon", Cally and Avon are the only two humans left on board the Liberator, and Cally pointedly rejects Avon's idea of leaving together (and leaving the others to their fate). During the episode "The Keeper", Avon takes the ship out of orbit (and teleport range, leaving Blake, Jenna and Vila stranded in a moment of trouble) to blast Travis' ship, thinking Travis is on board. When Avon later attempts to do the same to what he believes is Servalan's ship, Cally flatly refuses, reminding Avon of what happened last time.

Olag Gan

Olag Gan is a fictional character from the British science fiction television series Blake's 7, played by David Jackson (in the B7 audio series, Gan is played by Owen Aaronovitch). In the audio series by Blakes 7 Productions, Gan is an "Epsilon" rating, an experimental genotype created for strength.^[3]

A native of the planet Zephron, Gan killed a Federation officer who killed his girlfriend. He was declared insane and had an implant placed in his brain that made it impossible for him to kill. He was later sentenced to be exiled to Cygnus Alpha. He participated in Roj Blake's escape attempt, but was left behind when Blake escaped on the Liberator. When Blake returned to Cygnus Alpha, Gan and Vila were the only prisoners who both joined him and survived the fight against Vargas.

Courageous and powerfully built, Gan, by his own admission, was not terribly bright. But he was the voice of reason and rustic common sense, so he was far from stupid. His manner was direct, honest and straightforward. Unlike the other more cynical members of the crew, he took things at face value and was not always expecting to be betrayed or double-crossed. He was loyal and selfless in his devotion to Blake's cause, and his raw physical strength was a great asset. Although loyal to Blake, Gan was noticeably outspoken against Blake's plans to ally with Terra Nostra, a drug-dealing organisation.

His implant proved to be an occasional problem, preventing him from killing those who were a clear menace to the crew's safety ("Time Squad") and once breaking down and making him attack the crew and the Liberator itself ("Breakdown"). However, the respect the crew had for him was demonstrated when they went to immense risk to have his implant repaired rather than simply kill him.

During the unsuccessful attack on Earth Control, Gan was killed by falling debris after Travis threw a strontium grenade at the group. He died holding a closing door open so that the others could escape. His last words were, "I'm not worth dying for!" as Blake came back for him. He was the first member of the crew to die and the crew, especially Blake, were devastated by the loss. Blake came to believe that Gan died because the crew of the Liberator (he himself, particularly) had started to believe their own legend of invulnerability.

Anna Grant

Anna Grant was played by Lorna Heilbron, Avon had an affair with a woman called Anna Grant (often referring to Avon in their younger days as "Colonial Boy") whom he loved, and believed that she was betrayed by a Federation agent named Bartholomew, and was tortured and executed by the notorious Federation torturer, Shrinker. However, during season three, Avon marooned Shrinker and attempted to locate Bartholomew, only to discover that Grant herself was Bartholomew and had been a Federation agent "running him." Avon killed her, but her dying words, "I let you go," implied that she had allowed him to escape. Avon's statement, "You never did," implied that he still loved her.

Del Grant

Del Grant was played by Tom Chadbon, responsible for a revolution on Arcos and called in by Cauder on Albian to overthrow the Federation's control of the planet. The garrison was defeated under his command of the rebels, but not before the solium radiation device was activated by Tronos. When Blake arrived, Grant recognised Avon instantly. Avon believed until then that Grant was dead (Grant also believed that Avon had himself died). Having some knowledge of timing devices, he worked with Avon to disarm the solium device.

Del was Anna Grant's brother, and believed not only that she was dead but also that Avon was, albeit indirectly, responsible, having left with the exit visas before he knew Anna was dead. He appeared to have a very anti-Federation attitude, and was thus perhaps not completely mercenary. He did demand a high fee for his services, but apparently because his reputation (and ego) demanded it.

Grant later contacts the Liberator crew regarding a Federation weapon known as The Armageddon Storm, which later destroyed the planet Shoren and most of the inhabitants. Grant is furious to find out that Avon killed his sister and obligates Avon to have him as a member of the Liberator crew. After a short while trying to integrate himself he is under suspicion of Tarrant and Dayna while the others are fine with him.

Dayna Mellanby

Dayna Mellanby, played by Josette Simon, is the daughter of former resistance leader Hal Mellanby, who fled from Earth with his infant daughter to escape security forces after his movement collapsed. Living in an undersea home on Sarran, she developed a keen interest in all kinds of weapons systems, developing expertise in everything from bows and arrows to sophisticated energy blasters.

In the aftermath of the Intergalactic War, numerous survivors of the battle crash-landed on Sarran, including Kerr Avon, whom Dayna rescued from the primitive Sarran natives. Servalan later crashed on Sarran and joined them in Mellanby's home. Servalan eventually recognized and murdered Mellanby and tried to escape with Orac. During this time, Dayna's adopted sister was killed by the Sarans. Dayna was unable to kill Servalan before the Liberator automatically teleported her and Avon back.

With her father and sister dead, Dayna joined the Liberator crew and resumed her father's fight against the Federation. Having been raised on a backwater planet, Dayna was bit naive and idealistic. Young, pretty, lively and with a strong sense of humour, she was a marked contrast against the world-weary cynicism of the rest of the crew. She was also capable, determined and good under pressure. At one point, in "Deathwatch", she had a clear chance to kill Servalan but spared her to prevent an interplanetary war. And she continued to develop elaborate weapons for the crew with a flair that Tarrant described as "gaudy, but effective."

Dayna showed an initial romantic interest in Avon as he was the first man she'd met in a very long time. On the first meeting, she kissed him out of "curiosity". But she quickly cooled to him. She also had a past romantic involvement with an older scientist named Justin. When he was killed by Servalan ("Animals"), she was devastated. This only served to fuel her consuming hatred of Servalan. During the episode "Ultraworld", it is implied that Dayna and Tarrant had sex, so that the human reproductive process could be studied by the planet's inhabitants (at one point, Dayna is shown leaning over a prone Tarrant and remarking "I can't be all that repulsive" prior to their first kiss).

Josette Simon sings a song during the 3rd-season episode Sarcophagus. Although Simon isn't seen during the song, it is assumed to be her character, especially since Dayna is shown making adjustments to a musical instrument in the previous scene. Episode author Tanith Lee wrote two verses, although Dayna only sings the first:

I left my world to wander in

this endless midnight sky,
for space is just a starry night
where no suns ever rise.

There are no mornings like my world's,
no shapes, no sounds, no signs.
But I could never count the suns

That my world's lost behind.

Dayna, like the rest of the Scorpio crew, was gunned down by Federation officer Arlen during the final shoot-out on Gauda Prime. This is confirmed in the novel, Lucifer as Avon is escaping he doesn't spare a glance at Dayna's body or any of the others. However, he is captured and taken with the bodies of the Scorpio crew they were later dumped in a river and were later hauled out of their watery graves by troopers and were cremated effectively destroying all evidence of the shootout on Gauda Prime.

Orac

Orac
Blake's 7 character
Orac, at Concussion, the 2006 Eastercon
First appearance	Orac
Last appearance	Blake Lucifer Genesis (destroyed)
Voiced by	Derek Farr (First appearance) Peter Tuddenham (television series and BBC Radio) Alistair Lock (B7 Productions and Big Finish Productions)
Information
Species	Computer
Gender	Simulated male
Affiliation	Resistance

Orac is voiced by series regular Peter Tuddenham, except for the series 1 finale "Orac" (which introduced the character) when the voice is provided by Derek Farr, who played Orac's creator Ensor in that episode. (Orac is now voiced by Alistair Lock, both in the revivial by B7 Productions and Big Finish Productions.) Orac is a highly advanced supercomputer developed by the scientist Ensor, brought aboard the Liberator by Blake and the others at the end of the first series. Ensor was a particularly irascible character and Orac inherited some of his traits: Orac is terse, short-tempered, and frequently unhelpful. Orac is activated by a "key", which is removed by the crew to shut him up if he prattles on too much.

Orac's key is destroyed in the explosions on Terminal alongside Cally. Dorian later makes a new key for it, identical to its predecessor. Orac is invaluable to Avon as an advisor on more than one occasion it had been possessed by both alien and robotic intelligence's in the television series.

In Tony Attwood's non-canonical Afterlife, Ensor is shown to have made a twin of Orac for his own use—called Caro. Orac was not present during the final shootout on Gauda Prime in Blake, and his survival or whearebouts are unknown. Cancer surgeon and blogger David Gorski uses the pseudonym 'Orac' in homage to the Orac of Blake's 7.^[6]

In Paul Darrow's canonical Lucifer series, Orac is later retrieved by Avon and used to find ways to stay alive and find ways to fight The Quartet. In the last novel Orac is used as a last resort to kill the guards with an explosion and tiny metal darts destroying itself in the process Orac later calls out into what can only presumed to be the afterlife for Avon. However Avon either doesn't reply or cannot and the novel ends with Orac weeps for his friend.

Vila Restal

Vila Restal is a fictional character from the British science fiction television series Blake's 7, played by Michael Keating. The only character to appear in all 52 episodes of the series, Vila was particularly known for his humorous lines and his banter with Kerr Avon.

In the B7 audio series, Vila is played by Dean Harris; however, Michael Keating returned to the role for the story When Vila Met Gan. Michael Keating is reprising his role as Vila in several volumes of the Liberator Chronicles (a series of enhanced audiobooks released by Big Finish in a licence deal with B7 Enterprises) and the Classic Audio Adventures series produced by the same company, released from January 2014.^[7]

A native of Earth and a member of the lowly Delta grade criminal underclass (similar to the classes established in Aldous Huxley's Brave New World), Vila is a petty thief who meets Blake in the detention cell awaiting transport to Cygnus Alpha. Whilst Blake is asleep, Vila was picking Blake's pockets.

Vila later participates in a prisoner mutiny aboard the transport ship London. He remains on the London when Blake, Avon and Jenna escape in the Liberator, finally leaving the penal planet Cygnus Alpha with Blake.

Vila is more intelligent than his Delta grade rating suggests, claiming to have bought that designation to avoid being drafted as a spaceship captain. Vila is a talented thief who can break into the most sophisticated security systems. This ability makes him useful to Blake's crew; in the episode "City At the Edge of the World", Avon tells Del Tarrant that "...we can find a pilot anywhere, but a talented thief is rare."

Vila is often lazy and cowardly, preferring to evade danger. He claims he wants "...to live forever, or die trying." Actor Michael Keating described the character as "...a survivor", doing what was necessary to stay alive and not caring as much about the ideals of Blake or the ambitions of Avon. Vila is a poor fighter—his confusion costs the rebels the battle in "Space Fall", and he is momentarily shocked after stabbing a fanatical monk in "Cygnus Alpha".

Vila greatly enjoys drinking and gambling, making the Liberator crew keep him away from situations where his vices could compromise the mission ("Shadow", "Killer", "Gambit"). However, he demonstrates courage and resourcefulness when needed, choosing to join with Blake instead of staying on Cygnus Alpha, grabbing Orac before being teleported off the Liberator in "Terminal", and re-entering the Terminal complex to save Tarrant ("Rescue"). He demonstrates immense skill and heroism in "City at the Edge of the World", where he develops a short-lived but intense romance with Kerril, a female gunfighter.

Vila admires Blake, but possibly his closest friend is Gan, whose honesty he trusts. His relationship with Avon is considered by many fans to be a highlight of the series. It is a mixture of respect and loathing. They share a common cynicism and focus on material success as demonstrated in "Gambit". They clearly respect each other's skills and work together effectively ("Killer"). They often sparred over Avon's ruthlessness and Vila's cowardice. In "Space Fall", Vila suggests killing Avon, anticipating that Avon would scheme to have other prisoners thrown out of an airlock. During the fourth-series episode "Orbit", Avon tries to throw Vila out of the airlock of a spaceship that cannot reach its escape velocity. Although another solution is found and they survived the ordeal, the incident created a cooling of their relationship.

Vila is fond of attractive women; during Cally's first episode, he calls out to her "Don't shoot, pretty lady!" He sometimes engages in playful, and sometimes more serious, bantering with Cally, Dayna and Soolin. While Cally treated Vila's jokes as playful remarks from a friend, both Dayna and Soolin considered him to be quite lecherous. The rest of the crew are aware of this; during the episode "Headhunter", Vila remarks that he was a "...perfect gentleman" to Muller's female partner, to which Tarrant replied "That's what bothered us." However, Vila is capable of genuine affection and concern for his female friends; despite his lecherous comments and flirtations with her at the outset, his relationship with Kerril developed quickly into love, with Vila offering to sacrifice himself so that Kerril would escape. Similarly, during the episode "Sand" he was shown to be very upset with Soolin when she mentions Cally's death.

Along with rest of the Scorpio crew, Vila is gunned down during the final shoot-out on Gauda Prime. He is presumed to have died, although there has been much speculation that he pretended to fall to avoid getting killed. In the non-canonical novel Afterlife by Tony Attwood, this is what happened and Vila stays with Avon to continue their adventures—although bitterly resentful of Avon's killing of Blake. However, he is stated as being dead in Lucifer as Avon escapes, he doesn't spare a glance at Vila's body or any of the rest of the Scorpio crew. However, Avon is captured and taken with the bodies of the Scorpio crew; they were later dumped in a river and were later hauled out of their watery graves by troopers and were cremated, effectively destroying all evidence of the shootout on Gauda Prime.

The character was twice considered for removal from the series, according to the DVD commentaries of script editor Chris Boucher and producer David Maloney. Terry Nation originally wanted Vila to be killed in Pressure Point, but was overruled by the other producers. Later, it was briefly suggested that Vila be killed off in "Star One", along with Jenna; he remained because a survey showed him to be the series' second-most popular character.

In an interview with Tony Attwood, Keating said that he was watching the series with his daughter when she said, "Daddy, you're stupid!" Keating related this to Boucher, inspiring the latter to write "City at the Edge of the World" in which Vila becomes a hero.^[8]

During the production of "Orbit", while Avon looks for Vila to throw from the airlock, Keating was filmed hiding, shaking and in tears. These few seconds were not broadcast because the director considered the scene "...too real". Following this episode, Vila becomes very wary of Avon's motives.^[8]

Servalan

Servalan is played by Jacqueline Pearce (in the B7 audio series, she is played by Daniela Nardini). She was the principal villain of the series. Her creator Terry Nation originally intended her to make a single appearance but she finally appeared in all four series, the only guest character to do so. She is principally concerned with organising efforts to destroy Blake and crush resistance to the Federation's rule. She is quickly revealed to be a cold, calculating, ruthless sociopath who is not above using her sex appeal and charm to get what she wants.

In the novel Lucifer by Paul Darrow, set 20 years after the events of Gauda Prime, Avon and Servalan have their final confrontation: Servalan is killed by Avon's lover, Magda, before Avon escapes and recovers Orac. In Tony Attwood's non-canonical novel Afterlife, she is shot dead by a resistance fighter.

Servalan/Sleer appeared in both of the BBC's official audio adventures, The Sevenfold Crown and The Syndeton Experiment. She also returned in the unofficial audio adventure The Logic of Empire and in subsequent Big Finish audio adventures.

Slave

Slave is the flight computer on the Scorpio. It is featured throughout the fourth season voiced by Peter Tuddenham. It was originally programmed to respond only to Dorian's voice print, but Orac was later able to remove this so the computer responded to anyone who addressed it. The crew made general use of Slave's abilities throughout their time aboard the ship.

Slave was a unique system installed by Dorian, possibly making use of work by Ensor. It could communicate verbally with the crew and handle routine flight procedures at a level of sophistication unmatched by any human-built computer with the exception of Orac. Due to Dorian's rather strange sense of humour, Slave was programmed with an exaggeratedly obsequious and subservient personality, habitually addressing the crew as "Master" or "Mistress".

Slave was quite capable of directing the Scorpio from planet to planet without human assistance, and it was in fact impossible to land the ship in its hangar on Xenon with the computer off-line. Emergency operations were also beyond Slave's abilities to handle.

During and after the crash of Scorpio on Gauda Prime, Slave was severely damaged. Running on emergency power cells, Slave broke his obedience and called Tarrant by his name instead of calling him Master/Sir.

Slave is later played by Peter Tuddenham in The Sevenfold Crown and The Syndeton Experiment for BBC Radio plays.

Soolin

Soolin was played by Glynis Barber.^[2]

Soolin met the survivors of the Liberator on their return from Terminal at the beginning of Season Four. Dorian's companion and lover, she was a skilled gunfighter. She had learnt her trade at a young age after her parents were murdered by hired mercenaries on Gauda Prime. Learning how to be proficient with a gun, she tracked down the killers and avenged her parents' deaths.

After Dorian's death, she initially disappeared in the Xenon base but then reappeared and offered to "sell my skill" to Avon's group. Prone to sarcasm and highly suspicious, she was nevertheless loyal to the Scorpio crew and would occasionally hint at greater depth in her character. She also displayed keen intelligence, figuring out the identity of Cancer in "Assassin", for example.

Soolin was shot down by Federation guards in the series finale. This is confirmed in the novel, Lucifer as Avon is escaping he doesn't spare a glance at Soolin's body or any of the others however he is captured and taken with the bodies of the Scorpio crew they were later dumped in a river and were later hauled out of their watery graves by troopers and were cremated effectively destroying all evidence of the shootout on Gauda Prime.

Glynis Barber stated in a 2006 interview that she would not have returned for a fifth series, so it is probable that Soolin was killed.

Glynis Barber coincidentally appeared as a mutoid in Season One's "Project Avalon". The two characters were presumably not related.

Soolin also appeared in The Sevenfold Crown and The Syndeton Experiment for BBC Radio plays, and was portrayed by Paula Wilcox.

Jenna Stannis

Jenna Stannis was played by Sally Knyvette. (The role was revived in the Blake's 7 audio plays, where at first she was played by Carrie Dobro, though Knyvette has since returned to playing her again in Big Finish Productions audio stories.)

A member of the elite Alpha class, Jenna was a beautiful but cynical smuggler/self-styled "free trader". She clearly had some involvement with resistance groups as she had once met the resistance fighter Avalon. She was captured by the Federation and sentenced to be transported to the prison colony on Cygnus Alpha. However, she befriended Blake, assisted in a mutiny on the transport ship and escaped with him and Avon aboard the Liberator.

A talented pilot, Jenna initially took charge of all navigation duties aboard the Liberator. She was the only crew member capable of piloting the ship when Zen was inoperative or unwilling to do so.

Jenna was cynical and untrusting, but could also be kind and affectionate with a good sense of humour. She was very intelligent, in keeping with her grade rating, and seemed to enjoy baiting Avon and Vila. While Jenna was never completely devoted to Blake's ideals, she was loyal to him and they had a strong mutual affection (she was chosen by Sinofar in Duel to demonstrate the death of a friend to Blake and was jealous of Inga in Hostage). She was also more ethical than the other crew. When she was a free trader, for example, she refused to run drugs. Her beauty brought her to the attention of a number of dangerous people (Space Fall), but she used her looks to her advantage on occasion (The Keeper).

Jenna disappeared with Blake during the Intergalactic War at the end of the second serial. The only report Zen heard was that she was on a hospital ship. In the series finale, Blake told Tarrant that Jenna returned to smuggling and died heroically, self-destructing her ship and taking "half a squadron of gunships" with her. It is presumed this story was true, although it is probable that Blake is simply dropping her name into the conversation to judge Tarrant's reaction. Blake uses many ploys and deceptions in order to work out whom he can trust, and watches Tarrant very closely in the said scene.

In "Jenna's Story" by Steve Lyons (The Liberator Chronicles, Volume 6, performed by Sally Knyvette), it is revealed that Jenna is indeed dead, killed when the ship she was piloting was destroyed.^[9] The story details the events from Jenna's escape from the Liberator during the Galactic War, and her determination to continue Blake's fight against the Federation until the moment of her death.

Del Tarrant

Del Tarrant is a fictional character from the British science fiction television series Blake's 7, played by Steven Pacey.^[2]

Del Tarrant is a skilled pilot, trained in the Federation Space Academy, who steals a pursuit ship and begins running contraband in the outer planets and getting involved in wars. He rises high on the Federation's "wanted list". During the Intergalactic War, he goes in against the Andromedans and his ship is destroyed in the first salvo. He is picked up by a Federation ship and acquires a uniform. When that ship is destroyed, he is picked up by the damaged Liberator and presumed by the Federation officers aboard to be in charge. He cooperates with Avon to kill the Federation officers and take back the ship, after which he becomes a member of the crew, replacing Jenna Stannis as their principal pilot.

Tarrant is intelligent, cunning and worldly, but can also be arrogant and impulsive. He is also heroic and idealistic, however; when the Liberator is being pulled into a black hole, he stops Avon from abandoning the ship on the idea that "we all go together." Avon says of him, "Tarrant is brave, young, handsome - there are three good reasons for anyone not to like him."

He and Avon have frequent "alpha male" clashes over who is in charge of the ship. While his idealism is central to this conflict, it also affords Avon some tactical advantages. He sometimes uses Tarrant's headstrong approach to distract the enemy while he finds a more devious solution. Despite their conflicts, Tarrant goes out of his way on a number of occasions to save Avon's life. He tends to bully Vila Restal, for which Avon castigates him in "City at the Edge of the World".

Tarrant's brother, Deeta, is killed by an android in the Teal-Vandor Convention. Tarrant avenges his death to prevent a war, although he cannot bring himself to shoot the android in the back. Tarrant has brief romantic involvements with Servalan and Zeeona. It is also implied during the episode "Ultraworld" that Dayna and Tarrant have sex, so that the human reproductive process can be studied by the planet's inhabitants (at one point, prior to their first kiss, Dayna is shown leaning over a prone Tarrant and remarking "I can't be all that repulsive").

Tarrant is seriously injured in the crash of the Scorpio when he heroically stays at the controls so that the others can escape. He is later gunned down during the final shoot-out on Gauda Prime.

This is confirmed in the novel, Lucifer as Avon is escaping he doesn't spare a glance at Tarrant's body or any of the others however he is captured and taken with the bodies of the Scorpio crew they were later dumped in a river and were later hauled out of their watery graves by troopers and were cremated effectively destroying all evidence of the shootout on Gauda Prime.

However, in Tony Attwood's non-canonical novel Afterlife, he simply passes out from his wounds (although he is later killed by wild animals on Terminal).

The very first episode of the series, "The Way Back", features a Federation security agent called Dev Tarrant who arranges the massacre of Blake's friends and the murder of his lawyers. No connection is made between him and Steven Pacey's character when the latter joins the series.

Travis

Space Commander Travis is a fictional character in the English science fiction television programme Blake's 7. Stephen Greif performed the role of Travis in the programme's first series, but declined an offer to return for the second series (but returned to play Travis in the Big Finish Liberator Chronicles audio drama story "Promises" written by Nigel Fairs). "Weapon", the third episode of the second series, marked the first performance of Brian Croucher in the role. In this episode, Travis expresses to Supreme Commander Servalan some unease about his recent "rehabilitation". In B7 Productions' audio dramas of Blake's 7, Craig Kelly assumes the role of Travis.

Travis is a Space Commander in the Terran Federation who is infamous for his brutality and ruthlessness. Prior to the events of the Blake's 7 television series, a Federation leader commissions him to subdue an anti-Federation resistance movement on Earth. Travis and a band of troopers under his command ambush a key resistance group. When the group's leader, Roj Blake, declares their surrender, Travis commands his men to gun-down the rebels. Blake wrests a DEW gun from a trooper, and shoots Travis, wounding him severely on the left side of his body. After the troopers capture Blake, a combat medic called Maryatt partially repairs Travis' face. Later, Travis eschews cosmetic surgery, and replaces his amputated left arm with a cybernetic one equipped with an energy weapon called a Laseron Destroyer.

When Roj Blake escapes the Federation, Servalan, Supreme Commander of the Terran Federation, enlists Travis as a special agent to hunt Blake—and to commandeer Liberator, an advanced starship which Blake now captains. In his several encounters with Blake, Travis eventually captures a resistance leader called Avalon, and indirectly causes the death of one of Blake's crewmen, Olag Gan. Ultimately, however, Travis fails too egregiously for Servalan, who required of him not only the downfall of the resistance movement, but calculated assistance in her manoeuvring for total galactic ascendancy. Servalan fears that Travis' blundering might expose her abuses of power, and concludes that his liability exceeds his faltering usefulness. Finally, she endorses a dilatory court-martial for a massacre which Travis ordered earlier in his career—a crime for which he was sure to be executed.

Coincidentally, the Liberator, under Blake's command, attacks Federation headquarters at the penultimate moment of Travis' sentencing. Amidst the commotion of the attack, Travis seizes the opportunity to escape his death sentence, and absconds to Servalan's office. There, he forces Servalan to provision him with an escape ship and other resources. Travis, now a fugitive, resumes his obsessive hunt for Blake.

Blake and Travis meet for the final time at Star One, a secret base and supercomputer of crucial importance to the Federation's control of its planets. There, Blake discovers that Travis has betrayed the Federation to aliens from the Andromeda Galaxy. Travis shoots Blake on sight, but is unaware that he has not mortally wounded him. When an opportune moment arises, Blake clips Travis with a shot from his sidearm. Before Travis can retaliate, Kerr Avon knocks him into an energy vortex, killing him.

Zen

Zen was the master computer aboard the Liberator (formerly Deep Space Vehicle 2), the highly advanced spacecraft used by Blake and the others initially to escape from and then attack the Federation. The voice of Zen was provided by Peter Tuddenham (in the B7 audio series and Big Finish Productions audio series, Zen is voiced by Alistair Lock).

Zen's history, like that of the Liberator itself, is unknown prior to its first appearance. It specifically refused to answer questions about the previous crew of the Liberator. It was constructed by "The System" ("Redemption"), which also installed a series of over-rides to take external control of the ship if necessary.

Zen's visual interface was a large brown octagonal dome toward the front of the bridge with lights that flashed as it spoke; it was suggested in "Cygnus Alpha" that this 'visual reference point' was created by Zen to aid the crew after they asked it to show itself. Zen would simply make computer noises in place of speaking when overridden by The System.

Zen was capable of flying the Liberator on its own, with the notable exception of being unable to operate the teleport controls. It had banks of auxiliary computers that could be brought on-line when requested. These included navigation computers, which could pilot the Liberator to any known destination, and battle computers, that could formulate strategy, pilot the ship and operate the weapon systems during combat, even successfully fighting off a number of Federation pursuit ships without crew input ("Volcano"). Zen could also force the auto-repair systems to prioritise certain systems.

Zen had a chamber underneath its main dome that could perform instantaneous analysis of substances, such as the virus in "Project Avalon" or the drug in "Shadow". It also had access to more sophisticated analysis equipment, as demonstrated in its frantic attempts to find a solution to the corrosive space particles in "Terminal". Zen also had some crude telepathic ability. It operated a defence system against intruders that would use images of loved ones to draw them to their deaths. It could also form a temporary telepathic link with new crew - taking the name "Liberator" from Jenna's mind, for example.

Although open to instruction, Zen projected a dour, non-committal personality all of its own. In some of the early episodes, Zen would reply to certain questions with the phrase "That information is not available" and it was left open as to whether Zen was secretly executing its own agenda or genuinely couldn't help. In the episodes "Time Squad" and "Breakdown", Zen refused to help the crew carry out actions it believed endangered the ship, and even though it could not control the Teleport, it disabled the system by causing a circuit burnout. Zen did not display these characteristics from season two, possibly due to being re-programmed by Orac in the episode "Redemption".

Zen's massive database was a paradox within itself. The Federation was totally unaware of Liberator's origins (The System), yet Zen was able to provide information on Federation Planets, colonies, space ship designs and history, but it was unable (or unwilling) to recognise the two Drones from The System (Redemption) despite their architecture being of its own kind.

After the crew were forced to abandon the Liberator temporarily due to being badly damaged in the Intergalactic War, Zen was ordered to take commands only from the voice prints of certain members of the crew. The psychic defence barrier seen in Space Fall, was deactivated when Avon commanded Zen to allow an unrecognised ship to dock, which most likely contained Klegg and his troops. When Tarrant and Dayna joined the crew, their voice prints were added. Servalan's voice print was also added when she managed to take over the Liberator temporarily (The Harvest of Kairos), but it was removed when the crew re-took control.

It is likely that any other Deep Space Vehicles constructed by The System had Zen-like computers of their own.

References