Sevencyclopaedia - V

Tel VARON

Worked for the Justice Department on Earth, and was assigned to defend Blake for his second trial. It was not until Blake was awaiting deportation that Varon finally acknowledged that a deliberate miscarriage of justice had taken place, through a remark by Ven Glynd about the tunnels in which the massacre took place despite Varon not having mentioned these.

He went to the Public Records Centre to discover how three children had been treated to believe Blake attacked them, and had to bribe the duty officer since his Priority-3 clearance was not high enough. He then set out with Maja (presumably his wife) to gather film evidence of the massacre, but they were both killed by troopers under Dev Tarrant before a holding order for Blake could be secured.

Varon told Maja that he had once been outside the city, but hadn't much cared for the experience.

VEHICLES

Ground vehicles rarely appeared, but some notable cases are: The Way Back: Federation troopers arrived at the site of Foster's illegal meeting on the back of a small, apparently electrically powered, buggy. As well as the driver it carried six troopers.

Sarkoff had an "automobile" amongst his collection of 20th Century artefacts, registration number RT 277.

Dawn of the Gods: two vehicles were seen on Crandor. One appeared to hypnotise Vila with its lights until he received a telepathic command to run from Cally. It was fitted with what Dayna called "a sort of claw" and was repelled by a shot from Liberator's weaponry. The second was, according to the Caliph, used for rounding up runaway slaves, but also had the capacity to disarm the portable neutron blaster manned by Vila. It was fired at several times as the crew made their escape, but not apparently disabled (until the planet blew up, of course).

Stardrive: reference was made to the Federation banning all leisure transport. The space rats rode on a fast, compact tricycle, several of which were destroyed by bombs planted by Avon and detonated by remote control. A small 8-wheeled buggy was used by the crew of Scorpio and Dr Plaxton (who did the driving) to escape from the space rats" hide-out to where Scorpio was waiting. Dayna "reminded" Dr Plaxton of the time her ground car had been reported stolen, suggesting that ground cars were in regular use on the more civilised worlds, and possibly also that they were worth distinguishing from "air cars".

Gold: Servalan arrived to collect the stolen gold on Beta-5 in an 8-wheeled buggy (a different model to that seen in Stardrive).

Blake: the only aircraft (as opposed to space craft) seen in the series were the fliers used by bounty hunters on Gauda Prime. They were short, stubby and wingless, and could carry at least four people. Blake carried Tarrant back to his base in one after shooting down another, unseen, flying vehicle, and two bounty hunters detected Vila's fire from one. The bounty hunter's vehicle was then appropriated by Avon, Vila, Dayna and Soolin to take them to Blake's base.

VEM

Unit of currency, cited by the proxy bidders at the slave market on Domo. Servalan purchased Avon for 2,000 vems.

VENA

Described by Tarrant as "Muller's lady", and probably his wife though this was not explicitly stated. She came to Xenon Base ahead of Muller and looked forward to his coming, but was crushed to death by the android soon after it teleported onto the base.

VEN GLYND

Arbiter General of the Federation's Justice Department on Earth, and a key figure in organising the false evidence which led to Blake's deportation to Cygnus Alpha.

In Voice from the Past, apparently two years later, he lured Blake to Asteroid P-K118 using an artificial telepathy transmitter, only to reveal that he had defected from the Federation with enough evidence to discredit it and Space Command at the planetary governor's summit on Atlay. This evidence included Blake's trial, as well as knowledge of Servalan's unauthorised offer of 100 million credits for Orac. Governor LeGrand, also party to this intended coup, claimed that she and Ven Glynd had been working together "for years", implicitly prior to Blake's second trial. Although not included in LeGrand's triumvirate, his role was crucial, and Travis (disguised as Shivan) called him an eminence gris. Like LeGrand, Ven Glynd supported the notion of Blake as leader of the prospective new regime. He seemed sincere enough, and it is possible that he played along with events on Earth in order to maintain his own cover. He was shot and wounded in the conference centre on Atlay, then killed by a shot from Travis.

It should be noted that Ven is a first name (cf Ven JARVIK), and so his name might have been simply Glynd.

VERLIS

Woman in charge of the slave auctions on Domo, who regarded herself as a "public servant" for her actions. She allowed Servalan to privately buy an entertainer for Cancer, in contravention of normal procedure, and later bent the rules again to let Servalan bid for Avon.

Her first name is generally held to be Ohnj, but this was not mentioned in the episode.

VERMEER, JOHANNES (JAN)

A painter (1632-1675 AD), one of whose later works, Young Woman Seated at a Virginal (c. 1670), was seen reproduced on one side of a small, flat, circular object in Avon's hands in this episode. Vermeer was born and lived all his life in Delft, the Netherlands, Earth. A combination of being a meticulous worker, having to work part time as a picture dealer to support a large family of 11 children, and a short life, led him to produce only a small body of work.

After his death, his work was forgotten until the late nineteenth century; then his reputation rose in the following century, resulting in him being considered one of the greatest artists of the Dutch 'Golden Age'. Most of his paintings are of indoor scenes of domestic life, with extraordinary fidelity paid to the use of light and colour, which add a special weight to what appear to be everyday, trivial moments.

VERON

Kasabi's daughter, captured by Servalan and forced to betray Blake, Avon, Vila and Gan in the hope of her mother's life being spared. Meeting them at the pre-arranged rendezvous, she rendered them unconscious with sona gas, stole their teleport bracelets (but not their weapons) and locked them in the cellar. She then returned to Servalan, only to find that Kasabi had been dead for an hour. Travis suggested she might get a Civilian Citation for what she had done. When Jenna appeared Veron went with her and Servalan to the bunker where Control was supposedly housed, and then joined Blake and the others in their escape. She opted to remain on Earth when Blake teleported back to Liberator.

When first found by Blake she was wounded in the arm and had apparently lost a lot of blood. The wound was healed by Gan: just how really serious it was to begin with was never disclosed.

VETNOR

One of the rebels under Cauder on Albian, who attempted to disarm the solium radiation device by cutting through the cables to the rotornoid link. The countdown stopped for a few seconds as a result, then resumed. Vetnor cited lack of proper tools as one of the reasons for his inability to do more.

VIDEOCASTS

Avon showed the warlords invited to his alliance a videocast of recent events on Zondawl. Quite why it was called a videocast is unclear, as it was hardly likely to be aired over a public channel.

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