23

"You see Vicki?" says Tor, "Not only does the reply have to be true, it has to be the correct answer as well."

To the Moroks, 'truth' and 'the correct answer' are the same thing.  And 'correct' means 'official', 'integrated', 'obedient'.

"Do you understand that all questions are to be fully answered?" asks the computer, "What is your rank? What is your name? Do you have the Governor's permission to approach? Have you a requisition signed by the Governor? What is its reference number?"

'Truth' is defined as the correct answer to all these questions, the correct integration into the imperial system, the correct official position.  Legality is what power says it is.  And only the state, and its functionaries, have the legitimate right to use violence.

"Withdrawal requisition numbers are fed in from headquarters. It has to tally with the number given," explains Tor.

Systems of oppression run on tallying numbers.

Vicki's response is to rip the front off the machine and start mucking around in its arcane guts.

She reprograms it; forces it to redefine words according to her insurrectionary imperatives.

"What is your name?" it asks.

"Vicki."

"For what purpose are the arms needed?"

"Revolution!"

The machinery, suitably seized and retooled, is satisfied with this.  It's the truth... and it's now the 'correct' answer too, now that Vicki has changed its parameters.

Behind the newly-open door, there is the potential to remake the world; the ability to disrupt the imperial state's monopoly on violence.

"There’s everything we need here and more!" declares Sita.

Well, he's wrong about that.  They need a lot more than just the ability to shoot people.  But it's a start.  It's a way of defending their challenge to a system that is ruthless in its determination to hold on to power. And the door itself is perhaps more important even than the guns behind it.  They've opened it.  They've seized control of the machinery - by redefining truth to mean something more than just the imperial state's idea of  'the correct answer'.

25

"Come in, won’t you?" calls the Doctor, "I’ve been waiting to talk to you."

Koquillion answers the invitation.

"This used to be the Peoples’ Hall of Judgement," remarks the Doctor, regarding the empty chamber sadly, "Fitting, in the present circumstances don’t you think?  Mr Bennett, may I remind you that masks and robes such as you are wearing are only used on absolutely ceremonial occasions, hmm?"

Koquillion removes his face.  Bennett is beneath.

He explains that he is a murderer.

"I killed a crewmember on the spaceship to Astra. I was arrested. The ship crashed. My crime hadn’t been radioed to Earth. I knew if I could get rid of the other crewmembers..."

"Get rid of the other crewmembers and blame their deaths on the Dido people, hmm?"

"When we crash landed, the inhabitants invited us all to a grand meeting. It was simple. I just arranged an explosive, using the ships armaments. The whole thing went up. All the inhabitants, the crew, the whole race."

"You destroyed a whole planet to save your own skin. You’re insane."

"The girl didn’t know I’d been arrested. When we get back to Earth, she’d support my story. I dressed up as Koquillion to show her how terrible the people here were."

According to the Doctor they were actually hospitable and sociable people, the few hundred that used to live there anyway.  The ones that survived Bennett's explosion, and who turn up to get him, are pretty pissed off however. Understandably. But Bennet never had a moment's doubt that his fable of their murderous fierceness would be believed.

Implicit in the very fabric of the story is the assumption that 'Earth' or 'humanity' means Whitey.  Caucasians.  Westerners.  This is something that is far from unproblematic, and it occurs again and again, even - perhaps especially - in SF satires of colonialism.  And, when the "Dido people" appear, they're not represented as people of colour, which tends to rub people of colour out of their own story.  And yet, as ever, there's a double bind here.  To represent them as people of colour would be for the culture industries Western imperialism to take it upon themselves to represent the kinds of people their own societies decimated.  The solution isn't to be found within the culture industries, or within the creation of TV texts. The necessary solution is a dialectical and political one that changes society, not just the attitudes of society, or the way society makes television.

And yet, all that being said... also implicit in this particular story is the assumption that Bennett would be believed without question when he dishonestly blamed the aboriginal inhabitants of an uncolonised 'New World' for a senseless massacre of his fellow passengers and crew.  Also implicit is the assumption on the part of Bennett that the culture and sophistication of the Didoans counts for nothing, that their People's Hall of Judgement is just another place that he can use and abuse them without being judged.

They key figure here is the mask.  In ceremonies, masks are objects of immense social significance and complexity.  Bennett takes it upon himself to use the Didoan masks as a fetish outfit to scare a teenager; as a monster costume.  He sees their culture and sees menace and horror in its otherness.  He expects Vicki to be terrified of the mask... but isn't it the cruel and abusive behaviour of the man behind the mask that frightens Vicki?  After all, the mask depicts an insect... presumably an insect native to Dido.  Sandy the Sandbeast, who resembles the insect (being part of the same evolutionary pattern... as well as also being designed by Ray Cusick) is her friend.  There's a whole subplot about how Barbara kills Sandy, not realising what Vicki realises: that he is not something to be feared simply because of his otherness, his 'Didoanness'.

The cermonial animal mask suggests West African and Sub-Saharan tribal cultures: the very regions among those decimated by Western encroachment and violence.  These masks are one of the aspects of African culture that the West has adopted... but they still carry a sinister charge in our imperialist fantasies.  Even in great art, such as that of Picasso, the mask-like faces suggest and imply something terrifying.  Think of the accusing stares of the Demoiselles.  The story uses the idea of the frightening mask, uses the fact of its being frightening to some... but seemingly with an awareness that the greater threat is usually the white colonialist who has appropriated it and worn it.

Without Bennett behind it, the Koquillion mask actually looks rather beautiful.