Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.tv
Subject: QL: Evil Leaper stuff (spoilers)
From: Mark 'Mark' Sachs <MBS110@psuvm.psu.edu>
Date: Wed, 11 Nov 1992 13:08:41 EST
Organization: The Leader Desslok School of Diplomacy

Leap now, or forever hold your peace...



















OK, well, after all this build-up, I was sort of let down. Alia isn't evil;
she's just sort of weak and incompetent. I get the feeling she's just being
manipulated by her superiors such as Zoe, who do seem, I'll grant, like a
pretty nasty bunch. But there are some things that do bug me.

Most important of all, how the heck could an Evil Quantum Leap Project
even start, much less keep going? I mean, the Good Quantum Leap Project
is not such a pain to continue. After all, you're not going to feel rotten
about what you do when your assignment is to save people from screwing up
their lives. But what happens when you leap into someone, Zoe beams in and
informs you that Locutious says there is a 97.4% chance you're here to
break up someone's family and kill one of their relatives? It makes no
sense; people aren't just evil for the hell of it. There has to be a REASON,
and none was presented other than sheer cussedness.

I had thought of a few _better_ motivations for an "evil" leaper --

1. She's from the Campaign for Real Time. Sometime after 1999, news of the
QL project gets out. Some people are outraged that the US Defense Department
has just gone and started bouncing around one of their agents in the past,
messing with history. They set up Cam-Tim and their own Quantum Leaper to
go back and un-do the changes, leaving history the way it was originally.

2. She's from the USSR, early 1980's. They developed Quantum Leap technology
first and are using it to try and destabilize the United States's past.

3. She's from some unknown origin, but Their objective is to destroy the
Quantum Leap project. You know how it always seems that Sam is doing stuff
to insure the continuation of Project QL? Like telling himself his own
time-travel theory in the Space Boy episode, or ensuring that a kid makes
it to MIT to design a chip used in Ziggy, or whatever. Anyway, They are
trying to short-circuit this somehow so QL is never built.

4. Their objectives are unknown, too, but not necessarily Evil; just at
cross-purposes to Sam's. So Sam's good-natured meddling is getting in Their
way at times. I like #4 best as it maintains the most mystery.

I didn't believe a word of that bollocks about good and evil cancelling each
other out, etc. I don't want to see QL turned into a battle between God and
the Devil. I can, however, predict that the whole Evil Leaper thing will be
resolved with Sam "rescuing" Alia -- don't ask me how he accomplishes this,
but this being QL, it wouldn't happen any other way.

Oh, well. I hope they do it better the next time.

But incidentally, we CAN figure out whether Alia is from Sam's future or
his past. It's his future. I mean, Alia and Zoe have much cooler special
effects, so where else would they be from? :-)

 "But Dr. Radium, was that necessary?" "Rez, _everything_ I do is necessary."
[Your blood pressure just went up.]        Mark Sachs IS: mbs110@psuvm.psu.edu
DISCLAIMER: If PSU knew I had opinions they'd probably try to charge me for it.
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.tv