BACKGROUND, CHARACTER & MOTIVATION

Travis is first and foremost a soldier. He has probably known little else than the military life, and certainly the military appears to be the only family he has or knows. We can speculate that he either lost his family in early childhood, or maybe was placed into the military schooling as soon as he was old enough. Whatever the origin, it has become his raison-de-être, he thinks, lives and breathes the military. Quite how much human feeling is left behind the military mask is a matter for debate.

Travis is not simply a military officer (the rank of Space Commander seems to be fairly high), he is a field officer, as distinct from those whose only experience of a combat situation is watching the videotapes. He seems proud of this, and disdainful bordering on the contemptuous for the "staff men". This is probably a fairly normal reaction in any officer with combat experience, they have some degree of pride in having fought on the "front line". Travis has a reputation for ruthlessness in dealing with insurrection, having ordered his troops to carry on firing after the other side had surrendered, apparently on more than one documented occasion. As Servalan notes, he is an "advocate of total war", and that an enemy doesn't cease to be an enemy simply because they surrender. She also notes that he has no time for the grey areas of politics, and this has all caused some political embarrassment to the administration in the past. The Federation is certainly not overly concerned about the morality of killing civilians, innocent or otherwise, it seems that they would prefer to subjugate people quietly, through their various mind-altering methods, rather than an obvious show of force. This makes sense, in that pacification by means other than brute force doesn't provoke the kind of rebel backlash that numerous deaths might.

It is debatable whether the physical damage he suffered while attacking Blake's meeting has made him more ruthless and obsessive or not. Blake notes that Travis simply stared at him, then ordered his men to open fire, after Blake has told them that they would surrender. This suggests Travis has always had the same attitude towards rebels, criminals in his view, even enemies of the state. The damage to his face and arm, which has resulted in the crude eyepatch and his robotic hand, has traumatised him to the extent of making him even more ruthless, with an edge of instability. When dealing with Blake, who caused his injuries, Travis loses his tight control of his emotions. We see this time and again, as Blake continually manages to thwart Travis' plans. With each defeat it affects Travis more, not simply professionally but personally. Blake is probably the only person that he allows to get to him in this way - in fact I doubt he has much choice, Blake gets to him whether he likes it or not.

Travis' emotions in general are those of a military man who has little interest in the outside world. This is not to say he doesn't have emotions, I find it hard to believe that of anyone, but rather that they are kept tightly under mental lock and key. He does not generally allow himself to display emotion other than those associated with command and combat. We do get to see a brief touch of humanity, in the episode Duel, however. I think Stephen Greif portrays it beautifully, he plays Travis in general so well, with wonderful inflections of voice and expression, and body language which screams out tough, ruthless and charismatic. In Duel, Travis and the female mutoid are spending the night in the safety of a tree (as are Blake and Jenna). Travis looks across at the mutoid, and asks :

TRAVIS: Tell me something, do you remember who you were? MUTOID: I don't understand the question, Commander. TRAVIS: Yes you do - in your previous life before you were modified. Do you know who you were? MUTOID: Of course not. TRAVIS: Aren't you curious about it? MUTOID: No. TRAVIS: I find that hard to believe. MUTOID: Memory is an encumbrance. All trace of it is removed and with it all trace of identity. TRAVIS: And it doesn't concern you? MUTOID: Why should it? That identity doesn't exist, even in the central computers. TRAVIS: Yes it does. I know who you were. Your name was Keyeira, Keyeira. MUTOID: Keyeira. TRAVIS: You were very beautiful, very much admired. Shall I go on? MUTOID: As you wish. TRAVIS: [Obviously disappointed] This doesn't interest you at all, does it? MUTOID: How could it?

"This doesn't interest you at all, does it?"

There is so much hinted at in this exchange. It appears that Travis knew, and was maybe friends with, Keyeira before she became a mutoid. He has certainly made the effort to find her details in the Federation central computers, even though there is supposedly no record of mutoids' past identities. He opens himself up to rejection and disappointment by seeking to talk to Keyeira on a personal level, and this is something we would never usually see from Travis. It feels as though he is reaching out to someone because he needs a friend, which must be very hard for him to accept. The situation prompts the conversation; a natural response to fear and uncertainty is to establish some kind of relationship with those around you. Unfortunately for Travis, the one person he is stranded with has lost the defining traits of a human being, her memory having been erased, and body modified. She cannot provide the human interaction he instinctively seeks, and the episode serves to highlight his isolation.

Travis and Keyeira

I think we get a glimpse of how lonely he really is, behind the military facade. He has let his obsession with Blake become stronger and more dominant, yet at this point he still has enough rational thought to show interest in other people, and in friendship. When the mutoid obviously doesn't remember a thing about her past, and is indifferent to his questions, his expression and body language show great disappointment and a degree of hurt. Possibly the only person he has tried to reach out to in a very long time, isn't interested and remembers nothing - and it would hurt even more if they had been friends beforehand.

By the time we reach the episode Deliverance, Travis' repeated failures to catch Blake and the Liberator have resulted in a loss of his command, and a court of inquiry. When he is summoned by Servalan, she pointedly ignores him when he walk up to her desk, and she is amused by his lack of a reaction. She speculates that his spirit may have been broken, but he denies it, saying that he wants his command back, and will tolerate things if it means he will get it. By this point it is obvious that his obsession with Blake is driving him, he wants the command so he can go after Blake.

In this episode we learn the name of the field surgeon who saved his life - Maryatt. Servalan, undoubtedly knowing Travis' connection to Maryatt, sent him along as a hostage as part of her plan to get Orac, the supercomputer. This involved sabotaging the ship Maryatt was on, making sure the power cells they were taking to Aristo never arrived. Ensor, Orac's creator, would die without them and thus Orac would be there for the taking. On learning of Maryatt's death, Travis looks upset, and hesitates in what he is doing - it has obviously come as a blow to him, as he would have counted Maryatt as a friend. It appears that Servalan has deliberately made sure Maryatt would die, and that she would be the one to tell Travis about it. She can use this as one more psychological brickbat against Travis, who is already beholden to her.

Travis' obsession with Blake, however, allows him to push aside Maryatt's death, and he concentrates on the mission to obtain Orac. This is the beginning of the end for him - his time with the Federation is rapidly drawing to a close, he ends up on trial in the next series (played by Brian Croucher). This finally breaks him - he escapes and becomes something of a renegade himself. His betrayal (in his eyes) by the Federation, which he gave everything to (and which was effectively his family), sends him over the edge and he ends up attempting to betray the entire human race over to aliens.

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