Metafiction (audio story)

Metafiction is an audio play in the Kaldor City series. Written by Alan Stevens and Fiona Moore, it takes the form of a dialogue between Iago and Justina, who is interviewing him about his background on the orders of Uvanov.

Publisher's summary
"A reputation? What as? A bunch of crooks, killers and mindlessly destructive psychopaths?"

Company Chairholder Uvanov has tasked his personal assistant Justina with finding out everything she can about the mysterious assassin Kaston Iago. But is his tale of criminality, revolutions, galactic war, and mindless violence, the truth... or some kind of strange space-operatic fantasy?

First performed as a short stage play at the Sci-Fi London Film Festival in 2011, "Kaldor City: Metafiction" is a must-hear for all fans of the series, answering the question of who Kaston Iago really is.

Plot
to be added

Cast

 * Iago - Paul Darrow
 * Justina - Patricia Merrick

Continuity

 * It is mentioned that Iago has recently become part of Uvanov's personal staff, which places the events of this story between AUDIO: Occam's Razor and AUDIO:  Death's Head. However, due to the nature of this story, it is also possible that it takes place within the Fendahl gestalt, as per AUDIO: The Prisoner and AUDIO: Storm Mine.
 * Justina and Iago discuss whether the human race is part of some cosmic plan being thought up by a divine and omnipresent being, foreshadowing the emergence of the Fendahl in AUDIO: Checkmate.
 * Uvanov recently made a proposal to the company board concerning the opening up of trade links between Kaldor and other colony worlds. (This would seemingly help reconcile the continuity of the Kaldor City series with AUDIO: Robophobia in which Kaldor City has a massive interstellar robot trade; as the plot of AUDIO: Occam's Razor is dependent on the notion that Kaldor City has no contact with other worlds.)
 * Iago mentions "the great illusion". In AUDIO: Death's Head Iago and Carnell both make reference to a great illusion. A prominent theme of the series is the nature of reality and fiction.
 * Iago describes his life before he arrived in Kaldor City, in the process referencing many episodes of Blake's 7 and filling in some blanks from the continuity of that series:
 * Iago was once convinced of embezzlement. He defrauded the Federation bank for either five million (A2: Space Fall) or five hundred million; (C10: Ultraworld) this discrepancy is explained as one number being to the amount he was convicted for, the other the amount he got away with.
 * He was sentenced to life on a penal planet. Fourth months into an eight month journey to the planet, Iago managed to escape from the prison ship along with two fellow prisoners when the ship became involved in a salvage operation to recover an alien spacecraft. (A2: Space Fall)
 * Once in control of the alien spacecraft, Iago, along with his two comrades, set course for the penal planet to rescue additional crew members, arriving three hours later just as the prison ship was docking. (A3: Cygnus Alpha) Justina questions how the prison ship could have only taken three hours to arrive when it originally had fourth months left to its journey. Iago suspects they made a jump through negative hyperspace, but he isn't exactly sure what that means.
 * Iago's starship could travel at "standard speed". One standard unit is about half a time distort unit, or possibly two thirds of a time distort unit. Iago doesn't know how fast a time distort unit is, as it's not his field. (In Blake's 7, it was never specified what "standard speed" meant. The Federation used a "time distort" scale.)
 * One of Iago's comrades said he was a revolutionary who'd been wrongly convicted. Although most of the prisoners he met also said they'd been wrongly convicted. Iago was seemingly the only genuine criminal there.
 * Along with his fellow crew members, Iago
 * Liberated a group of dwarfs whose oppressor was another dwarf in a tank; (A5: The Web)
 * Shut down an operation involving an enslaved population forced to mine a radioactive substance known as Monopasium 239; (B4: Horizon)
 * Instigated a war with an alien battlefleet from another galaxy bent on genocide resulting in the death of billions; (B13: Star One, where Terry Nation originally intended the aliens to be the Daleks);
 * Stole some energy crystals from a mine which turned out to fake; (D8: Games)
 * Accquired a vast amount money which turned out to worthless; (D10: Gold)
 * Visited a planet whose entire surface was covered in sentient sand; (D9: Sand)
 * Encountered a huge glitter-ball hanging in space containing a gigantic brain with all the knowledge of the universe; (C10: Ultraworld)
 * Travelled deep into the twelfth sector and came across the people who had built their starship, and discovered the craft had an identical sister-ship; (B1: Redemption)
 * Were approached by an outside party to rescue a scientist from his employer, but ended up recusing a killer robot duplicate by mistake; (D6: Headhunter)
 * Found an experiment on the edge of the sixth sector to reveal the ultimate destiny of the human race; blew up their starship; (C13: Terminal) and
 * Caused their second ship to crash land on the planet Gauda Prime where they encountered their former leader. (D13: Blake )
 * Iago believes Freedom City was blown up during the war, (B11: Gambit) along with Space City. (B2: Shadow )
 * On Gauda Prime, moments after Iago's entire crew were killed, he himself was surrounded by a force of fifty heavily armed Federation Guards. (D13: Blake ) He escaped by shooting out the lights in the room.
 * After Gauda Prime, Iago busied himself with gunrunning, taking on contract work as a mercenary, and organising the occasional revolution. (The Blake's 7 fan audio The Logic of Empire. )
 * The money Iago acquired during the bank-fraud disappeared before the war. For safe keeping, Iago arranged for the money to be transferred to a special account held aboard a space-station that had been constructed by a consortium of neutral planets, meaning that technically it existed outside of normal legal jurisdiction. However, it was blown up by accident. (A10: Breakdown)