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[1][ISMAP]-[2][Home]
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### GUIDE ### [3][Background] [4][Synopsis] [5][Credits] [6][Episode
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List] [7][Previous] [8][Next]
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_Contents:_ [9]Overview - [10]Backplot - [11]Questions - [12]Analysis
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- [13]Notes - [14]JMS
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_________________________________________________________________
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Overview
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A traveller comes to B5, seeking the Holy Grail. A series of
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unexplained attacks on several Lurkers may be linked to Ambassador
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Kosh. [15]David Warner as Aldous Gajic. Tom Booker as Jinxo.
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[16]William Sanderson as Deuce.
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Sub-genre: Mystery
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[17]P5 Rating: [18]7.43
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Production number: 109
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Original air date: July 6, 1994
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Written by Christy Marx
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Directed by Richard Compton
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_________________________________________________________________
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Backplot
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* Babylon and Babylon 2 were sabotaged. Babylon 3 blew up before it
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was finished. Babylon 4 vanished without a trace in front of
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witnesses.
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* The Minbari highly value people who spend their lives searching
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for something. Delenn seems to believe that's true of Sinclair.
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Unanswered Questions
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* Delenn seems to consider Sinclair a true seeker. What is he
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seeking?
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* Why didn't the feeder want Gajic?
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* What happened to Babylon 4? (cf. [19]"Babylon Squared")
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Analysis
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* Perhaps Delenn's comments about Sinclair simply refer to his
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search for the truth about the Battle of the Line, if she realizes
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he knows something of what happened to him. Or there could be a
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deeper meaning.
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Notes
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* This episode features the series' first CGI alien (the na'ka'leen
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feeder, pictured above.)
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* The transport Marie Celeste, which Thomas boarded at the end of
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the episode, is a reference to a sailing ship found adrift on the
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sea in 1872 by the crew of the ship Dei Gratia. The Celeste's crew
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was missing, as was her single lifeboat, but there were half-eaten
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meals in the mess hall and other evidence the crew had left
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suddenly. Investigators found that Captain Morehouse of the Dei
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Gratia had dined with Captain Briggs of the Celeste the night
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before departure, and Morehouse and his crew were tried for
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murder. There was no hard evidence, and they were acquitted. The
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missing crewmen were never found.
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jms speaks
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* In an earlier version of the story, it was indeed Kosh who
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appeared out of nowhere and scragged the Feeder, saying, "Some
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things we do not allow," but it seemed kinda un-Kosh-like on one
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level, and it repeated the Deathwalker finish, so it was dropped.
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* The grey-alien trial scene from "Grail" will be excerpted for a
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two-part "Sightings" on alien abduction.
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I'm *still* laughing.
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* The human won the case, but damages awarded were minimal.
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* Yes, this Christy Marx is the same as the one who writes games and
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has written comics as well.
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* Actually, Christy has gone on record (otherwise I would not have
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noted it myself) that the trial scene at the top of "Grail" was
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written and inserted by me, since it was a bit short.
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* Yeah, it's a lovely scene. I dropped it into Christy's script
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because it was something I always wanted to do. I just figured,
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okay, if these things really ARE happening, and it gets found out,
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and we make contact with aliens, and find the ones responsible....
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somebody's gonna want to sue their butts off. So it became a very
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logical extension of the judicial system (tongue somewhat in
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cheek). And...well, it was a hoot. I'll forgive much if it's a
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hoot.
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* Actually, it was Christy Marx, who wrote Grail, who named Aldus
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after Mira [Furlan]'s husband.
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* I don't think I've really said that much about "Grail." The trick,
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though, is that I don't approach the episodes in quite the same
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way that a viewer does. I have somewhat different agendas and
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goals, and there are times when hassles in *doing* the episode --
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which in no way affect the show itself - - affects my *perception*
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of the episode.
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I did a small screening of "Grail" here about a week ago, to get
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some other reactions, and they were all very positive; they
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enjoyed the episode quite a bit. (Similarly, there were people who
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thought that "Infection" was one of the best of the season.) There
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is *no one* who is harsher in critiquing the episodes than I am. I
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want each one to be absolutely perfect. And sometimes that means
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that I see flaws that no one else ever will.
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In any event, I definitely want people to come at this from an
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open minded point of view. For reasons that have nothing to do
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with Christy's script, it still isn't one of my all-time favorite
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episodes; if I said otherwise, I'd be lying through my teeth. But
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different opinions are what makes horse races, and as stated, most
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of those who've seen it so far *do* like it, so at the moment I'm
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considerably outnumbered....
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* John Flinn, who is our DP, has at various times also been an
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actor, and so we used him to play Mr. Flinn in the episode as
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well. A cameo by yet another member of our talented and
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multifaceted production team.
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* There were no asymmetrical aliens in the pilot, but there's a real
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dandy coming your way in the B5 episode "Grail." You want
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nonhumanoid aliens, you *got* non-humanoid aliens....
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* Yeah, the Feeder is pretty cool; wrapped up Foundation's rendering
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machines for the better part of a week just to pull that one off.
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* On the feeder being sentient...neither Sinclair nor anyone else on
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"our" side of the story ever heard it speaking; all they knew was
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that it was a killer, and it was dangerous, and had to be stopped.
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* _Who let the Feeders out?_
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Stupid bureaucrats who couldn't afford to maintain a quarantine
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enforcement team in the sector.
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* The hardest part is always writing Kosh, because you have to be
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very careful how much you use him, and what he says. Too much and
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he loses his sense of mystery, and you don't want him spouting
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fortune- cookie type aphorisms. He has a very deliberate way of
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speaking in which everything, every smallest nuance and inflection
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means something, but sometimes not what it appears to mean, or
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comes at it from a very different angle than normal conversation.
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So I go as minimalist as possible, to get the meaning down to the
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smallest number of words possible. And in one scene, one of only
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two he appears in, I got him down to *one word*, and that one word
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-- and it's a totally inoffensive, neutral word on its own terms
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-- should scare the hell out of *everybody*.
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Ah loves this show.... _(Editor's note: the word in question is
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"Good.")_
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* At one time we were working out what the time-reference would be
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on B5. One of the early things we talked about were cycles, but in
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fairly short order I decided against it because it didn't seem to
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mean much. But this was, sadly, after "Grail" had been produced,
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and we couldn't dub over the cycle references with anything else,
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so it stayed. It won't be appearing anywhere else henceforth. One
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of our few continuity glitches.
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* After "Grail," we had a discussion with Chris about funny music.
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We do not anticipate further discussions. (In a full season of
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music for B5, this is the only discussion we've had of a critical
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nature, which is extraordinary for any series; he's done a lot of
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wonderful work for us . . . .)
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* Yeah, it was a bit of *really* perverse humor...Jinxo survives all
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five Babylon stations, and leaves thinking all is well...on a ship
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named the Marie Celeste?
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We're a sick bunch, but we're fun.
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* "...what company in their right mind would name one of their ships
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the "Marie Celeste"?
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Dunno, but I'd bet good money that whoever it is, it's an
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Australian company. Nothing frightens those people; they're
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fearless.
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* I would love to have David Warner do another episode, though it
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would have to be an alien, for obvious reasons.
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* And the grail story was fairly self-contained, not much in the way
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of arc related stuff there.
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[25][Next]
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[26]Last update: January 2, 1997
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References
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1. file://localhost/cgi-bin/imagemap/titlebar
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2. LYNXIMGMAP:file://localhost/lurk/maps/maps.html#titlebar
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3. file://localhost/home/woodstock/hyperion/docs/lurk/background/015.shtml
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4. file://localhost/home/woodstock/hyperion/docs/lurk/synops/015.html
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5. file://localhost/home/woodstock/hyperion/docs/lurk/credits/015.html
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6. file://localhost/home/woodstock/hyperion/docs/lurk/episodes.php
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7. file://localhost/home/woodstock/hyperion/docs/lurk/guide/014.html
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8. file://localhost/home/woodstock/hyperion/docs/lurk/guide/016.html
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9. file://localhost/home/woodstock/hyperion/docs/lurk/guide/015.html#OV
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10. file://localhost/home/woodstock/hyperion/docs/lurk/guide/015.html#BP
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11. file://localhost/home/woodstock/hyperion/docs/lurk/guide/015.html#UQ
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12. file://localhost/home/woodstock/hyperion/docs/lurk/guide/015.html#AN
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13. file://localhost/home/woodstock/hyperion/docs/lurk/guide/015.html#NO
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14. file://localhost/home/woodstock/hyperion/docs/lurk/guide/015.html#JS
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15. http://us.imdb.com/M/person-exact?+Warner,+David
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16. http://us.imdb.com/M/person-exact?+Sanderson,+William
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17. file://localhost/lurk/p5/intro.html
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18. file://localhost/lurk/p5/015
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19. file://localhost/home/woodstock/hyperion/docs/lurk/guide/020.html
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20. file://localhost/lurk/lurker.html
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21. file://localhost/home/woodstock/hyperion/docs/lurk/guide/015.html#TOP
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22. file://localhost/cgi-bin/uncgi/lgmail
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23. file://localhost/home/woodstock/hyperion/docs/lurk/episodes.php
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24. file://localhost/home/woodstock/hyperion/docs/lurk/guide/014.html
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25. file://localhost/home/woodstock/hyperion/docs/lurk/guide/016.html
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26. file://localhost/lurk/lastmod.html
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