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WARNING! WARNING! Here there be spoilers for the latest episode of Farscape, "Into the Lion's Den, Part 2: Wolf in Sheep's Clothing."
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I thoroughly enjoyed Friday night's installment of "Farscape," and I think that it was an excellent conclusion to the mini-arc of Moya's crew aboard Scorpius' Command Carrier.
However, upon reflection, I have become slightly disturbed by some of the implications of Crichton and Crais's actions. Because if you take into account the results, John Crichton and his friends committed an act that would get them labeled as terrorists on Earth.
Think about it. Piloting a Leviathan warship into Starburst within the hangar bay, setting off a cataclysmic reaction that endangered the lives of 50,000 loyal Peacekeepers, destroyed a crucial interstellar defense project, and possibly threatened the very stability of the known galaxy.
Crichton and his friends harbor a major grudge against the Peacekeepers, and consider them to be an evil force in the galaxy, one to be stopped at almost any cost. They blew up a planetary Gammak Base with thousands of officers inside, destroyed a massive Shadow Depository, and committed several other violent acts across the Uncharted Territories.
Sound familiar?
Now, I'm not trying to portray the Peacekeepers as the good guys here -- they're certainly eeevil with their black uniforms and big nasty ships and all that. They've done some not-so-nice things in their time.
But I'm starting to think that Crichton crossed the line in his latest adventure. He took his vendetta with Scorpius from legitimate self-defense to self-righteous offense. He was so absorbed with the prospect of workable wormhole technology that he completely ignored the potential ethical problems with what he was doing. (Or maybe didn't even consider them at all.)
Now granted, I'm not portraying Crichton as "evil" either -- they did formulate their plan with the goal of giving the crew time to evacuate. (Which is mcuh more than I can say for a certain individual here on Earth...) And the potentially awesome power that wormholes can generate is definitely something to be taken seriously.
But also consider that the Scarrans are also busy developing wormhole technology, and intend to cleanse the galaxy of pretty much every other race besides their own. Crichton took it upon himself to prevent the Peacekeepers from developing the one weapon that could have stopped the Scarrans -- and possibly doomed the galaxy as a result. It's scary, but I think that I agree with Scorpy in that the the Scarrans have to be stopped. (And I predict that the Scarrans are going to launch an offensive some time next season, proving him right.)
I've got to stop rambling...
Anyway, I'm not saying that either side is the exact opposite of how they are portrayed on the show. But I *am* starting to wonder about them... and I think that there are more shades of grey here than appear at first glance. And that Crichton and the gang are not quite the upright citizens that they've been portrayed as.
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One of the reasons I like Farscape so much is because the characters tend to wander into gray areas instead of the typical "We're the good guys and everything we do is right, and they're the bad guys and everything they do is wrong."
John's reasoning for destroying the Command Carrier is thus: The Ancients put the wormhole equations in his head for him to use to go home. Scorpius uses the neural chip to extract at least part of the equations from John's head. If Scorpius perfects the technology and the Peacekeepers take over the galaxy, it will be John's fault. Therefore, it is John's responsibility to stop Scorpius. Sort of a take-off on the Prime Directive.
Scorpius' reasoning for everything he's done so far: The Scarrans are going to wipe out everything in the universe besides themselves, so better to give the Peacekeepers (the lesser of the two evils) wormhole technology so they can defeat the Scarrans. Through a brilliant stroke of luck, Scorpius finds that John possesses the very equations he seeks, and anything he's done to John trying to get those equations is justified because those equations will save countless trillions.
So was John right in destroying the Command Carrier? I guess we'll see as the show progresses...
-------------------- "Kirito? I killed a thing and now it says I have XPs! Is that bad? Am I dying?"
-Asuna, Episode 2, Sword Art Online Abridged
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I've always disliked the whole "enemy of my enemy is my friend" rationalization, that kind of thinking over the last 4 years of the Second World War (sorry, the only 4 years, as far as some countries are concerned) led to 45 years of Cold War. To throw in another example, an SF-related on this time, look at Janeway choosing the Borg over 8742.
So, I for one wasn't sorry that the plotline didn't follow the one some predicted. I didn't want to see the Moya Gang joining the PKs.
It's worth pointing out that these eps were actually filmed back around September last year. The code John uses for his I-Yensch bracelet is 911. The number of US emergency services, yes, but also the date of the terrorist attacks. Over at uk.media.tv.sf.farscape we've pretty much agreed it's a coincidence, although for all we know it's the reason Bin Laden himself chose that date.
Side note: I told you (http://flare.solareclipse.net/cgi2/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=8;t=000338) these last 4 eps rocked. 8)
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and possibly threatened the very stability of the known galaxy.
The galaxy's already unstable.
Remember, now, Chrichton has all the equations he needs. He PERSONALLY could take out the entire Scarran fleet.
-------------------- "This is why you people think I'm so unknowable. You don't listen!" - God, "God, the Devil and Bob"
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quote:Originally posted by Omega: The galaxy's already unstable.
Well yeah, but think about how stable the galaxy would be if the Scarrans launched an offensive.
A funny thought occurred to me last night -- John is currently about sixty cycles' travel away from Earth. One cycle is about one Earth year... Sixty years away from Earth could put Crichton in the Delta Quadrant!
-------------------- “Those people who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do.” — Isaac Asimov Star Trek Minutiae | Memory Alpha
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Maybe, maybe not. Do we have any idea how fast PK ships go (assuming Scorpius was talking about the time it would take for PK ships to reach Earth)?
-------------------- "Kirito? I killed a thing and now it says I have XPs! Is that bad? Am I dying?"
-Asuna, Episode 2, Sword Art Online Abridged
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But seriously, Farscape has never ever come close to hinting at distances or travel times. Heck, the very nature of the Starburst randomizes things to the point where creating a reasonable map of the Uncharted Territories is downright impossible.
Of course, part of that has to do with the fact that there are no interstellar reference points, as in Star Trek where they frequently mentioned real stars. And there's no Okuda's Warp Curve, either.
-------------------- “Those people who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do.” — Isaac Asimov Star Trek Minutiae | Memory Alpha
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Which, I'd bet, was done on purpose. Three years and we STILL don't know exactly how many microts are in an arn.
-------------------- "This is why you people think I'm so unknowable. You don't listen!" - God, "God, the Devil and Bob"
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It does neatly eliminate the "Moja couldn't get to the Klingon Homeworld in 4 days! This show sucks and is rubbish and they are ruining the franchise they must die!"
Y'know, Red Drawf managed to travel to loads of planets while staying at sub-light speeds, and no-one ever complained.
-------------------- Yes, you're despicable, and... and picable... and... and you're definitely, definitely despicable. How a person can get so despicable in one lifetime is beyond me. It isn't as though I haven't met a lot of people. Goodness knows it isn't that. It isn't just that... it isn't... it's... it's despicable.
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-------------------- "This is why you people think I'm so unknowable. You don't listen!" - God, "God, the Devil and Bob"
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Y'know, I'm not even sure if Farscape has a "normal" FTL drive aside from Starburst. I would've guessed that they HAVE to to get to distant stars in a timely manner, but at times Crichton has mentioned the wormhole technology as "the" way to bypass the FTL barrier, implying that the PK's and everyone else haven't been able to do that yet (other than with Starburst).
But then, couldn't the Starburst be considered a form of wormhole? Or at least comparable to the co-axial warp drive that Voyager once mentioned?
-------------------- “Those people who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do.” — Isaac Asimov Star Trek Minutiae | Memory Alpha
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They have FTL aside from Starburst. Obviously. Wormholes were NEVER mentioned in my hearing as the only way to get past c. They're so cool because you can open one on top of a planet and the other end on a star. Uber-weapon.
And Starburst really is a lot like a wormhole. I'm surprised Chriton's never noticed that. Unless, of course, he did and there's some major reason why it wouldn't help.
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WARNING! WARNING! Spoilers for the season finale episode, "Dog With Two Bones" abound here!
Well, I finally got a chance to see the season finale, and I was very impressed overall. The daydream sequences were very well done -- surreal, but still close enough to reality to really feel how much John wants to get back to Earth -- and have his friends go too.
But the main reason I brought this back up is the very surprising ending -- a wormhole swallows Moya, leaving John's Farscape I module stranded in the middle of nowhere.
So, is this...
A freak wormhole that just happened to open right on top of Moya, spiriting her off to who-knows-here, or...
A deliberately opened wormhole?
My money is on Door #2.
But the implications that this event raises are rather disturbing. There are a few likely candidates for people who can control wormholes. The first would be the Pathfinders from early season 3, who are known to use stable wormholes already. But there's also the Scarrans, whom Talyn-John rather cavalierly assumed were "back to square one" with wormhole technology after he blew up their dreadnought.
Either way, a major galactic power is actively using wormhole technology in the area. And that can't be good. What does that say about John's sabotage of Scorpy's project now?
Oh, and finally, I've got a quote for Vogon Poet:
quote:"The enemy of my enemy is still my enemy." -- Drago Museveni C.Y. 8427 Gene Roddenberry's Andromeda
-------------------- “Those people who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do.” — Isaac Asimov Star Trek Minutiae | Memory Alpha
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1) Natural wormhole 2) Artifical wormhole 3) No wormhole at all
Remember, John spent the ep having his mind frelled with. Moreso than usual, I mean.
But if we assume that what we saw DID happen, and that the odds of a natural wormhole doing what we saw are minimal, then it had to be artificial. My money's on the Ancients. They're the only ones that we KNOW can control these things. The next season will probably start with, within two minutes of the beginning of the ep, John being sucked into a wormhole himself.
Question: If Tayln-John flew a duplicate of his module when destroying the Scarran dreadnaught, what happened to the duplicate module? Destroyed with Talyn?
-------------------- "This is why you people think I'm so unknowable. You don't listen!" - God, "God, the Devil and Bob"
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