Farscape facts
Here you can find various trivia relating to the Farscape universe. You might also want to check out Uncharted Territory: An Unofficial and Unauthorised Guide to Farscape by Scott Andrews, which is a fantastic guide to the first three seasons (thanks to Mel AKA FarscapeAddict for directing me to this). There is a much more detailed trivia guide currently in production by TK AKA Jehuty, too, known as the Farscape Encyclopedia - it's still in the early letters, but definitely worth bookmarking.
The trivia on this page is eclectic and by no means exhaustive, and will be updated as and when I get time. If you have some interesting Farscape trivia that you think belongs on this page, please e-mail me or post in the "Notes and Queries" section of the forum.
Chiana
Chiana was first introduced as a Nebari criminal in Durka Returns (1.15), and went on to become a major character and part of the crew. Interestingly, though, in the original script Chiana was killed by the shot that only wounds her in the final cut. As with Gilina, David Kemper liked her so much that he decided to keep her around for a while to bring some new energy into the programme - and "a while" turned out to be right up until the last episode. According to the unofficial guide, the rest of the cast and crew were unsure about keeping the character around at first. In season three, Chiana was briefly possessed by an "Energy Rider" (Losing Time, 3.09), which left her with the ability to catch glimpses of the future. By season 4, her ability had evolved so that she could use it to slow down time, an ability that came in handy in Crichton Kicks (4.01) and Bad Timing (4.22) - though unfortunately not in much inbetween. Using her gift caused temporary blindness, though, and at the end of the final episode, Bad Timing, she was still blind and worried that the effect might be permanent this time.
I think I like her because she reminds me of the silver aliens in a UK kid's TV program from the late '70s, early '80s. In John Quixote, she also looks a bit like Orville...
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In Harvey, Jimmy Stewart upsets his sister, his niece, and various clientelle in the bar at which he hangs out, by speaking to Harvey, a six foot rabbit whom no one else can see. It was therefore very fitting that we saw both John and Harvey dressed up as Easter bunnies in the final episode of Farscape, Bad Timing. Donnie Darko, meanwhile, not only involves a six foot rabbit whom only the protagonist can see, but also involves wormholes and one big unrealised reality. If you haven't seen either of these films, make sure you do - they are both brilliant.
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Leviathan
Leviathans are giant, living ships - pretty much space whales, in fact. They are apparently both organic and machine, and are thus biomechanoids. They are serviced by DRDs, and form a symbiotic relationship with a Pilot, a creature who helps steer and control the ship and acts as an intermediary between ship and crew, and who also shares the fate of the Leviathan. Leviathans have the ability to starburst - much like hyperspace in Star Wars or Warp Drive in Star Trek, starburst enables the ship to travel great distances very quickly. The main Leviathan in Farscape is, of course, Moya. We have seen others, although the only other (full-breed Leviathan) to be given a name is Elack, who saved John from a death in space and featured in the first three episodes of season 4. Moya gave birth to a son, a Leviathan hybrid that used Peacekeeper technology and that could be controlled by a non-symbiotic pilot. Moya chose Aeryn to give her son a name, and Aeryn chose "Talyn", the name of her own father (Family Ties, 1.22). Over the course of the series we have seen both the original birthplace of Leviathans, who were apparently first constructed by a mystical race known as "the Builders" (the Look at the Princess trilogy, 2.10-12) and the place they go to die, the Leviathan sacred resting place (Dog With Two Bones, 3.22) - it seems that Leviathans, like elephants, head to a special place to die.
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Given that Battlestar Galactica was about humans trying to find Earth after their own planet was destroyed, it is very fitting that McCord should play the father of Crichton - another hero searching for Earth - and also the embodiment of one of the Ancients, a race searching for a new homeworld.
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Microt
Microt - a measure of time. Like the metra, it is used inconsitently - sometimes it appears to approximate a minute, at other times a second. (You would at least think the writers could be bothered to put together a guide of terminology so that they could use them consistently, *sigh*.)
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Peacekeepers
The Peacekeepers are essentially the police or militia of the universe, or galaxy, or whatever. They are sebaceans brought up under very strict conditions, taught to despise compassion ("Compassion - I know that feeling. I hate it." - Aeryn Sun in Premiere, 1.01) and avoid forming strong bonds with anyone else (we discover that love is frowned upon in The Way We Weren't, 2.05, when Aeryn sells out Velorak). Many Peacekeepers are born, live and die on Command Carriers, and the women are given a procedure so that, should they become pregnant (promiscuity is, after all, encouraged so that monagomous relationships don't develop with strong bonds), the foetus is held in stasis for seven cycles so that they will not be dropping sprogs left, right and centre in the middle of a military campaign (4.05, Promises). Although the Peacekeepers are at first depicted as essentially evil (and practically mercenary), as the plot develops over the seasons they develop into something more ethically nebulous. In ...Different Destinations (3.05) we discover that they have a heroic past, and were once seen as saviours. Presumably they became corrupt along the way, although it seems that none of the Peacekeepers are truly evil. Crais goes from the villain to dying to save the crew and destroy Scorpius; it is revealed that whilst Scorpius's means may be dubious (and often downright evil, as in the slaughter of the Bannik slaves), his end is not - he wishes to avoid a potentially devastating war with the Scarrans; and even Grayza is not without redeeming qualities. However, like the Stormtroopers in Star Wars, the Peacekeeper grunts are incredibly stupid and it is difficult to see how they could have become so powerful with such an army. In Premiere (1.01), John manages to distract his Peacekeeper guards with his father's puzzle ring and grab a gun ("Hey, don't do that!" shouts one of the guards). In What Was Lost I: Sacrifice, Noranti manages to escape from captivity by telling her Peacekeeper guards that she needs the toilet - er, you mean they didn't even follow her?
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"There were other artistic influences on the fight scene. Ricky Eyres explains: 'Russian constructivism was a form of art that developed before the revolution. There was a famous painting called 'Beat the Whites with the Red Witch' [sic], and there's one blatant piece of it in this episode, which you see when Aeryn's fighting with Matala. It starts with an overhead crane shot, and it's actually that painting, broken down as a carpet. It just seemed to fit, and from a visual point of view it was very strong."
- Farscape: The Illustrated Companion, by Paul Simpson and David Hughes (London: Titan Books, 2000), pp 27-28, taken from http://www.myfarscape.com/EpReferences.asp.
"A woodcutter witnesses a horrific series of events - an ambush, rape and murder. In the telling of the tale, however, each of the four participants gives a different view of what actually happened - is anyone telling the truth."
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Throne Sled
The Hynerian dominar, Rygel, being small and (according to I, ET, 1.04) aquatic, gets around on a throne sled. This is essentially a hover-chair. Paroos, the Father Jack-lookalike priest who appears in A Prefect Murder (4.09), uses a similar contraption, and according to the "Farscape Facts" on the R2 DVD, Paroos's flying rig would have been adapted for use by Rygel in the putative fifth season - yes, Rygel would have got a new sled! Incidentally, whilst there is no doubting that Farscape has borrowed from the Star Wars films on numerous occasions (see the reference to carbonite, for instance), Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones would appear to have borrowed the floating chair idea from Farscape. There is a scene on Coruscant in which Yoda - on whom Rygel was clearly partially based physically - is floating about on a throne sled just like Rygel's!
Translator Microbes
Like the Babel Fish in Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy, translator microbes allow various species to understand one another without language barriers. John is injected with translator microbes in Premiere (1.01), and within seconds he is able to understand the hitherto incomprehensible speech of D'Argo and Zhaan. It is explained that they colonise at the base of the brain, translating what the host hears into his or her own language. This is a brilliant idea but unfortunately it has lead to some of the worst inconsistencies in the show. Only three episodes after the translator microbes were introduced, they were temporarily completely forgotten: in I, ET (1.04), John, Aeryn and D'Argo land on a planet that has never had contact with aliens (like Earth). And yet John has no problems communicating with the inhabitants, despite the fact that they could never have been injected with translator microbes.
Similar problems arise when the crew actually visit Earth in the season 4 episodes Kansas (4.12), Terra Firma (4.13), and A Constellation of Doubt (4.17) - a shame given that the language barriers were used very effectively in the "fake Earth" season 1 episode, A Human Reaction (1.16). In the season 4 Earth episodes, although Aeryn is the only one who has even attempted to learn English (excepting Sikozu, whose body cannot tolerate microbes and thus has to learn each language - Crichton Kicks, 4.01), D'Argo, Chiana and Noranti all seem to be able to communicate in English after only a few hours on Earth. Although it is mentioned that some of the scientists are injected with the microbes in Terra Firma, there are plenty of language issues that just don't work. For instance, how did the 'Alien Visitation' programme in A Constellation of Doubt get past the language barriers? (Personally I always thought the writers missed a beat there, by not having the sections with the crew in 'Alien Visitation' subtitled with subtly different lines to what they were actually saying.)
Clearly, the writers never actually thought through the translator microbe issue, but used it only as and when convenient and changing it as it suited them. For instance, in Revenging Angel (3.16), D'Argo cannot understand the Ancient Luxan language spoken by his ship's computer. We discover that the translator microbes work from a database (ugh!) of languages, and Pilot then compiles an incomplete version of Ancient Luxan from Moya's data banks - don't even ask how Pilot then passed on this incomplete language database to the organic translator microbes. Even worse, this information entirely contradicted one of the purposes of the introduction of the microbes in the first place - namely, to explain how John Crichton would be able to understand all of the alien species. For if the microbes work from a database, just how did they manage to translate English? Are we to assume that aliens have been visiting Earth so frequently that the translator microbes in Peacekeeper space have English in their database? (And if so, John is lucky that it's not Old or Middle English...)
There's also the question of just *how* the microbes translate words. Apparently one of the official guides states that the host actually hears the speech of the other person in his own language, but this makes absolutely no sense. For a start, it's impossible - even if the microbes could take control of hearing, as other languages are not spoken in the same verbal order as English, there would be a delay, which would be useless. Further, in seasons 3 and 4 we see Aeryn attempting to learn English - which is only possible if she can actually hear what John is saying. The most likely explanation is that the person can hear the other person's language, but understands the meaning, just as we do when we are listening to a foreign language that we have learned.
Oh, and don't get me started on Rockne S. O'Bannon's story, Horizons, in the final Farscape magazine. In that we are told that the translator microbes actually extend the life expectancy of their hosts, so John Crichton lives until over 300. That is just lame, and flatly contradicted by events in The Locket.
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