Farscape/Characters
Main Characters
Commander John Crichton
Once upon a time, there was a boy named John, and John was an astronaut. He lived in a far away place called Earth, which is so far away you've never heard of it. One day, when John was out doing astronaut things, a big, blue wormhole gobbled him up and spat him out at the far end of the Universe.
Played by Ben Browder.
- Action Survivor
- Always Save the Girl: Aeryn is more important than everything else in the damn galaxy.
- Audience Surrogate
- Badass Normal
- Badass Longcoat
- Chick Magnet
- Cloning Blues
- Commanding Coolness
- Deadpan Snarker
- Estrogen Brigade Bait: Hellooooooooooo, Ben Browder!
- Fire-Forged Friends: With D'Argo.
- Fish Out of Water
- Genre Savvy: At times.
- Godzilla Threshold: The war between the Peacekeepers and Scarrens in Peacekeeper War is his incentive to finally construct a fully functional wormhole weapon and give a demonstration.
- Hell-Bent for Leather
- The Hero
- Heroic Sacrifice: One of him.
- Hot Scientist: To Aeryn's Hot Amazon. Especially once outfitted in leather, and involving a surprising amount of rear-angle camera shots.
- I Call It Vera: Crichton's pulse pistol, "Winona".
- Indy Ploy
- Interspecies Romance: With Aeryn.
- Large Ham: Anytime Crichton has to go undercover.
- Missing Mom
- The Nicknamer
- Only Sane Man: Note that even when he's going crazy, John is usually the voice of sanity. This should give you an indication of how messed-up the world he lives in is.
- Ooh, Me Accent's Slipping: Crichton's Southern accent comes and goes a lot. Sometimes, he has no noticeable accent at all, other times he sounds like Foghorn Leghorn.
- Might be deliberate characterisation, though. Lots of people consciously or unconsciously play their accent up or down for their audience.
- Also note that since Ben Browder's from North Carolina, he comes by that accent honestly
- Person as Verb: fans call his constant pop culture references "Crichtonisms."
- Pop-Cultured Badass
- Properly Paranoid: In "Twice Shy," it's revealed the reason he's so distant to Aeryn for half of Season 4 is because Scorpius is on Moya and could use her (plus the baby) as leverage against him if he were to ever discover his true feelings for her. Aeryn calls him on being paranoid and then we all learn Scorpius has been secretly listening in on the comms - proving Crichton right.
- All for Nothing: Scorpius wasn't fooled by Crichton's attempt at covering up the relationship. Worse still, he manages to engineer a situation in which Crichton offers him wormhole weapons in return for Aeryn.
- Sanity Slippage: With occasional bouts of Laughing Mad.
- Smarter Than You Look: Everyone seems to forget that John started out as a scientist, and that he is very good at Obfuscating Stupidity. Even Einstein is surprised that John managed to figure out wormholes, even with the help the Ancients gave him.
- Southern-Fried Genius
- Spider Sense: In Season 4, thanks to his extensive wormhole research and the knowledge in his brain, he's able to accurately predict when and where a wormhole will open. As he says, he can smell them.
- Technical Pacifist
- Token Human
- Took a Level in Badass: He takes multiple levels of badass over four seasons: he starts out as a clueless nerd, and by series end is so badass he manages to intimidate two entire galactic empires into leaving him the frell alone by threatening to wipe out the universe. THE ENTIRE FREAKING UNIVERSE! And what makes it Badass is he can absolutely pull it off.
- The Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer
- UST: With Aeryn, for a long, long time.
- Uniqueness Value: Scorpius summarizes his reason for hunting Crichton as this.
- The Watson
- Wrong Genre Savvy
- You Fight Like a Cow
Officer Aeryn Sun
No offense, human, but what could I possibly need from you?
Played by Claudia Black
- Action Girl
- Action Girlfriend: In the early phase of the series. By Season 3, she and Crichton are a bona fide Battle Couple.
- Anti-Hero: Type IV. Shot down a woman in cold blood even before finding out she was a projection created by Maldis, shocking even Rygel of all people. Not to mention subjecting an already subdued Crais to the Aurora chair.
- The Atoner: for parts of seasons 1 and 2, most notably "The Way We Weren't."
- Badass / Pregnant Badass: Even by the end of the series, she's still the toughest character on the show. While D'Argo's technically stronger, it's a still toss who would win in a straight fight...heavily leaning towards Aeryn.
- Bare Your Midriff: Full-blown in the first-season episode "Back and Back and Back to the Future" and when dressed as a hippie in "Kansas", but her season two look where she rarely wears anything under her jerkin tends to create a lot of navel-visibility.
- Bizarre Alien Biology: As a Sebacean, Aeryn can't regulate her internal body temperature and suffers from Sebacean Heat Delirium if it get too hot.
- Book Dumb: Has an intense dislike for "scientific dren," which is apparently due to her training; apparently, Peacekeeper soldiers and pilots are taught to look down on technicians and scientists. Inverted in later episodes, when it's revealed Aeryn has an eidetic memory and can memorize whole languages just by watching TV.
- Braids of Action
- Broken Bird: And how.
- Capulet Counterpart
- Deadpan Snarker
- Defrosting Ice Queen: Although even once the process is complete, it's hard to tell unless you're a close friend. Or a small, cute child.
- Fire-Forged Friends: With Chiana and Sikozu.
- Flower in Her Hair: In The Peacekeeper Wars, this is Aeryn's only concession to the fact she's getting married.
- Friend to All Children: Has a soft spot for children. Her storyline in "Suns and Lovers" is about her rescuing children trapped on a damaged space station.
- Hot Amazon
- Human Aliens: It's suggested here and there throughout the series that Sebaceans may be humans who were taken from Earth millennia ago.
- Interspecies Romance: With Crichton.
- Lady of War
- The Lancer
- Love At First Punch: Ever tried introducing yourself to a woman whose thighs are clamped around your skull?
- Love Interest
- Master of the Mixed Message
- Mook Face Turn
- Proud Warrior Race Girl
- Single Tear: This is a talent of Claudia Black's, who trained herself to drop tears on cue so as not to ruin her water-based makeup. Averted hard, however, when she is completely and utterly grief-stricken.
- Slap Slap Kiss: With Crichton.
- Small Girl, Big Gun: That pulse rifle is almost bigger than she is.
- The Stoic
- The Spock
- Sugar and Ice Personality
- Tsundere
- UST: With Crichton, for a long, long time.
Ka D'Argo
I will not be taken prisoner again!
Played by Anthony Simcoe
- Ancestral Weapon / Mix-and-Match Weapon: The qualta blade.
- Badass
- Berserk Button: Do not get between him and his son.
- The Big Guy
- Beard of Barbarism: Male Luxans all have a Beard Of Barbarism made up of a mixture of hair and tentacles.
- BFS/BFG: The Qualta Blade. To illustrate, it's gun form is three times the size of a pulse rifle.
- Bizarre Alien Biology: As a Luxan, D'Argo has an extendable tongue that can inject a neural toxin, he can survive in space unprotected for fifteen minutes, and if he starts bleeding, the wound requires Percussive Maintenance until the blood runs clear. He also has more than one heart.
- Bruiser with a Soft Center: After he lets the bravado fade and starts acting like his real self, he's actually a pretty soft-hearted guy.
- This is mostly due to the fact that in early episodes, he expected imminent recapture, which he vowed he would never suffer again. In the early episodes of the first series, he often showed willingness to betray John and Aeryn to the Peacekeepers if it ensured his continued freedom. As his relationships grew with his shipmates and they continued to elude capture, he began to show he'd gladly put himself in great danger to protect his friends and rescue them.
- Call to Agriculture: D'Argo managed it for a while with Lo'Laan and Jothee, and spends the entire series trying to get back to it.
- The Captain: Of Lo'lah. In addition, the crew elect him captain of Moya during Season 4.
- Cool Starship: Lo'lah.
- Deadpan Snarker
- Fire-Forged Friends: With Crichton.
- Hair-Trigger Temper: A given due to his Luxan Hyper-rage.
- Heartbroken Badass
- Heroic Sacrifice: After being severely injured in the miniseries, he stays behind to delay approaching Scarran forces.
- Huge Guy, Tiny Girl: With Chiana.
- I Have No Son: When Jothee and Chiana have an affair, an enraged and heartbroken D'Argo disowns him. The two eventually begin to reconcile before D'Argo's Heroic Sacrifice.
- Impossibly Cool Weapon: His Qualta Blade. It's a sword and a gun in one.
- Interspecies Romance: With Lo'Laan and Chiana.
- Jerkass: For most of the first season, D'Argo has a habit of letting his temper make everyone around him miserable; he begins to grow out of it towards the season finale, but its not until the second season that he really loosens up.
- Meaningful Name: By proxy. In Season 3, D'Argo acquires a ship that ultimately saves his life more than once and greatly calms anger brought on by other events. In Season 4, he has given it a very appropriate name:
"Lo'Lah. ... It's short for Lo'Laan. In memory of my wife."
- Miscarriage of Justice: D'Argo was framed for the murder of his Sebacean wife by brother-in-law Macton, a Peacekeeper and the actual murderer. To make it even worse, Crais (his de-facto jailer) knew this was the case and kept him in chains anyway.
- The Nose Knows
- Once an Episode: D'Argo stomping onto the bridge and bellowing, "Why have we stopped moving?"
- Overly Long Tongue: With a stinger in it! That causes Instant Sedation!
- Papa Wolf
- Proud Warrior Race Guy: Though it gets subverted so damn hard at every opportunity. D'Argo is a teenager by Luxan standards, trying to live up to the idealized image of the Luxan warrior even though all he really wants to do is start a farm and raise a family. As the series progresses, a lot of his stereotypical Proud Warrior Race Guy attitudes mellow out, allowing him to be more of a...
- Team Dad
- Trigger Happy: D'Argo loves shooting things.
- Red Oni, Blue Oni: The red to Zhaan's blue.
- Warrior Poet
- The Worf Effect: As The Big Guy, this job often falls to D'Argo in the early episodes. Not as often as the Trope Namer as the series continues, and he usually creams the bad guys in a brawl. Near the end, Scarrans give him significant trouble, but then again, Scarrans give everyone trouble.
Dominar Rygel XVI
If you must address me, do so as Your Supreme Eminence. Which you should be doing anyway.
Voiced by Jonathan Hardy
- Alien Catnip: He gets high on sugar.
Rygel: Crichton, how illegal is this dren? You have to get me more. I don't care what it costs!
- Badass: He's actually extremely frightening when he has the chance. When he's in Crichton's body in "Out Of Their Minds", he's psychopathic and murderous, and, in another episode, he kills Durka and spends the rest of an episode parading around with the dead man's head on a stick. Then, in Season 3, he messily tortures a Charrid to death. The only reason he's not taken seriously is his...
- Bizarre Alien Biology: At just under two feet high, he's broadly humanoid, but he has three stomachs and farts helium when nervous.
- Anti-Hero: Type IV
- Big Eater
- Bunny Ears Lawyer: The main reason the rest of the crew didn't space the selfish little git in the first month? He's an extremely skilled negotiator, often making sure the crew gets the supplies they need on their shoestring budget.
- The Caligula: Heavily implied to be the very reason he was deposed in the first place.
- Chronic Backstabbing Disorder: Though he eventually shows some loyalty, for a few seasons his tendency to stab the rest of the cast in the back is so reliable it borders on being a Just Eat Gilligan scenario.
- Cool Chair: His "throne sled", a gilded chair that floats.
- Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: Some episodes play up his cowardliness, greed and fart jokes, but then he does something like knife a Charrid to death as painfully as possible.
- Dirty Old Man: Apparently several centuries old, more-than-middled aged by Hynerian standards, and more than willing to spy on Chiana having sex with Jothee. He objects to seeing Zhaan naked, though.
- Do You Want to Haggle?
- Ear Ache: Rygel's shipmates routinely pull on his ears when displeased with him.
- Fantastic Arousal: His "ear brows" are very... sensitive.
- Goal in Life: Depose his cousin and reclaim the throne. He even states that single goal is what keeps him going.
- In-Series Nickname: "Sparky," "Spanky," "Froggy," "Buckwheat," "Guido," "Your Lowness," "Your Flatulence."
- Jabba Table Manners: On top of being a Big Eater, he's also a very messy one.
- Jerkass / Jerk with a Heart of Gold: He is a flat out Jerk, but shows more than a few moments of genuine caring and compassion to his crew mates throughout the series.
- Treads into "Heart of Gold" territory whenever Moya is concerned. Though he rarely admits it (if ever), his being on Moya longer than anyone else makes him partial to her well-being.
- King Bob the Nth
- Little Green Men
- The Load
- Mad Libs Catchphrase: "I am a Dominar of [insert noun]!"
- Man Bites Man: Rygel is decidedly not above using his teeth as a weapon, which leads to a rather impressive moment in "Coup By Clam" in which he manages to bite off a psychotic doctor's nose.
- Manipulative Bastard: One of the show's best (heroic) examples. He's even complemented as such during the "Look at the Princess" trilogy.
- Mister Seahorse: Through a fluke in the miniseries, he winds up carrying Crichton and Aeryn's baby after they're reconstructed.
- Mr. Vice Guy
- Revenge: Desires it against Bishan, the cousin who deposed him, and against Selto Durka, who took great pleasure in torturing him for cycles.
- Torture Technician: And just a reminder, folks, this is one of the good guys.
Pa'u Zotoh Zhaan
Am I the only species in creation that doesn't thrive on conflict?
Played by Virginia Hey
- Badass Preacher: Zhaan is a peace-loving Delvian priestess when we meet her. However, she was imprisoned on Moya for a reason (for killing her lover) and, as she says to Chiana, "My dear, I've kicked more ass than you've sat on."
- Bald Women: One would think this is due to the Delvians being descended from plants. It turns out there are Delvians who do have hair (it's blue if you're wondering), though baldness isn't uncommon. It's unclear if Zhaan is naturally hairless or shaves it off.
- Beware the Nice Ones: She is very nice, sometimes bordering on Technical Pacifist levels. She could also break you in half if she wanted to. Be thankful she doesn't. Most of the time.
- Bizarre Alien Biology: Zhaan is a Delvian. Delvians are a species of hyper-evolved, sentient plants. And their females have breasts, for some reason.
- Blue Skinned Space Babe
- The Chick
- Dark and Troubled Past: Zhaan was held by the Peacekeepers because of a murder charge and unlike other captives, she actually did do it. It was her time in captivity that saw her become a priest.
- Empathic Healer: Usually by literally absorbing the pain of others into herself. Note that this is just for pain, actual healing needs to be done by conventional methods.
- Enlightenment Superpowers
- Happy Place: Zhaan has a habit of going into trance-like prayer whenever she's even the least perturbed. (Rygel lampshades this at one point.)
- Heroic Sacrifice
- Hot Scientist
- Innocent Fanservice Girl: Zhaan belongs to a species with No Nudity Taboo. She does wear clothes most of the time, though her nude scenes are often quite abrupt.
- The Messiah
- Ms. Fanservice
- Plant Aliens / Planimal
- The Professor
- Real Life Writes the Plot : Apparently no one bothered to test that blue pigment before smearing it all over Virginia Hey; her departure was due to health problems caused by the makeup.
- Red Oni, Blue Oni: The blue to D'Argo's red.
- Sexy Backless Outfit
- The Smart Girl
- Statuesque Stunner
- Team Mom: Actually refers to the crew as her children as she is dying.
Pilot
When one of my species is bonded to a Leviathan, we give our lives to the service of others. Ship first, then those who travel aboard her.
Voiced by Lani Tupu
- Acting for Two / Talking to Himself: In any episode with Crais, because Lani Tupu voiced Pilot as well.
- And I Must Scream: After Moya's first Pilot was disposed of, our Pilot was bonded to her, but because the Peacekeeper techs didn't have time for him to bond with Moya naturally, they connected him through artifical means. Until "The Way We Weren't," he was in constant pain, which he once described as "unbearable." The crew was understandably stunned that he had spent years like this without telling anyone.
- Beware the Nice Ones: Shy, retiring, and subservient... at least until you push him too far; not only does Pilot have control over Moya's life-support systems, but his claws are more than capable of crushing a Sebacean throat at close range. There are quite a few episodes in the series that show just how dangerous he can be when angered: in "The Way We Weren't," he almost strangles Aeryn to death and disconnects the life-support systems in a fit of rage; in "Suns And Lovers," he flushes a terrorist out an airlock while laughing psychotically. And in "The Peacekeeper Wars", he consents to building a Weapon of Mass Destruction for Crichton.
- Deadpan Snarker
- Everyone Calls Him Pilot
- Happiness in Slavery: Given that he's being allowed to explore the universe, Pilot is willing to accept a lot of abuse from his passengers over the course of his duties; it doesn't mean he's happy with poor treatment as such, but he can live with it. That said, there are some things which Pilot isn't willing to tolerate...
- I Just Want to Be Special: Pilot desperately wanted to be bonded to a Leviathan and explore the stars, something which is a rare honor among his species. To do this, Pilot made a deal with the Peacekeepers to replace Moya's current (uncooperative) Pilot- even though he knew it would result in her execution.
- Mr. Exposition: Lampshaded by Crichton resignedly answering to one of Pilot's alerts. "Yes, Mr. Bad News?"
- Multi-Armed Multitasking
- Odd Friendship: With Aeryn.
- Only Sane Man: Can sometimes take this role when on-board sanity takes a dive; becomes a frequent role in season three, when he has to end up trying to keep the crew from killing each other due to Cabin Fever and frustration over Crichton's wormhole hunt.
- The Smart Guy: Though the episode "Thank God It's Friday... Again" shows that Pilot, knowing that he can't contribute much else to the crew, works his ass off in order to be the team's Smart Guy.
Pilot: "I don't get out much, so I read."
Moya
Crichton: That's big. That's really big.—Crichton's first impression of Moya
- Actual Pacifist: More a species trait. She really hates hurting any living creature; more often than not, this skirts Messiah territory.
- Of course, when it comes to her son, all bets are off.
- Beware the Nice Ones: Especially note, she doesn't have weapons. And like Pilot, she consented to building and using a Weapon of Mass Destruction during "The Peacekeeper Wars".
- Living Ship
- Mama Bear
- Prison Ship
- Spaceship Girl
- Starship Luxurious
- The Voiceless: Moya cannot generally speak, though Pilot is aware of what she wants. The crew can also communicate with her through Pilot or the DRDs. In "Look at the Princess, Part 3", this is subverted, as her builders allow her to briefly speak directly to Zhaan.
Captain Bialar Crais
Tauvo is dead- struck down by a weak... pathetic... inferior being. It must be avenged! I swear in Tauvo's name, Crichton, you will die in my hands.
Played by Lani Tupu
- Acting for Two / Talking to Himself: In any episode with Pilot, because Lani Tupu voiced Pilot as well.
- Arch Enemy: Until Scorpius takes over.
- The Avenger
- Badass Beard
- Beard of Evil: In the beginning.
- Badass Long Hair: Usually kept in a ponytail.
- The Captain
- Dead Guy on Display / Taxidermy Is Creepy: While still captain of his ship, Crais kept the stuffed heads of numerous Hynerians on the walls of his cabin, much to Rygel's horror. Scorpius, on the other hand, wasn't all that impressed, and suggested that the only reason why Crais kept them around was as a reminder of times when he still had power.
- Disc One Final Boss: In the first season, Crais is pursuing Moya to avenge the death of his brother, but he gets replaced by Scorpius.
- Expy: Less extreme than the Grayza-Servalan resemblance, but in season one he has major similarities to Travis from Blakes Seven.
- Freudian Excuse: As children, Crais and his brother were forcefully taken from their parents by the Peacekeepers, and the last thing Crais Sr. did before his children were taken was to make Bialar promise to take care of his brother. Which makes his deranged homicidal quest across the Uncharted Territories a little bit easier to understand.
- Guns Akimbo: On occasion.
- Hazy Feel Turn
- Heroic Sacrifice
- Hopeless Suitor: To Aeryn, later on.
- Ignored Epiphany: In "That Old Black Magic", after Crichton makes it clear in no uncertain terms that his brother's death was a freak accident. Far from weakening his resolve, Crais' reexamination of scenes from his past (courtesy of Maldis) only renews his desire to kill Crichton.
- Insane Admiral: At first. He becomes a lot more laid-back after his defection from the Peacekeepers and comes to terms with Tauvo's death.
- Inspector Javert
- It's Personal: He barely even tries to hide the fact that he's pursuing Moya in order to have his revenge on Crichton.
- Later, Crais invokes this to Scorpius before his Heroic Sacrifice.
- Madness Makeover: Over the course of his pursuit of Crichton, Crais' immaculate hair becomes scraggly and his face unshaven.
- Manipulative Bastard
- Moral Myopia
- Motive Decay
- Papa Wolf: Towards Talyn.
- Revenge Myopia: His pursuit of Crichton.
- Shirtless Scene: In Season 3, although it isn't played for Fan Service, as his body is covered in intensely painful blisters due to Talyn's unstable neural feedback.
- Starter Villain
Chiana
If your hand is still there in one microt, I'll snap it off and use it as a good luck charm.
Played by Gigi Edgley
- Bare Your Midriff: Is that light-coloured strip in her first costume bare skin or cloth? The opening of "Taking the Stone" suggests it's meant to be skin, but in other episodes it looks like cloth, possibly to reduce the amount of real-world make-up needed.
- Black Eyes / Prophet Eyes / Hellish Pupils: Chiana runs the whole gamut. (See below)
- Blind Seer: In Season 3, Chiana gains the ability to see visions of the future, though can't control it. In Season 4, she gains a degree of control, but goes blind. It's temporary, but lasts longer with each time. When it looks like it's permanent, she replaces her eyes.
- Broken Bird
- The Chick
- Classy Cat Burglar
- Defector To Decadence
- Ethical Slut: The "ethical" part took a serious dent when she had an affair with Jothee, but for the most part, she tries not to edge in on previously established relationships.
- Extreme Omnisexual: She is the focus of most of the series' Les Yay moments. She also has no sexual boundaries when it comes to gender, age, and even species.
- Fire-Forged Friends: With Aeryn and Jool.
- Grey Skinned Space Babe
- Huge Guy, Tiny Girl: With D'Argo.
- In-Series Nickname: "Pip."
- Real Life, as well. Chiana got the nickname because that's what Ben Browder called Gigi Edgley.
- Interspecies Romance: With D'Argo.
- The Ladette
- Loveable Rogue: She's a good hearted person, and loyal to her friends and family, but isn't overly concerned with the galaxy at large.
- Ms. Fanservice
- Ooh, Me Accent's Slipping: Chiana randomly slips between an Australian and Fake American accent in Season One. This is due to disagreements between directors over which accent Gigi Edgely should stick with.
- Psychic Powers: Develops them in Season 3, following her possession by an Energy Rider.
- Screaming Warrior: Has a very distinctive war cry that can best be described as "BRRRRRRUUUUGHHHH-YI-YI-YI-YAAAAAAH!"
- Took a Level in Jerkass: To an extent - in Season 4, she has become a lot angrier than usual, because of her terrible experiences in between Seasons 3 and 4 - she was tortured.
- Vitriolic Best Buds: At first, she and Jool despise each other, but they gradually come to develop a love-hate friendship. She also has this going on with Rygel, to a certain extent. Averted with Sikozu - although they have a few friendly moments together, they generally deeply dislike one another.
- White-Haired Pretty Girl
Talyn
Crichton: Open the door, you soulless pinheaded adolescent pig!—Crichton gets a bit fed-up with Talyn. To be fair, it was Talyn's fault.
- Ax Crazy
- Bilingual Dialogue: Talyn, who lacks a Pilot to speak for him, communicates through trills and bloop noises.
- Break the Cutie: The kid was practically born insane.
- Emo Teen: Oh so much. Crichton even calls him out on it when Talyn becomes too bratty and petty (brattiness includes: locking doors on John, stealing his stuff, trying to separate him and auntie Aeryn, and trying to throw him out (into space)). The problem is that he's a bratty teenager with a really big BFG.
- Heroic Sacrifice
- Leeroy Jenkins: Can get a little carried away in engaging the enemy- forcing Crais to start playing the voice of reason.
- Living MacGuffin
- Living Ship
- Momma's Boy: A positive example, as despite his emotional problems, Talyn is shown to care deeply for Moya. At the end of "The Ugly Truth," it is revealed that Talyn willingly destroyed the Plokavian ship because they carried material that could've posed a threat to her. And if there was ever any doubt before, Talyn agrees to the Heroic Sacrifice because Crais tells him, "Moya will soon be enslaved."
- Shipper on Deck: In "Green Eyed Monster", it turns out that Talyn has been conspiring to get Crais and Aeryn together, doing weird stuff like cranking up the heat in whatever room they're in. As someone correctly pointed out on the main page: "weirdest example ever".
- Trigger Happy
- With Great Power Comes Great Insanity: Only Leviathan in the universe that's armed with any sort of weaponry, but it turns out that whatever the Peacekeepers did drove him crazy.
- While his biology likely made him unbalanced, the poor kid might have stood a chance if not for being under constant threat since birth. Crais theorized that it was the Peacekeeper Retrieval Squad hunt that finally pushed Talyn over the edge.
Scorpius
I long ago learned the advantages of patience.
Played by Wayne Pygram
- Achilles' Heel: His need for cooling rods to keep his internal temperature in balance. And like any good Achilles' Heel, savvy opponents will exploit it: Crichton once coated a rod in heat-reacting paste, hoping it would explode in Scorpius' head, and if anyone worth their salt manages to capture Scorpius, the first thing they do is deny him cooling rods or destroy the apparatus.
- Affably Evil
- Anti-Villain
- Arch Enemy: With periodic Enemy Mine events.
- Badass
- Bad Boss: Averted! Actually shows a good deal of loyalty to his minions, particularly Braca, which pays dividends by series end.
- Beast and Beauty: With Sikozu.
- Berserk Button: It isn't a good idea to get between him and his plans, to say the least.
- Big Bad: For seasons 2 and 3.
- Brains and Bondage: Both are pretty obvious.
- Break the Cutie: His first 12 years of life consisted of torture. It's really not surprising that he got so good at preparing contingency escape plans.
- Cheshire Cat Grin: It isn't often he's capable of a benign smile. Then again, it is hard to grin infectiously when you have small, sharp, jagged teeth.
- He does, however, manage a much more heartwarming smile when he strokes the flower he remembers his mother by at the end of "Incubator".
- Child by Rape
- Clingy Costume: Not physically impossible to remove, but necessary to keep him alive.
- Crazy Prepared: He's insanely paranoid—and justifiably so, considering how often people have tried to kill him. Crazy Prepared is probably the only reason no one has managed it.
- Double Reverse Quadruple Agent
- Erotic Asphyxiation: This is evidently one of his kinks, judging by his sex scene with Natira and his only on-screen sexual scene with Sikozu.
- Even Bad Men Love Their Mamas: Scorpius' xenocidal hatred of the Scarran stems from both what they did to him and what they did to his mother.
- Even Evil Has Loved Ones: He loves his mother, in spite of the fact that he never got to meet her, and he clearly cares a great deal for Sikozu.
- Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: Subverted heavily; at one point in the fourth season, Crichton insists that Scorpius doesn't understand him, hence the reason why Scorpius had to use the Aurora Chair and the Neural Clone to unearth his secrets. Less than a few episodes later, after Aeryn is kidnapped by the Scarrans, Crichton realises that Scorpius arranged the whole thing, knowing that he'd trade anything for Aeryn's safety.
- Evil Sounds Deep: Subverted; he makes a conscious effort to speak in high tones, thus concealing his Scarran heritage. As such, when his voice lowers to demonic levels, it's a good indication that someone has foiled his plans—or somebody is about to be beaten to a pulp, as both Crichton and Crais discovered.
- First-Name Basis: While everyone from shipmates to enemies call John "Crichton", Scorpius usually just calls him "John".
- Freudian Excuse: And a pretty damn good one, too.
- Half Sebacean Hybrid
- Heel Face Turn: Averted. Scorpius joins the crew of Moya during season 4, but he's very upfront about the fact that his goals and motivations haven't changed one bit, only his circumstances.
- Hell-Bent for Leather
- Human Mom, Nonhuman Dad: Well, Sebacean, but it still counts.
- Implacable Man
- Joker Immunity
- Kavorka Man
- Living Lie Detector: His half-Scarran heritage allows him to tell when people are lying.
- Machiavelli Was Wrong
- Minored in Asskicking
- Missing Mom: Scorpius' mother was raped by a Scarran male, and she died during childbirth. He did not take the news well.
- Names to Run Away From Really Fast
- Not So Different: Scorpius confesses a real 'connection' to Crichton. (Not so much the other way around, though.) Wayne Pygram has mused that since Scorpy is alone in his uniqueness, perhaps he feels a kinship with the fish-out-of-water John.
- Omnidisciplinary Scientist: From wormhole physics to cybernetics to neuroscience.
- Raised by Orcs
- Revenge: Revenge against the Scarrans is his driving motivation.
- Super Strength: One of the benefits of being half-Scarran. He throws Crais around like a ragdoll on one occasion, and on another, he forced open an incredibly heavy, reinforced sliding door one-handed.
- Too Kinky to Torture: On the rare occasions that he's ended up being captured and interrogated, his captors have to work hard to find a form of torture that he doesn't enjoy.
- Or if not enjoy, at least ignore. After all, he was tortured for over a decade (while growing up) by professionals.
- Villainous Breakdown: At the end of series 3, following Crichton's betrayal and the destruction of his research base and resources, it's perhaps the only time in the series we see him looking genuinely broken.
- Well-Intentioned Extremist: Everything he does is in order to stop the Scarrans from taking over the galaxy. Of course, this is backed by his deep-seated hatred and desire for revenge, but he knows exactly what they're capable of, and he is willing to do anything, even sacrificing himself, to make sure that what happened to his mother doesn't happen to the rest of the galaxy. That's the entire reason he went and offered himself to the Peacekeepers: they were the less evil choice! At the end of the Peacekeeper Wars he is happy when the Scarrans and Peacekeepers sign a peace contract because it still stops them from taking over the galaxy. Undoubtedly though, he had a whole heap of plans set up to get rid of them from what they do control, but one step at a time, no?
- Wild Card
Stark
This is my side! That's your side. You stay on your side. My side, your side! My side, your side! My side, your side!
Played by Paul Goddard
- Bizarre Alien Biology: Stark is an energy being who built from raw matter his current body.
- Break the Cutie: Oh god, poor Stark. He was broken when Crichton met him in season 1 where he had been mind raped continuously for 2 years!! and it just went downhill from there.
- It's even worse than that. Turns out that Stark grew up among the Scarrans and assisted in their death rituals. As a slave, you can imagine how that part of his life went. Considering his opinion (not to mention panic) of Scarrans, being Scorpius' prisoner was arguably an improvement for the poor guy.
- Blessed with Suck: That empathic/telepathic ability to interact with the dying? Not fun. In fact, he actually mentions that every time he helps someone cross over, he absorbs a tiny piece of their soul. And since a good deal of his early work was helping Scarrans cross over...
- Butt Monkey
- Care Bear Stare
- The Chew Toy: Dude was tortured for years, and upon escaping in short order proceeds to get executed by disintegration , experiences the agonising deaths of ten thousand of his own species being executed by Natira, gets puked on by Pilot, and finally is forced to listen as the woman he loves dies. Cannot catch a break.
- Cloudcuckoolander
- Cool Mask
- Dogged Nice Guy: A very creepy one towards Aeryn at times in the third season, eventually driving her to a memorable and deserved "The Reason You Suck" Speech. However, the reason he acts this way turns out not to be so much due to any kind of attraction to her, but that all the dark and evil chaotic thought that he's absorbed over the years, which have permanently distorted his thinking, latch onto her as the latest object of his fragmented attention because Zhaan isn't around anymore to help him control it. Let's face it, by the time season 3 and 4 come around, he flips between psychosis and neurotic breakdown like a light switch with a short circuit.
- Get a Hold of Yourself, Man!: Stark needs a lot of these moments, and he gets 'em.
- I See Dead People
- Interspecies Romance: With Zhaan.
- Large Ham
My side! Your side! My side! YOUR side! MY SIDE!.
- Not So Harmless: Every so often, Stark will get very violent—and not in a funny way, either. In fact, when one particularly trying day ended with Jool whining at him, he actually went beserk and threatened to Mind Rape her. See above under Dogged Nice Guy for why.
- The Load: On a good day, he's almost catatonic. On a bad day, he puts everyone on the ship in danger with his psychotic freak-outs.
- Trauma Conga Line: No one has gone through more pain and suffering throughout the span of their life than Stark. No one. Think what happened to Aeryn in Scarran captivity was bad? Stark's got her beat: he absorbed some of the Scarran's souls. Think John's purview in the Aurora Chair was horrific? Stark got 2 years. And he just keeps on getting hit!
- Obfuscating Insanity: Stark has an at best tenuous grip on his sanity, but he admitted to pretending to be far crazier while Scorpius' prisoner. Doing so got people to leave him alone more often than they would've otherwise.
- Talkative Loon
- Too Kinky to Torture: Stark's been given the Aurora Chair treatment over 100 times, and he clearly enjoys it a little too much.
Harvey
Go on, John! Do it! Then we can go to the beach! I know a place with naked Sebacean girls and margarita shooters!
Played by Wayne Pygram
- Ascended Extra: Originally, Crichton was just hallucinating Scorpius in "Crackers Don't Matter" because he was just being driven crazy like everyone else in that episode. Then the writers realized how great it would be if they could keep Scorpius around (in John's head) while technically having the real one pursuing them from far away; thus, "Harvey" became a recurring character.
- Battle in the Center of the Mind: He has a few of these with Crichton.
- Deadpan Snarker
- Faux Affably Evil: His relative friendliness is an act (see his meeting with Natira), one that Crichton rightfully doesn't buy.
- Happy Place: Often found lurking in the more pleasant areas of Crichton's psyche.
- Heel Face Turn: Harvey eventually came to value his and Crichton's survival over the goals of Scorpius.
- Face Heel Turn: In Season 4, Scorpius claims to remove Harvey, but instead reprograms/upgrades him. While maintaining similar characterisitics, he is loyal to Scorpius and committed to seeing his goals achieved.
- Homage Shot: Numerous times his visitations with John would manifest themselves in scenes from famous Earth films (see Shout-Out below). When his program was dying, he replayed some scenes from the end of 2001: A Space Odyssey a la Dave Bowman.
- Imagine Spot: Tends to make his presence known through these.
- Imaginary Enemy
- Laughably Evil: In spite of what he is, some of his lines are gold.
- Not-So-Imaginary Friend
- Shout-Out: Yes, he's named after the bunny, and yes, it's lampshaded, and yes, in the season 4 finale, he and Crichton dress up in bunny suits.
- Another name for him that Crichton briefly considered was Clarence.
- Spirit Advisor: Once Character Development kicks in.
Joolushko "Jool" Tunai Fenta Hovalis
I always wait. You know, see both sides--be reasonable. But now... I have nothing to lose.
Played by Tammy MacIntosh
- Back for the Dead
- Bare Your Midriff: Especially her second costume.
- Bizarre Alien Biology: Jool is an Interon, so her hair changes color depending on her mood, and her screams can melt metal. Which is good, because she screams. 'A lot.
- Break the Haughty
- Deadpan Snarker
- Eyepatch of Power: When she is temporarily blinded in one eye due to a bit of Boolite flying into it (It Makes Sense in Context), she sports a rather cool eyepatch for a few episodes.
- Fire-Forged Friends: With Chiana.
- Fiery Redhead: She is usually blonde, except for when she is nervous or angry, during which it turns bright red. It stays permanently red following the infiltration of Scorpius' Command Carrier - possibly due to the stress of the mission.
- Fish Out of Water: Being from a peaceful star system that seriously frowns upon violence, she is initially completely out of her depth when she becomes part of Moya's crew. (She learns quickly.) Being cryogenically frozen for 22 cycles didn't help, either.
- Forgot About Her Powers: Her sound powers are rarely used in emergencies where they might actually be useful.
- Green Eyed Red Head
- Hot Scientist
- Insufferable Genius: She has some traits of this, although not nearly as much as Sikozu.
- Jerkass: Starts off as one, before Character Development kicks in. Emerging from a long cryogenic slumber on board a ship of a type she'd never seen and learning that her two cousins - with whom she was very close - are dead does not help.
- Killed Off for Real
- Make Me Wanna Shout
- The Medic: To an extent.
- Only Known by Their Nickname
- Overly Long Name: And she claims that everyone addresses her by her full name prior to being cryogenically frozen (this could presumably be an Interon cultural aspect), although she makes an exception for her cousins, who called her by her nickname. She resents being called "Jool" by her crewmates at first (in spite of, or perhaps because of, the fact that her cousins also used it), but it eventually grows on her.
- Red Hair, Take Warning: Her hair turns bright red when she's either a) scared or nervous, or b) really, really pissed off.
- Screaming Woman
- She's Got Legs
- Ship Tease: The writers teased a relationship between Jool and D'Argo -- especially in season 4's "What Was Lost" two-parter -- but Jool left the show and nothing came of it.
- And then when the crew catches up with Jool again in "The Peacekeeper Wars", she oddly and inexplicably goes for Crichton and seems to have completely forgotten D'Argo.
- There also seemed to be something of a Ship Tease between her and Naj Gil (the only neutral/non-antagonistic Scarren to appear on the show) - they connect very quickly, and he offers her a place aboard the hospital ship with him. Unfortunately, he is killed before anything comes of it, and Jool is deeply upset at his death.
- The Smart Girl
- Technical Pacifist: Sometimes bordering on Actual Pacifist levels. She frowns upon violence due to her upbringing and abhors killing, but, as the series goes on, she becomes more willing to engage in violence when it is required.
- Took a Level in Badass: This trait starts to emerge towards the end of Season 3 - especially notable is the fact that she aids the rest of the crew in their infiltration of Scorpius' Command Carrier despite her nervousness, and that she's more than willing to put herself in danger to help D'Argo against a huge Peacekeeper wielding a circular saw. This trait is also especially evident in the "What Was Lost" two-parter.
- Vitriolic Best Buds: At first, she and Chiana despise each other, but they gradually come to develop a love-hate friendship.
- Written in Infirmity: The eyepatch was because Tammy MacIntosh really did get hit in the eye by a piece of debris and injured during the relevant action sequence.
Utu-Noranti Pralatong
Never bathe, never bathe. It washes off the juice.
Played by Melissa Jaffer
- Cloudcuckoolander
- Cool Old Lady
- Cordon Bleugh Chef: Shifts between this and straight Lethal Chef depending on the episode.
- Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass
- Dr. Feelgood
- Extra Eyes / Evil Eye: Has a third eye that changed color and intermittently opened when she used her powers.
- The Other Darrin: When the makeup started to affect Melissa Jaffer's health, she had to be replaced for some scenes in The Peacekeeper Wars.
- Trickster Mentor
Sikozu Svala Shanti Sugaysi Shanu
Everything lives and everything dies, whether you wish it to or not, and you have to deal with it.
Played by Raelee Hill
- Alliterative Name
- Bare Your Midriff
- Be a Whore to Get Your Man: Not really an increase in sexiness so much as a fashion style change, but her black-leather-and-tattoos makeover for "The Peacekeeper Wars" looks an awful lot like her playing to Scorpius's fetishes.
- Because You Were Nice to Me / I Owe You My Life: One of the reasons for her attraction to Scorpius was the fact that he managed to save her life in "What Was Lost."
- Bizarre Alien Biology: As a Kalish, Sikozu can walk up walls and across ceilings, can't tolerate Translator Microbes (meaning she has to learn every language she ever encounters), can reattched severed limbs and can go for months without eating. She also has the ability to project radiation, but that's a result of also being a bioloid.
- Chronic Backstabbing Disorder: She had a tendency to betray or at least undermine Crichton very early on. Then she met Scorpius. She colluded with him almost immediately, which still puts this trope in effect because his agenda was hardly in line with Crichton's or anyone else's. The only times she willingly cooperated with the rest of the crew was when their goals weren't mutually exclusive, though to her credit, she didn't decide to up and screw everyone like most examples of this trope. And then she blew it by betraying the crew to the Scarrans, much to Scorpius' rage.
- Co-Dragons: Her and Braca, for Scorpius.
- Combo-Platter Powers: See above.
- Deadpan Snarker
- Fire-Forged Friends: With Aeryn.
- Fiery Redhead
- Good Thing You Can Heal: 'Cause she sure does seem to get her arms ripped off a lot.
- Green Eyed Red Head
- Heel Face Turn: In the comics, she finally picks a side. And then dies.
- Heroic Sacrifice: In the comic books.
- Hot Scientist
- Insufferable Genius: Incredibly intelligent and is not afraid to let everyone else know just how much smarter she is than them. As Crichton mutters aside at one point, "She's too smart."
- Jerkass: Most of the time acts very unpleasantly towards Moya's crew, save for Scorpius.
- Know-Nothing Know-It-All: An inversion, as she is quite educated. However, as Rygel noted, "You've learned, but you haven't experienced." For example, though book smart when it comes to Leviathans, she had never been on one before meeting Crichton, and he knew things she didn't thanks to living on Moya.
- The Mole: In "The Peacekeeper Wars", she feeds Crichton and Scorpius' movements to the Scarrans. When Scorpius confronts her over this she said that the Scarrans had promised to free the Kalish from servitude; surprisingly enough, the Scarrans actually made good on this promise in the comics.
- Overly Long Name
- Robot Girl: She's eventually revealed to be a Bioloid.
- The Spock
- Stripperiffic: Her costume when aboard Moya, which consists above the waist of what is basically a bra with some cloth straps extending from it.
- Suspiciously Similar Substitute: For Jool.
- Wall Crawl
Recurring Characters
Jack Crichton
Each man gets the chance to be his own kind of hero. Your time'll come and when it does, watch out. Chances are, it'll be the last thing you ever expected.
Played by Kent McCord
- Cool Old Guy
- Domestic Abuse: Played with in "Kansas." A teenaged Crichton thought that Jack treated his mother badly. Though arguments between the parents were apparently frequent, an older Crichton was very much aware of how much this trope was averted.
- Hero of Another Story: Following the events of "Terra Firma", during which Jack organizes a global peace initiative in preparation for exploring space.
- Open-Minded Parent: Though shown to butt heads with his son, Jack has always been very supportive of what he had to say.
- Patriotic Fervor: Following the World Trade Center attacks.
Miklo Braca
Like you said, sir, I don't question High Command.
Played by David Franklin
- And This Is For: When he's giving Scorpius a good kicking after becoming [1] Grayza's Dragon:
Braca: This is for all the times I've had to say "yes"!
- Ascended Extra
- Badass Beard: Grows a goatee in time for the miniseries.
- The Captain: Is a Lieutenant for most of the series, until he is later promoted to Captain. He is later promoted to Admiral in the comics.
- The Dragon: To Scorpius, and then later to Grayza. Later episodes revealed that he was still loyal to Scorpius even while working for Grayza.
- Co-Dragons: Him and Sikozu to Scorpius, during Season 4 and the miniseries.
- Mauve Shirt: Braca was originally just another mook in a couple of late Season 1 episodes, but Scorpius needed a number two and David Franklin was such a damn good actor that he eventually got a...
- Mook Promotion: From a random Peacekeeper soldier to "Captain Miklo Braca, Officer of the Fleet, Peacekeeper Interplanetary Service".
- Mook Lieutenant: Starts as one. He gives Scorpius someone to talk to.
Commandant Mele-On Grayza
What I want may not be as bad as you think. You might even like it.
Played by Rebecca Riggs
- Absolute Cleavage: Or, as Crichton refers to her, "Commandant Cleavage."
- Bad Boss
- Big Bad: For the first half or so of Season 4.
- Bizarre Alien Biology: Thanks to a gland implanted in her chest, she can secrete a powerful pheromone that goes beyond mind control. This leads to John Crichton's big aversion of the Double Standard Rape (Female on Male) trope.
- Double Standard Rape (Female on Male): Heavily averted, although she certainly seems to believe that what she's doing isn't rape.
My interrogations are much more agreeable than Scorpius' methods.
- Express Delivery: Between season 4 and the miniseries.
- Expy: She bears a strong resemblance to Servalan.
- Femme Fatale
- Head-in-The-Sand Management: Her attempts to appease the Scarrans in season 4.
- Klingon Promotion: The superior she kills is also strongly implied to be the father of her unborn child.
- Mama Bear: It's implied that the main reason she goes along with Crichton's demands in "The Peacekeeper Wars" is to protect her unborn child.
- Mind Rape: The Heppel oil secreted by a gland implanted in her chest acts as an extremely potent pheromone, with which she uses to rape Crichton.
- Real Life Writes the Plot: Rebecca Riggs really was that heavily pregnant when "The Peacekeeper Wars" was filmed: she'd thought that the show was cancelled permanently and decided it was time to have a child.
- She also missed "Bad Timing" because of her wedding. Grayza was consequently said to be detained and sedated in the episode.
- Smug Smiler
- Smug Snake
- Villainous Breakdown: After Crichton makes her realize her plans for peace have failed, she goes through this, though regains some sanity later.
In my hands - you can have peace! I! CAN! HAVE! PEACE!
- What Could Have Been: It is never made entirely clear if the father of her unborn child is Crichton's or Maryk's. Had there been a Season 5, this issue may have been resolved.
- Woman in Black
Bekhesh
It's been so long since anyone has told me the truth, I don't recognize it anymore...
Played by John Adams
- Arm Cannon: The gauntlet.
- The Atoner
- Badass Preacher: Or, as he calls himself, the "Holy Warrior of Tarou."
- Benevolent Boss: When he was still in charge of the Tavlek gang, it was demonstrated that he actually cared about his underlings- to the point of threatening to kill Moya's crew if they mistreated Kyr.
- Blindfolded Vision: The top of Bekhesh's head is covered by a thick metal faceplate; according to production notes, it's actually a cybernetic replacement for the top of his head.
- Functional Addict: While still clearly addicted, he doesn't need the gauntlet nearly as often as Kyr did.
- Good Scars, Evil Scars / Gonk: Bekhesh is pretty much walking scar tissue.
- Only in It For the Money: "It's easier to reform when you're rich."
- Reformed Criminal
- Shoulders of Doom: Part of his uniform while still leading the Tavlek gang.
Gilina Renaez
It seems human and Sebacean men are much the same.
Played by Alyssa-Jane Cook
- Broken Bird
- Death of the Hypotenuse
- Kill the Cutie
- Mook Face Turn: As a tech, however, she was one of Crais's Evil Minions rather a Mook.
- Reverse Mole: In "Nerve" and "The Hidden Memory," Gilina functions as this, sabotaging the Gammak base's surveilance systems to help Crichton and Chiana enter and escape.
- What Could Have Been: She was originally going to be killed off in "PK Tech Girl," but the actress's performance convinced David Kemper to bring her back.
- Wrench Wench
Captain Selto Durka
When I am finished with you, Dominar, death himself will pray for you!
Played by David Wheeler
- Arch Enemy: Of Rygel.
- Bald of Evil: He prefers to keep his head clean-shaven. In fact, some time after his brainwashing is reversed, he goes so far as to cut off the long hair he's grown in the meantime.
- Brainwashed: After being defeated and captured by the Nebari, he was given a very thorough mind-cleansing... which Rygel ended up undoing on their next encounter.
- Broken Pedestal: It was a bit of a shock for Aeryn to discover that one of the greatest heroes of the Peacekeepers was little more than an opportunistic coward.
- Dead Guy on Display: After being killed by Rygel, his head is mounted on a pike and kept as a trophy
- Decoy Getaway: When the battle with the Nebari turned against him, Durka faked his death by killing an improvised Body Double and making it look like a suicide. Not that it helped, as the Nebari easily caught up with him—hence the brainwashing—but Rygel was certainly fooled when he revisted the Zelbinion 100 cycles later.
- Dirty Coward: As Aeryn noted, retreating from an unwinnable battle is one thing, but murdering one of your own officers to put the finishing touches on your own private escape attempt...
- Electronic Eye
- Evil Old Folks
- Eyepatch of Power: While still under the mental cleansing, he covered his artificial eye with an eyepatch.
- Faking the Dead
- Good Scars, Evil Scars: Has a massive scar running through his right eye, which has been replaced with the abovementioned prosthesis.
- Miles Gloriosus
- Torture Technician
- Villainous Breakdown: Towards the end of "Durka Returns", his calm demeanour quickly fades when he realises his plans have been utterly foiled.
Crichton! Don't leave me out here! I'll hunt you down and I'll kill you!
Teurac
I make it a point to someday kill my clever opponents...
Played by Derek Amer and Thomas Holesgrove; Voiced by Philip Hinton
- Breath Weapon: As a Sheeyang, he can breathe fire. Unfortunately, he's getting old, and not as efficient at it as he once was.
- Made of Explodium: Equally unfortunately, the same biological quirk that allows him to do so also makes him... a little unstable.
- The Captain: Of his vessel, up until it was crippled in an attack and his crew abandoned him.
- Cool Old Guy
- Graceful Loser: Compliments D'Argo on managing to bluff his way through negotiations and ultimately foil his attempt at claiming Moya and the Zelbinion.
- Note that he still threatened to kill D'Argo one day- he just did so in a very respectful manner.
- Heroic Sacrifice
- Only in It For the Money: "You said you had an opportunity for profit..."
- Salvage Pirates
- Space Pirates
Maldis
I admit, I feed on death. But don't we all? Some eat plants. Some meat. I consume the life essence itself. Preferably medium rare.
Played by Chris Haywood
- Arch Enemy: To Zhaan.
- Emotion Eater: He likes to spice up his meals by encouraging his victims to excesses of fear or anger- as an appetiser. Unfortunately for his victims, he's very good at knowing which buttons to push...
- Evil Sorcerer: Explicitly called as such.
- Eyes of Gold
- Fate Worse Than Death: Maldis was dispersed by Zhaan and left as a disembodied mind trying to pull his body back together again. He describes the experience as "Less than pleasant."
- Faux Affably Evil / Laughably Evil: Say what you like about his vile eating habits and devious schemes- he's undoubtedly having the time of his life.
- Large Ham: Oh so very, very much.
- Long Bus Trip: After being dispersed twice, he never bothered the crew again, even though it's established that he can return from the dead, if given time. It's speculated that because his main interest was in Zhaan, he simply lost interest in Moya's crew following the events of "Self-Inflicted Wounds."
- Some fans have speculated that he was really the one behind the game in "John Quixote" due to certain elements of it and how Crichton got in it the first place. Note that he is name-dropped in the episode.
- Intangible Man
- Manipulative Bastard
- Master of Disguise: Appeared in different guises as part of his plots against the crew, with his actor appearing in different costumes and make-up for the effect.
- Master of Illusion: When not using his magic powers in a "real" sense, he's not above confusing his victims with images from their past.
- Our Vampires Are Different: Crichton refers to him as basically a psychic vampire.
- Reality Warper
- Sorcerous Overlord: In his first episode, he was ruling an entire planet.
- Telepathy
- Voluntary Shapeshifting
- Your Soul Is Mine: His most direct means of feeding.
"Jack" the Ancient
We needed a reaction, a human reaction, John. Your reaction.
Played by Kent McCord
- A Form You Are Comfortable With
- Cool Old Guy
- Insectoid Aliens: His true appearance.
- Sufficiently Advanced Alien
- The Mentor
- Only Known by Their Nickname: His true name is unpronounceable outside of his native tongue.
- This Was His True Form
Furlow
Ol' Furlow can handle it. "Everything's gonna be just fine", that's my motto.
Played by Magda Szubanski
- Brawn Hilda
- Chronic Backstabbing Disorder
- Fat Bastard
- Honest John's Dealership: She's a perfectly competent engineer (enough to make a working copy of Crichton's module), but she's not too choosy about her employees: they're either "thoddoes" or disguised bounty hunters.
- Good Smoking, Evil Smoking: Mostly neutral, smokes cigars.
- Stout Strength
- Wrench Wench... not exactly an attractive one though.
- Wrench Whack
Natira
Animal, you have lovely eyes. I love red eyes. Very sensual. Very unusual.
Played by Claudia Karvan
- Blue-Skinned Space Babe
- Brains and Bondage
- Contemplative Boss: Manages this with the windows of her office while torturing Crichton.
Blue eyes, look out at that. That is the last sight your eyes will ever see.
- Cute Little Fangs
- Dark Mistress- to Scorpius. She's actually planning to assassinate him.
- Evil Mentor: Apparently, she served as this to Scorpius when he was younger.
Natira: Without me, you'd still be the same angry, hotheaded young creature I took in so many cycles ago.
Scorpius: Without me, your head -- among other things -- would be a trophy on the wall at Peacekeeper Command.
- Eye Scream: Those flexible spines on her head—the ones that stand upright and twitch when she gets sexually excited? Those are used for stabbing people's eyes out.
- Gorgeous Gorgon: Not literally, but her appearance does lend itself towards this- to the point that Crichton calls her "Medusa."
- Insectoid Aliens: Okay, more crustacean than insect...
- Morally-Bankrupt Banker: Apart from the torture and murder comitted on a daily basis, she also claimed the contents of Scorpius' vault for herself, presuming that Scorpius had died in the destruction of his Gammak base. Then, when Scorpius showed up alive and asking for his money, Natira was very happy to steal the contents of someone else's vault to repay him. However, it's actually a deathtrap... which the crew of Moya end up stealing.
- Red Eyes, Take Warning: Quite apart from having orange-red eyes of her own, she has a thing for red eyes in general.
- Sexy Walk: As evidenced in her "Between My Legs" introduction, which also draws attention to the fact that her exoskeleton has high heels.
- Soft-Spoken Sadist
- Torture Technician
- What Could Have Been: The producers wanted her to return in a later episode, but Claudia Karvan didn't want to put herself through the prosthetics and animatronics again.
Ka Jothee
I'm only half Luxan... and for many cycles, I didn't even want to be that.
Played by Grant Magee (child), Matt Newton (adult, series 2-3), Nathaniel Dean (adult, "The Peacekeeper Wars")
- Back for the Finale
- Beard of Barbarism: Grows one in time for Peacekeeper Wars, after becoming reconciled to his father's culture.
- Good Scars, Evil Scars: Jothee bears a deep scar across his nose, and most of his head-tentacles have been mutilated. "Die Me Dichotomy" revealed that these were actually self-inflicted.
- Half Sebacean Hybrid
- Mark of Shame: After finding out that Jothee was having an affair with Chiana, D'Argo branded him with one of the union tattoes he'd intended for himself and Chiana- and destroyed the other tattoo so that Chiana couldn't mark herself with it's twin.
- The Other Darrin: Only recurring character to be recast during the series' run.
Grunchlk
This is business: I have the supply, I make the demand.
Played by Hugh Keays-Byrne
- Beard of Evil: Grows one of these in The Peacekeeper Wars.
- Chronic Backstabbing Disorder: Backstabs Crichton by alerting Scorpius, backstabs Scorpius by defrosting a Scarran spy, who he'd backstabbed a lot earlier to hand over to Scorpius if everything went well...
- Fat Bastard
- Fingore: Ends up being forced to eat one of his own fingers by Scorpius.
- Honest John's Dealership: Though the Diagnosan doctors he represents are as skilled as advertised, Grunchlk will always ensure that their services are ridiculously overpriced. Plus, the "donors" frozen in the cryogenics facility are patients that didn't survive their treatments... or looked like they were going to die before they were operated on... or related to the deceased...
- Large Ham
- Not Quite Dead: When Stark reveals that Grunchlk's frozen donors are preserved just before they die, trapping their souls inside their bodies, Grunchlk reassures him that they're "effectively dead."
- Ironic Echo: Stime after the Scarran agent locks him into one of the cryopods, Stark finds him... and leaves him there, reporting him as "dead, effectively."
- Stout Strength: Forces Stark into paying extra by casually performing a Neck Lift on him.
- Smug Snake
- Villainous Glutton: Always seems to be eating something while on-screen—to the point that Braca was able to find him by noticing that he'd dropped his sandwich right in front of his hiding-spot.
Pathfinder Neeyala
"Will" is a poor substitute for beersian alloy when crushed by astronomical tidal forces!
Played by Victoria Longley
- Affably Evil
- Apologetic Attacker: "I have never before released my bristles to kill. Your forgiveness."
- Benevolent Boss: As indicated by her Pet the Dog moment.
- Chekhov's Gunman: At the end of her second and final episode, she implants Moya with a beacon that will alert the Pathfinder elite to their presence; though Crichton worries, nothing more is thought of it... until Moya is unexpectedly yanked down a wormhole at the end of the third season. "Unrealised Realities" reveals that Einstein, inspecting the state of wormhole knowledge in the region, detected the Pathfinder beacon and brought Moya in for examination.
- Deadpan Snarker
- Fish Person
- We Have Your Family And The Families Of Your Crew: One of the reasons why Neeyala is so fanatically devoted to saving her ship is because the Pathfinder government would have her family and the families of her crew executed if they returned without it and the data they'd acquired.
- Lovecraftian Superpower: Like all Pathfinders, she has the ability to shoot poisonous bristles from her gills.
- The Spock
- Spock Speak: Even when clearly under great stress, she's still adept at flinging technobable about.
- Sssssnaketalk: Even though she's technically piscine.
Xhalax Sun
I've heard loved ones leave you in pieces. That little by little, you start to forget things about them. But that's not true: you lose them -- everything -- instantly. And suddenly, nothing can replace them. Nothing. And now you have nothing. How does it feel?
Played by Linda Cropper
- Arch Enemy: To Aeryn
- Axe Crazy
- Badass Longcoat: In "The Choice."
- Crazy Prepared: Left a knife and a supply of stimulant concealed inside her wrist in case she was ever captured.
- Disney Villain Death
- Femme Fatalons: Used for cutting her wrist open to retrieve the knife.
- Good Scars, Evil Scars: The left side of her head has been badly scarred, and she's missing her left ear.
- Heartbroken Badass
- Luke, I Am Your Father: Xhalax decided to reveal the fact that she was Aeryn's mother many years before the series began; she also informed Aeryn that she was concieved not to provide the Peacekeepers with another expendable soldier, but out of love.
- Mysterious Mercenary Pursuer: Xhalax was this up until Crais revealed who was leading the Retrieval Squad.
- Sadistic Choice: Peacekeeper Command discovered her Luke, I Am Your Father moment and were outraged. They ordered her to kill either Aeryn or Aeryn's father Talyn Lyczac as a way of redeeming herself. Xhalax chose Talyn.
- Two-Faced
- Villainous Breakdown: After watching the hologram recording of her first meeting with Aeryn, Xhalax throws a temper tantrum which continues until the end of the episode.
Einstein
Your knowledge is quite extraordinary for one of your realm. And your many travels inside wormholes… troubling. But now that I've glimpsed your mind, I'm aware this has made you a target of more aggressive species: a liability which must be dealt with...
Played by John Bach
- A Form You Are Comfortable With: We don't even get the slightest glimpse of what he really looks like.
- All Powerful Bystander
- Bald of Awesome
- Black Eyes of Evil: Okay, maybe not exactly evil...
- Creepy Monotone
- Only Known by Their Nickname
- Power Floats: During a conversation with Crichton, (who's sitting on top of an iceberg) Einstein very subtly levitates until he's at eye-level with him.
- Reality Warper
- Sharp-Dressed Man: In the words of Crichton, "nice threads."
- Spock Speak
- Sufficiently Advanced Alien
- Time Master
- The Mentor
- The Watcher
War Minister Ahkna
Grayza doesn't frighten me. Her command carrier doesn't frighten me. Your bomb doesn't frighten me -- and neither do you.
Played by Francesca Buller
- Cute Monster Girl
- Famous Last Words: At least you die," referring to John, but she gets killed by Aaeryn seconds before Ahkna pulls the trigger.
- Improbable Species Compatibility: Borderline case—Ahkna was apparently courting Pennoch, a member of a lower Scarran caste.
- Killed Off for Real: By Aeryn.
- Nice Hat
- The Starscream: To Staleek. Strangely, Staleek himself let her sit on his throne, giving her an ultimatum - carry out one final order from him, and get a promotion that would subsequently lead to her becoming "Empress".
- Torture Technician
Emperor Staleek
War is our path. At the peace table, we know how we're viewed: brutish, ignorant.
Played by Duncan Young
- Exclusively Evil: Zigzagged. He acknowledges that the Scarrans are incredibly violent and ruthless, but he takes issue that other species flanderize his species as "brutish, ignorant".
- Big Bad: Takes over in season four and The Movie.
- Brainwashed and Crazy: Inverted. He gets influenced by an Eidolon in an attempt to end the war with the Peacekeepers, and it's largely successful... until Ahkna kills the Eidolon and dispels the control he had on Staleek.
- Costume Porn
- Evil Overlord: He's the Emperor of the Scarrans.
- Noble Demon
- Villainous Breakdown: Looks rather.... apprehensive at agreeing to a peace treaty with the Peacekeepers. Guess that's what happens when you're almost literally two minutes away from getting swallowed up by a wormhole weapon.
- Well-Intentioned Extremist
Civilisations and Organisations
The Ancients
Crichton: What will you do now?
"Jack": What we've done since before I was hatched. We continue searching for a home...
- Dying Race
- Innocent Aliens: Certainly not naive, though—the test they put Crichton through in their first episode was used to determine whether the human race would accept them if they ever chose Earth as a haven.
- Insectoid Aliens
- Mysterious Watcher: Apparently, the Ancients were originally created to act as this for an entire universe, having been sent into our dimension to monitor and catalogue the state of wormhole technology in it. Of course, by the time of their first episode, they've forgotten this role.
- The Promised Land: With their species in decline and their original mission lost, the Ancients are now seeking out a world where they can flourish—preferably in coexistence with the local sentients.
- Sufficiently Advanced Aliens: Quite apart from their ability to craft physical environments based on Crichton's memory, they'd also mastered the art of wormhole travel and weaponry.
- Telepathy
The True Ancients/"Einstein's People"
- The Ghost: We only ever meet one of them—and he isn't willing to show his true face.
- Reality Warper
- Sufficiently Advanced Aliens
- Time Master
The Delvians
- Bald of Awesome: Delvian males (and the odd female) tend to be completely bald.
- Corrupt Church: Around the time Zhaan left her home planet, the normally benevolent Delvian Seek was under the control of a few very conservative Pa'us and their Peacekeeper allies.
- The Dark Side: Delvians are prone to falling to this as they ascend the ranks of the priesthood, especially if they commit murder.
- Enlightenment Superpowers: Most of the powers held by Pa'us are gained through their tentative steps toward enlightenment. Some of them are based on obvious psychic power, while others are far more magical in nature.
- Lovecraftian Superpower: Starved Delvians sprout poisonous buds from their skin, and exhale clouds of choking spores.
- Plant Aliens
- Proud Scholar Race Guy
- Rubber Forehead Aliens
- Space Elves
- Enslaved Elves: The concequences of Pa'u Bitaal's coup.
The Eidolons
As youths, we open our faces to the universe, absorbing the joy and anguish all creatures feel. Then, upon maturation, we step to the altar to receive Hora Dalay: the ability to encourage rationality and tranquility in others. The capacity to influence others toward peace carries great responsibility. Do you accept this burden for the rest of your days?—Hierarch Yondalao
- Charm Person
- The Empath: A subtle example, but also a very effective one.
- Hidden Elf Village: Both the cloaked refugee settlement on Quajaga and the sealed temple on Arnessk function as this.
- More Than Mind Control: The Eidolons' diplomatic techniques; since they can't actually control minds, they use their powers to lull their opponents into a receptive state, and then use their empathic abilities to present a compelling argument.
- Perfect Pacifist People: Averted; while generally opposed to violence, they aren't above using it in emergencies; the Quajagan Eidolons, having lost the art of activating their powers, employed heavily-armed soldiers. And at the height of their power, the Eidolons actually created the Peacekeepers as a security force for the systems under their control.
- Power Glows: When they use their powers, a faint glow emanates from the patterns on their faces.
- Precursors
- Proud Scholar Race
- Rubber Forehead Aliens: Used and subverted; on the surface, they look like humans with raised patterns on their faces. However, these patterns are actually edges; when transferring the knowledge of how to use their powers, their faces literally open!
- Sealed Good in a Can: A temple-city of them were sealed outside of time on Arnessk up until Crichton and Co managed to unlock them.
The Hynerians
- Big Eater: Apparently due to the three stomachs.
- Bizarre Alien Biology
- Deadly Decadent Court
- Fish People: Well, amphibious.
- God Guise: At one point, one of Rygel's ancestors went out of his way to ensure that Hynerians visiting a certain planet would be welcomed as gods; he did this by stranding an entire settlement of Sebaceans loyal to the Hynerian throne on a remote planet, disabling their technology, and setting up a corrupt priesthood to have the people worshipping the Hynerian empire for all eternity.
- Little Green Men
- Muppets
- Our Goblins Are Wickeder
- Zerg Rush: In desperate times, the Hynerian military have favoured these kinds of tactics.
The Luxans
As a race, Luxans can be inartful at love... inadequate at war... and intrinsically inept.—Natira
- Badass Preacher: The Luxans have an entire class of priests called Oricans, most of whom are revered among the general populace for their abilities. Given that just one of them almost aged Moya to death without even getting within firing range, the reverence is pretty damn justified.
- Beard of Barbarism: Made of hair and tentacles.
- Multipurpose Tongue
- Proud Warrior Race Guy: They aren't above diplomacy, though.
- Religion Is Magic: In contrast to Delvian Enlightenment Superpowers, the Luxan Oricans actually perform magic in their duties. Apparently, this is one of the reasons why D'Argo treads carefully around supernatural beings like Maldis or the Delvian Pa'us, given the amount of power just one Orican can wield.
- Rubber Forehead Aliens: A pretty impressive prosthetic, but still qualifies as Rubber Forehead.
The Nebari
All is forgiven if it is in the service of the greater good.—Varla, spouting a favourite Nebari creed
- Blue Blood
- Black Eyes
- Getting Smilies Painted on Your Soul: The Mental Cleansing Process.
- Grey Skinned Human Aliens
- Higher-Tech Species: Technically advanced and very heavily armed—just one of their cargo freighters was enough to destroy one of the biggest and deadliest ships in the Peacekeeper armada.
- Not a freighter: Salas said that the Zelbinion had been destroyed by "One of our standard host vessels," right after saying that the Nebari have no warships. In this case, it's probably a creative euphemism for a warship.
- La Résistance: As "Clockwork Nebari" demonstrated, there's a resistance movement working against the Establishment.
- Mind Rape: The mental cleansing process. It's said that there are two ways of doing this, the first is supposed to be permanent but takes years to do. The second in a drug, but is temporary and only works on non-Nebari. The entire crew is subjected to the latter, and Chiana was going to be subjected to the former when she was introduced. She was hysterical about it, insisting she'd rather die.
- The Plague: One of their plans for taking over the galaxy consists of infecting their rebels with a very potent STD and sending them in the direction of their future enemies; when it comes time for the great Nebari invasion, the virus will be activated—leaving the many billions of infectees defenceless.
- Totalitarian Utilitarian
- White-Haired Pretty Girl: Nebari females have white hair- as opposed to the black-haired males.
The Scarrans
- Agony Beam: All Scarrans have one naturally built in.
- Exclusively Evil: Subverted—while very aggressive and almost psychotic at times, they can be reasoned with.
- Balls of Steel: As Chiana found out the hard way, their mivonks are internal.
- The Empire
- Hive Caste System
- Made of Iron
- Mars Needs Women: They toyed with the idea of using Sebaceans as breeding stock. Following Scorpius' rebellion, they decided it wasn't worth the trouble.
- The Reptilians
- Scary Dogmatic Aliens
- Telepathy: Most high-class Scarrans have a certain degree of telepathic power.
The Sebaceans
- Bizarre Human Biology: Stronger, faster and more durable than humans, with one hell of a Weaksauce Weakness.
- Human Aliens: Almost indistinguishable from humans as far as surface appearances go.
- Transplanted Humans: they are eventually revealed to be descended from proto-humans abducted and transferred across the galaxy by the Eidolons
- Weaksauce Weakness: Sebaceans have a very poor tolerance for heat, and suffer brain damage and death at temperatures that would be simply uncomfortable for most species.
The Peacekeepers
- Commie Nazis: Their aesthetics are a deliberate fusion of the Third Reich and the Soviet Union's short-lived modernist period. (The Peacekeeper emblem is based on the famous abstract Bolshevik propaganda poster "Beat the Whites with the Red Wedge".)
- Conservation of Ninjutsu: The smaller the group of Peacekeepers, the deadlier they seem to be -- to the point that individuals seem almost unstoppable.
- The Empire
- Faceless Goons: Peacekeeper troopers.
- Fantastic Racism: Quite apart from their distrust of non-Sebaceans -- sometimes to the extent of discharging soldiers for "Irreversible Contamination" -- hybrids are treated with utter contempt. However, the Peacekeepers are practical enough to recognize the value of keeping individuals like Scorpius around.
- Humans Are the Real Monsters
- Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy: Not entirely the case with all Peacekeepers—see Conservation of Ninjutsu.
- A Nazi by Any Other Name
- Private Military Contractors: An entire empire of them, with a nasty habit of conquering their clients.
- Putting on the Reich
- The Spartan Way: Peacekeepers are either born into the organisation or forcibly recruited as children, then brought up brutally and lovelessly to see duty and discipline as the only things that matter; friendships (sometimes with "benefits") are permitted among the soldiery, but any relationship approaching love is terminally discouraged—as Xhalax Sun discovered.
The Sebacean Colonies
- Defector To Decadence: Broke away from the Peacekeepers almost two thousand cycles ago, and have never looked back. As Rygel noticed, they seem to enjoy their freedom a bit too much.
- Matriarchy: Of the Original variant. While it's clear that the Regent has power, the Empress is clearly the one in charge.
- Standard Royal Court: Not quite to the extent of Deadly Decadent Court, but the influence of Prince Clavor and the Scarran ambassador certainly brought it close.
- Taken for Granite: Immediately after marriage, the future Empress and her Regent are petrified for the next eighty cycles, allowing the current Royal Couple to finish off their reign peacefully while their still-conscious successors absorb all the royal court procedures going on about them. Thanks to the calming influence of psychic communication, this would seem to work quite well.
- The Empress: Empress Novia—manipulative and stubborn, but strictly neutral.
- ↑ only not really