The Worlds of Farscape (10 page)

Farscape
can be analyzed as John Crichton's readjustment of his moral compass. In the premiere episode of
Farscap
e (1.1) before Crichton is to test his slingshot effect theory, he is shown interacting with his father with the pride and competition that inevitably arises between father and son. Crichton feels he lives in the shadow of his father, who is an accomplished astronaut himself. Crichton is sketched, as Koehn might say, as an individual whose personality is not edified. Crichton is pursuing his scientific theory, an event that will establish his identity as an astronaut and physicist that will equal his father. His spaceship, the Farscape module, begins the test to bounce off of the Earth's atmosphere when he is sucked into a wormhole and deposited into another galaxy. In his eyes he has failed, and his identity becomes even less concrete and more fluid as he encounters the aliens on Moya, the living ship. As Crichton attempts to discover who he is in this new galaxy, he must adjust his morals; he must determine what is good and what is evil in an alien universe that does not understand the morality that he often displays. Crichton works through this uncertainty of identity and explores who he really is; however, he never really discovers this until the final moments of
The Peacekeeper Wars
when he detonates the wormhole device.

Throughout the series, Crichton's identity is continually fractured, making it difficult to find the real person. Crichton is torn between his earthly existence and the universe in the Uncharted Territories, where he is constantly challenged to examine himself. He is torn and seduced by the possibility of returning to earth. In “A Human Reaction” (1.16) Crichton believes he has returned to earth, but it is a clever ruse. While on “earth” Crichton remembers the xenophobia and petty politics of our world, and he begins to realize that he is torn between his former life and his new one. He cannot have his love, Aeryn, and his friends, such as D'Argo and Chiana, and his family on earth, too. His fractured personality is not a figurative statement. The pull toward earth is strong in Crichton; after all, it is his home. He returns to Earth twice in the series: once in the past, and once to warn Earth of what is out in space. On his last visit, he realizes he is a danger to the planet and chooses to abandon his home world forever. The conflict in Crichton, between being the hero he wants to be in space and his urge to go home, fractures his psyche. How can he be two different people at the same time?

In the series, this fracturing is literalized, and the viewers can see the potential for good and evil in Crichton. For instance, in “My Three Crichtons” (2.13), an energy orb lands in Moya, enveloping Crichton. The orb literally fractures Crichton into three personas, two of which are different evolutionary versions of Crichton: a caveman, hairy and bestial, and an evolved form, with an enlarged, bald cranium, looking somewhat like a giant, skeletal brain. The caveman represents emotion and the ability for compassion whereas the evolved form is pure intellect, cold and uncaring. These versions of Crichton challenge preconceptions of good and evil that the viewers and the crew must confront.

This episode does a great job of showing the possibilities inherent in Crichton's character. He is capable of both emotion and coldness. At first, the caveman version is hunted as a “creature,” while the evolved form is generally accepted into the crew. However, the perception of the inferior caveman is soon dispelled. Even though the caveman Crichton is unpredictable and sometimes violent with emotion, this version of John is connected to the crew of Moya through his passions. Chiana, for example, forms a bond with the caveman persona, and she points out to Crichton, “You think this guy's nothing. He's you. He's warm. He's sensitive. He's everything I ever liked about you.” The evolved form is almost pure intellect removed from the connections to the crew and even emasculated as Aeryn notes when she comments, “For a start John has more hair—amongst other things. You going to blame that on being cold?” The evolved form does not care about emotion. He is purely quantitative. When the evolved Crichton tells Zhaan how much more capable he is than the other versions of Crichton, she responds, “I wonder if you can also see what you have lost? Your logic is firm, but it is cold.” The real John Crichton comes to appreciate his emotional side when confronting his evolved self. Both John and caveman Crichton are willing to sacrifice themselves for others, yet the evolved form is the coldly rational side of John the scientist who is beyond friendship—completely devoted to selfish pursuits of his own. The evolved form, however, has the intellectual capability to save Moya. When the orb sends a message to the crew that it will suck Moya into an alternate dimension unless it acquires a sample Crichton, several crew members want to send the caveman version to his death. John, however, seeks to find a way to save himself, or at least a version of himself, whereas the evolved Crichton easily condemns the caveman to death. Crichton tries to delineate himself from the others when he quips, “I'm widening my perspective. That's what makes me, me.” This fractured identity of Crichton shows the viewer aspects of the character and furthers the theme of a character who does not completely know himself. In the end, the caveman shows the human ability to sacrifice, to do good, and he saves the crew when he knocks the evolved Crichton unconscious and carries him into the sphere. John Crichton believed that his evolved form would evolve his moral sense as well, but he was mistaken. The caveman Crichton showed a better sense of good and evil than his evolved counterpart. Near the end of the episode, John confides his lack of self-knowledge to D'Argo.

D'ARGO: You did what you thought was right.

CRICHTON: I did what I knew was wrong. The future Crichton—kind of makes you wonder if that's where we're headed.

D'ARGO: It's only one possible genetic path.

CRICHTON: Yeah, but it's possible. That's the problem.

The fracturing of Crichton is revealed in several more ways which challenge the conceptions of good and evil in the series. The crazed Kaarvok “twins” Crichton in the episode “Eat Me” (3.6), furthering the fracturing motif of Crichton. The Twinning is described as creating a duplicate—an identical being indistinguishable from the original. In fact, Crichton wears different colored t-shirts to distinguish the twins for the audience, leaving an arbitrary feeling that we can only recognize the Crichtons by the clothes they wear. The lack of stable identity haunts Crichton as one twin leaves on Talyn with Aeryn in Season Three. The Crichton on Talyn consummates his love for Aeryn and fathers a child with her, while the Crichton on Moya rages jealously against the “him” on Talyn. The writers of
Farscape
did a fine job of literalizing the psychic turmoil in Crichton.

Aeryn Sun, skillfully played by Claudia Black, is a Peacekeeper. The Sebaceans that populate the Peacekeeper forces can be viewed as a soulless, tyrannical, hierarchical, and genetically pure race. It would be easy for viewers to see the Peacekeepers as a
Farscape
version of the Nazis; their black uniforms and rigidly militaristic social structure lends itself to this interpretation. In the first scene where we meet Aeryn Sun (“Premiere” 1.1), she is dressed in battle armor that disguises her gender and adds to the menace of the scene. Crichton is clearly intimidated by her armor until she removes her helmet, and he is confronted by the beautiful Aeryn. He quickly realizes that she is dangerous as she throws him to the floor. Since humans and Sebaceans look almost identical, Officer Sun mistakes Crichton for a renegade or captured Peacekeeper soldier.

In trying to escape Moya, Aeryn and Crichton seek out a Peacekeeper regiment. But Aeryn's involvement with Crichton and the criminals aboard Moya leave her branded as “irreversibly contaminated” by her commanding officer, Commander Crais (“Premiere” 1.1). This proclamation will fundamentally change how Aeryn views herself over the course of the series. Throughout the series, Aeryn often tells the crew, “I am a Peacekeeper,” yet this is not exactly correct. She
was
a Peacekeeper. Aeryn's inability to really know herself leads her to self-reflect on her judgments of good and evil.

At the beginning of the series, Aeryn is portrayed as a closed-emotion soldier. To the viewers and the crew of Moya, she is just a Peacekeeper soldier, born and bred to the cause. However, once Crais has effectively exiled her from the Peacekeepers, she loses the core of her values. Aeryn's past is explored in future episodes that slowly show Aeryn as a vastly more complicated character, one who embraced Peacekeeper values so strongly because she did not fully believe in them. This frustrated ego is a determining factor, according to Koehn, of our ability to discern good and evil. Aeryn says as much when she encounters her mother, Xhalax, in the episode “Relativity” (3.10).

My corruption began the moment I was conceived. Don't you see my independence comes from you anyway? I grew up wanting to be just like a woman I'd only seen once. I am a part of you that wanted to be a rebel... I am your child.

Aeryn's past is slowly revealed in a mosaic of episodes over the course of the series.
²
The composite is nothing like the view we have in the premiere episode. Peacekeepers are selectively bred and anonymously parented. They are taught to bond with their units and breed when they are selected and with whom. Aeryn fails at the “Peacekeeper way.” Confronted with her mother's admonition that she would hunt Aeryn down and kill her, Aeryn is unable to reciprocate the need to kill her mother. As a Peacekeeper, Aeryn should not have hesitated to kill Xhalax. From a Peacekeeper perspective, Aeryn is contaminated, evil. Accused of contamination by contact with Crichton, Aeryn is unrepentant of her growing love for him. She is cast further adrift in knowing who she is when she tells Crichton, “All my ties to them [the Peacekeepers] are completely severed” (“Relativity”).

Aeryn shows the potential for good in the series as she further distances herself from the Peacekeepers. As the series progresses, we find out that Aeryn was once in love with a fellow Peacekeeper, just like her mother. And yet, just like her mother, Aeryn has the ability to do great harm. In “The Way We Weren't” (2.5), Aeryn helps kill a defenseless pilot aboard Moya three cycles before events in the series begin. Aeryn tells Chiana, “Yes, I was a Peacekeeper, and things were different then.” Aeryn reveals that she was torn between beliefs for a long time before she arrived on Moya. She tells Crichton about a Peacekeeper with whom she was in love named Velorek. Much like Crichton, he saw the beauty and potential in Aeryn. He even echoed Crichton's assessment of Aeryn when he told her, “you could be so much more [than a Peacekeeper commando].” Aeryn is shown to be a lot like Xhalax in this episode. She falls in love, yet she betrays Velorek to Crais for promotion to prowler pilot. Aeryn finds it difficult to be both loving woman and Peacekeeper; she has been bred and brainwashed to believe the Peacekeeper ways. This episode helps explain why she is simultaneously loving and distant to Crichton.

By the time of
The Peacekeeper Wars
, Aeryn is pregnant and embracing motherhood in a way she could not anticipate. Aeryn has protected her unborn child from the Scarrans (“Prayer” 4.18 and “We're So Screwed Part I: Fetal Attraction” 4.19), and she has come to terms with the lack of mothering she received with the Peacekeepers. In fact, Aeryn instructs the DRDs on Moya to construct the wormhole device to John's specifications, so her child can grow up in peace. She is willing to destroy thousands of Peacekeepers and Scarrans for the sake of her child.

Aeryn's search for self shows her capacity for doing both good and evil. Her upbringing as a Peacekeeper, her relationship with her mother, her love affairs with Velorek and both Crichtons, her irreversible contamination, and her belief in motherhood, pull her in conflicting directions and cause her to be both terrible and beneficent. At the end of
The Peacekeeper Wars
, Aeryn is no longer conflicted. She has put her past behind her; she has helped secure peace in the galaxy, and she is a loving wife and mother. Her moral conundrums are quieted, and she has gained redemption through her son, D'Argo Sun Crichton—a child she can love openly.

When we see Scorpius, we see an amalgamation of stereotypes of the “bad guy.” He wears a menacing black suit; he is emaciated to the point of being skeletal; his voice is low and raspy. He is built as a menacing figure by our conventions of people who are evil. But there is another interpretation of Scorpius' character. Scorpius is a Sebacean-Scarran hybrid. He has the unique perspective of knowing what the Scarrans are capable of. Scorpius must wear his black suit because of his unique physiology; it is a crutch to a man who suffers. Scarrans prefer heat whereas Sebaceans are bred to endure the cold of space, and heat slowly kills them. His biology is literally an enemy to him. His shriveled look is merely the byproduct of his parentage.

Scorpius is the antagonist in the series to be sure, but he acts to do good. Scorpius is a Peacekeeper, and his first goal is to protect the Alliance planets from threats. Scorpius has intimate knowledge of Scarran psychology, and he knows the threat posed by them. He pursues Crichton for the wormhole technology, not to be evil, but to save the Peacekeepers. Scorpius confides in Crichton that the Peacekeepers will lose a direct conflict with the Scarrans, so he has to obtain the wormhole weapon to save the Peacekeepers.

In the episode “Incubator” (3.11), Scorpius inserts Crichton's neural chip into his own brain in an attempt to solve the wormhole equations that are eluding him. Rather than attacking and torturing Crichton's neural clone, as Scorpius did to the real Crichton in “Nerve” (1.19) and “The Hidden Memory” (1.20), Scorpius reasons with neural Crichton by showing him why he is seeking the wormhole device. This is perhaps the finest episode at showing how Scorpius' misplaced quest for self causes him to do evil.