Farscape/Recap/S05/E01 The Peacekeeper Wars: Part 1
The Peacekeeper Wars, part 1
Deep in the Uncharted Territories, a Peacekeeper armada under the command of Scorpius launches a pre-emptive strike against a Scarran fleet. As a result, the Peacekeepers and Scarrans officially declare war on one another. Meanwhile on Qujaga (the water planet from "Bad Timing"), Rygel is collecting the crystallised remains of Crichton and Aeryn from the ocean floor by swallowing the crystals and "depositing" them on a waiting boat. Once they have all the crystals, the planet's inhabitants reconstruct them into their original form. During this process, Chiana arrives in a transport pod, along with a Diagnosian and Grunschlk: Chiana has had her eyes replaced and the new ones have limited X-ray vision. She also brings word that the Peacekeeper/Scarran war has begun, and the Peacekeepers are getting curb-stomped.
The inhabitants of Qujaga reverse the crystallisation process and bring Crichton and Aeryn back to life, where they're filled in on the details of their sixty days by D'Argo, Chiana, Rygel, Stark and Noranti. They immediately check with the Diagnosian to see how the baby is, but the Diagnosian can't find it. It transpires that after picking up all the crystals off the ocean floor in his stomach, Rygel still has one in his stomach, and as a result, he's pregnant with Crichton and Aeryn's baby. The people of Qujaga are willing to allow Moya and her crew to stay for a little while longer and Crichton and Aeryn decide to get married, but during the ceremony, a Peacekeeper command carrier arrives in orbit and a Marauder lands on the island where the people of Qujaga live. Onboard the Marauder is Scorpius and Sikozu, who have gone AWOL from the Peacekeepers along with their command carrier, and they found Qujaga after Scorpius was somehow able to "sense" Crichton's revival. Scorpius has come to try and convince Crichton to give the Peacekeepers wormhole weapons, but Crichton claims he doesn't know how to build them.
Exploring the island, Noranti finds a grand temple and realises that the inhabitants of Qujaga are Eidolons, the legendary race of peacemakers that were long thought to be extinct. The Eidolons on Qujaga have lost the physiological ability that allows them to influence peace, but Moya's crew know that a small group of Eidolons live on Arnessk, the ones released from time stasis: if the large force of Eidolons on Qujaga could learn the peacemaking ability from their ancestors on Arnessk, they'd have the power to influence peace on a galactic scale and potentially end the current war. As much as Crichton and Aeryn want to stay out of galactic affairs, they're determined that their child should be raised in peace, and to that end, they decide to undertake the mission. Noranti elects to stay on Qujaga, but the rest of the crew, along with an Eidolon volunteer named Pikal, his bodyguard Caa'ta and Scorpius and Sikozu (who, D'Argo points out, will likely have the knowledge and clearance codes to get them through Peacekeeper territory), head up to Moya and Starburst towards Arnessk. During the trip, Moya is attacked by Tregan mercenaries, assigned to guard the borders by the Peacekeepers. Scorpius tries to order the Tregans to stand down, but they realise that he's gone AWOL and try to take over the ship. The crew manage to fight the Tregans off and escape, but Caa'ta dies defending Pikal.
When Moya arrives at Arnessk, the crew land and meet with Jool, the Eidolons and their leader, Yondalao. They convince Yondalao to return with them to Qujaga and teach the Eidolons there while Pikal stays on Arnessk to learn from his brethren. Yondalao also makes a throwaway comment to Aeryn that as a Peacekeeper, she should do her duty: it's revealed that when the Eidolons were a great race thousands of years ago, they took humans from Earth and genetically altered them into Sebaceans so that there'd be a military -- the Peacekeepers -- able to enforce the peace they'd created. However, as Moya is preparing to leave Arnessk with the crew and Yondalao aboard, a Scarran ship shows up: the Decimator, Emperor Staleek's personal flagship, having been alerted to Crichton's location by a spy. The Decimator fires on the Eidolon temple, destroying it and killing Jool, Pikal and the rest of the Eidolons, before ordering Moya's crew to surrender. Crichton, Aeryn, Rygel, Scorpius, Sikozu, Stark and Yondalao head to the Decimator in a transport pod, while D'Argo and Chiana leave in Lo'La with the cloaking activated, making them undetectable.
While D'Argo scans the Decimator for its weaknesses, Crichton tries to convince Staleek that he can't give the Scarrans wormhole weapons. In a last-ditch effort, he offers to fly Staleek down a wormhole and they visit "Einstein", who confirms that Crichton doesn't have the knowledge of wormhole weapons and that nobody should have such knowledge. However, once Staleek is returned to the Decimator, he still keeps the crew prisoner, knowing that they could possess knowledge of Peacekeeper plans. War Minister Ahkna demonstrates the Decimator's advanced technology by detecting Lo'La, targeting her and destroying her. D'Argo and Chiana manage to get out of the ship in time and fall unconscious in the vacuum of space. At the last minute, they're rescued by another Luxan warship, even more advanced than Lo'La, crewed by a team of Luxan commandos and captained by Jothee. Meanwhile on the Decimator, the Scarrans study Rygel's pregnancy before returning him to the crew's cell. When Staleek enters, Yondalao demonstrated his power by creating a field of calming energy that allows him and Staleek to speak rationally. On his own and with little knowledge of Scarrans, Yondalao almost manages to broker a peace accord -- until Ahkna shoots Yondalao, believing that victory over the Peacekeepers is assured anyway. In order to safeguard Yondalao's knowledge, the crew force Stark to cross him over and assimilate his peacemaking knowledge, just as Rygel starts displaying symptoms that indicate it's time to transfer the baby back to Aeryn. It's at this point that the Scarrans, having decided to execute everyone, start pumping poison gas into the room...