Farscape/Tropes H to N

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  • Half-Human Hybrid: Both with humans and aliens ( John and Aeryn's child, also John and Katralla's) and with aliens and other aliens: Jothee, Sebacean/Luxan; Scorpius, Sebacean/Scarran; among others. Although technically Sebaceans started out as humans A Long Time Ago in a Galaxy Far Far Away. Averted with Luxans/Nebari who aren't compatible, much to the dislike of D'Argo.
  • Half the Man He Used To Be: Br'Nee gets caught in the path of his own laser and sliced in half.
  • Hand Signals: In "Through the Looking Glass," Crichton and Aeryn are subjected to a loud, piercing noise that makes it impossible for them to hear one another. First they attempt yelling loud enough to carry a conversation, and when that fails, both resort to amusing pantomime for the next several minutes. In particular, Aeryn indicates the sword-wielding D'Argo by chopping with an imaginary sword, and Crichton somehow manages to refer to the diminutive, froglike, hoverchair-riding Rygel by miming a small object floating up and down with his hands.
  • Hand Wave: Played straight (or Lampshaded, YMMV on that) in "I Shrink Therefore I Am". Sikozu points out that shrinking a man-sized creature to finger-size would cause all sorts of spectacular anatomical failures, and defies the laws of physics to boot. Rigel berates her for relying on education over experience, claiming that he's seen weirder things and now just accepts that he knows nothing and that surprises are everywhere. Naturally, Sikozu never brings up the issue again.
  • Happy Place: Crichton goes here whenever he needs to hold conference with Harvey. The scenery varies wildly, from a Tarantino-esque gangster movie, to a Nosferatu crypt; whatever best fits John's situation.
  • Harpoon Gun: While stuck on the planet Acquara, Crichton catches a "shakloom" (re: giant crab) by attaching his fishing pole to a harpoon gun. You might be a redneck if...
  • Has Two Mommies: Inverted with Rygel, who ends carrying Aeryn's baby for a while. ..This is the part where we elaborate how it happened, but it honestly defies explanation.
  • Hate Plague: T'raltixx is a benign-seeming engineer who boards Moya under the pretext of making her untraceable to scanners ("Crackers Don't Matter"). He sets about adjusting the bioluminence throughout the ship, which has the effect of increasing the crew's paranoia.
    • The exact nature of the Whae'lan virus in the comics.
  • Have You Told Anyone Else?: In the Farscape episode "That Old Black Magic," Crais receives a direct order from Peacekeeper High Command to end his pursuit of John Crichton and return to base. His second-in-command Teeg destroys the message and assures him that no-one else knows about it. Crais repays her loyalty by snapping her neck.
  • Headbutt of Love: Often shared by John and Aeryn, not just when either of them was in distress but when they're showing affection in general. Brutally subverted when Scorpius-possessed John does this — then slams Aeryn's head into the wall, fracturing her skull.
    • Crichton also shares one with "Pip" (aka Chiana) in "Family Ties". Chiana doesn't know how to express her gratitude without offering her body to him. Crichton lets her down easy, and manages to reject her advances without rejecting her as a person.
  • Healing Factor: Sikozu, who is able to re-attach her limbs/other extremities when dismembered. Also Pilot, whose species has an incredible healing factor.
  • Heel Face Turn: First Crais, then Scorpius, kind of.
  • Heh Heh, You Said "X": In "Though the Looking Glass", the light coming from the 'Yellow' Moya causes the crew to become elated and giddy. While explaining to Chiana the sequence for engaging full reverse, Crichton's instruction to activate "the green knob" is enough to make her burst into hysterics. ("...green...knob?")
    • "Ignore the green slob!"
  • Hell-Bent for Leather: There is a reason Warren Ellis described Farscape as "one American's descent into Australia's S&M scene".
  • Heroic BSOD: At the end of the Peacekeeper Wars when John collapses after the Wormhole Weapon incident.
  • Heroic Willpower: A variation occurs with Zhaan after Tahleen, the resident Deceptive Disciple, telepathically tears from her mind her ability to perform violence without going insane (as Delvians are wont to do). She manages to Snap Back after sharing Unity with Crichton, who shows her that the kindness she was capable of was inherent and couldn't just be ripped out. As a result, Zhaan's mental abilities become even more powerful, and she and Crichton go on to dissolve Tahleen's corrupt temple.
    • "Harvey" has a very subtle Oh Crap moment in "Liars, Guns and Money Part II" when he realises that Crichton can bring him out at will.

Harvey: You never fail to amaze me, John. You weren't supposed to be able to initiate a conversation with this neural clone.

  • Help Your Self in the Future: Occurs in the "The Locket", when an elderly version of Aeryn warns the crew not to get stranded in "the Mist". A disbelieving John follows her back down to the planet, only to get trapped there himself. He survives for decades as a gardener, simultaneously estimating the exact window that Moya will be accessible again (50 years to Crichton; a single day for Moya's crew). This time, it is an elderly Crichton who boards Moya to advise them on how them escape the Mist.
  • Heroic Sacrifice: Crais and Talyn, Zhaan (who got extra mileage by sacrificing herself when she was already slowing dying from resurrecting Aeryn), one of the copies of John, D'Argo in The Peacekeeper Wars and Sikozu in the comics. Yeah, Farscape likes this one.
  • Hero of Another Story: Braca. His actor played him this way, the producers noticed, and they kept him on. He started in relative obscurity as just another one of Crais' soldiers, and soon began to rise under Scorpius. He became a major recurring character.
    • Also, Jotheb, the animatronic ruler of the Consortium of Trao.
    • The crew of the Leviathan named Cilla in the comics. A crew of Peacekeeper deserters (with full complement of soldiers and Prowlers!), a very unorthodox doctor and an uncharacteristically rude and sarcastic Pilot - it's like they tried to adapt Star Trek elements to running a Leviathan!
  • Hidden Purpose Test: Scorpius undergoes one in the comics when the Kkore send him to conquer the Scarrans at the head of a small fleet. The fleet is fake - unarmed and crewless, manned by holograms. He assumed the test was about his leadership, while it was in actuality of his ability to win a war without firing a shot.
  • Higher-Tech Species: The Nebari, the Pathfinders, and a few others. It's hinted by existence of Lo'laa, an advanced, ancient Luxan warship, that the Luxans might have been a Higher-Tech Species in the past, contrary to their modern perception as "barbarians."
    • The comics also give us the Kkore. The best shipborne weapons the Peacekeepers have? Crude imitations based on what they could salvage off what few Kkore recon ships they have managed to take down ages ago.
  • His Name Really Is "Barkeep": Pilot, who is named after his function aboard Moya. This trope even extends to the rest of his species. The reason for this is that Pilot language is so fantastically dense and complex that translator microbes just give up on it until they agree to simplify their sentences.
  • Hive Caste System: In Farscape, the Scarrans have at least three castes in their hierarchy, sorted into Low, Middle and Ruling class: the Low-class, "Horse-Faced" Scarrans are employed as warriors, interrogator, and ambassadors; the Middle-Class Scarrans tend to be found acting as bodyguards to the Ruling class; finally, the telepathic Ruling-Class Scarrans are high-ranking politicans and military officers—though some are happy acting as torturers and spies.
  • Ho Yay: Most glaring was the relationship between Magnificent Bastard Scorpius and his Smithers, Braca. Braca shows almost puppy-like devotion to Scorpius, who in turn treats him like a faithful pet. However, the roles are reversed in one episode where Braca has apparently defected to another Big Bad, and has Scorpius drugged and on a leash - at one point, he's compelled to beat Scorpius, hissing "This is for every time I had to say yes," and no, we never find out what he had to say yes to. Pretty much everyone seems to at least guess at the nature of their relationship, as even as early as the season 3 opener, Grunchlk tells Scorpy he has a nice room for him, "very nice, very private," and noticeably gives Braca a sideways glance.
    • Also John/D'Argo, which was magnificently played with in "Won't Get Fooled Again" and "Out Of Their Minds".
    • Chiana, thanks to some Imported Alien Phlebotinum, went on a lust bender which had her about to jump the alien-of-the-week, and put the moves on Aeryn. Hell, Chiana hits on anyone, male, female, hermaphrodite, different species, underage...
    • Delvians share "unity" regardless of gender, however despite its clearly sexual side-effects, is primarily a spiritual bonding.
  • Hollywood Acid: The pus created by the decaying Budong in "Home on the Remains", leading to probably the most gruesome moment in the entire series.
  • The Homeward Journey
  • Honest John's Dealership: Furlow's garage.
  • Hospital Gurney Scene: A variant occurs in "Prayer," in which Aeryn is wheeled down a corridor on a gurney that doubles as her own torture harness. For good measure, the Battleaxe Nurse and Scarran captain are talking animatedly about dissecting her unborn child.
  • Hospital Hottie: While trapped inside a Scarran-induced hallucination, Crichton imagines Aeryn as one of these.
  • Hot Scientist: Male example: John Crichton from Farscape, especially after he starts wearing black and red leather in Season 2 onward. Mmmm...spacepants!
    • Female examples would include Jool and Sikozu, the latter of which has an encyclopedic knowledge of all things Leviathan-related, although to be fair she may have been programmed that way.
  • How Do I Shot Web?: A funny variant occurs in the Body Swap episode, in which Rygel (the tiny frog-like Napoleon) is occupying John Crichton's body when he finds himself needing to urinate. John (in Aeryn's body, no less) leads him through the steps, but when it comes to zipping up... well, it's a more intricate procedure than one would think.
  • How Many Fingers?: In the series finale ("Bad Timing"), Rygel tries this on Chiana after her seer abilities have left her permanently-blind. The short-tempered Chiana responds by chomping down on his entire hand with her teeth. (It's nice to see the crew has grown so close over the past four years).
  • How We Got Here: "Scratch 'n' Sniff" follows a variation of this trope, in which it's revealed that the bulk of the episode is a recounting of events by John Crichton to a disbelieving Pilot, and is presented in such a way that the accuracy of his account is in doubt.

Pilot: STOP! This makes no sense! You make no sense!

  • Huge Guy, Tiny Girl: The enormous and well-built Ka D'Argo has a romantic relationship with the short, slender Chiana.
  • Human Aliens: Sebaceans, who it turns out were prehistoric humans, taken off Earth and genetically engineered into space policemen. Also, a number of Sebacean-like Human Aliens, sometimes with minor variations in eye, skin coloration or hair style and sometimes not. They may be related to Sebaceans (at least one species, the Sykarans, was explicitly called an offshoot of Sebaceans). This made it confusing as to why Crichton, a human, was always mistaken for Sebacean by other alien characters. Made all the more confusing with Jool's species, the Interons, who might have been related to humans (and thus also Sebaceans). Some, but not all of these discrepancies can be explained away by the fact that not all Sebaceans are Peacekeepers, and non-Peacekeepers seem to be widespread on many different planets.
    • Sebaceans, including those in the Peacekeepers, appear to have a broader range of phenotypical variation than Earth-humans, particularly in the coloration of the eyes and skin. That's assuming that most of the closely Sebaceanoid aliens seen on the show were actually Sebaceans.
  • Humanity Is Infectious: Aeryn catches a bad case of this over the course of knowing Crichton. In the premiere episode, Aeryn literally needs him to explain the word "compassion" to her.
  • Human Mom, Nonhuman Dad: Jothee and Scorpius. Inverted with D'Argo Sun-Crichton and Katralla's daughter Katrana with a human dad and Human Alien mom.
  • Human Popsicle: Anything But That: In "Thank God it's Friday...Again", an unknown malady is causing Rygel's bodily fluids to turn flammable. To prevent further sweating or other bodily excretions, Rygel is cryogentically frozen until Aeryn and Pilot can isolate the cause. That's all well and good, but watch how Rygel's face falls when told he's not allowed to eat anything.
    • The "Look At The Princess" arc centers around a stasis process which turn the future rulers of the aptly-named Royal Planet into metal statues; during this time, they're still aware of everything occurring around them, so that when they're eventually revived, they'll have seen and heard enough of the politics going on in the building to function as effective monarchs. Unfortunately, the statue stasis is specifically mentioned to be only safe for Sebaceans. Crichton barely survives the process the first time and would likely have died if attempted again. Even the first time causes him so much pain that his statue doesn't look very "kingly" (though he was attempting to make 'rock hands' moments before the crippling pain began, so perhaps it was a forgone conclusion).
    • The second-season finale features a massive cryogenics facility where Tocot and Grunchlk store the bodies of all the patients that didn't survive their treatments. Most of them are pretty much beyond saving, and are only kept around as donors for luckier patients; However, one or two of the frozen residents turn out to be perfectly healthy- among them being Jool and a very irritated Scarran agent.
  • Humans Are the Real Monsters: Near-human Sebaceans have a baaaad reputation.
  • Humans Are Morons: Played for laughs in the early episodes. D'Argo and Aeryn continually get frustrated at how slowly John learns new skills and generally view him as completely useless. "Exodus From Genesis" takes the worst of this prejudice away, after Crichton manages to stop the Peacekeeper commandoes with a gambit that both Aeryn and D'Argo can admire.
  • Humans Through Alien Eyes: Inverted int the early 'episode "I, ET" involves Crichton crashing onto a planet in which the culture resembles 1950s Americana. Partly lampshaded by the fact that the locals are Rubber Forehead Aliens, and are a bit disappointed that Crichton looks so much like them.
  • Humanity Is Insane: Even before Crichton started going a little bit nuts, thanks to all the pop-cultural references he generally spouts, he came off as completely bonkers to his fellow crew members; since they only have Crichton as their example of humanity prior to the fourth season, they imagine Earth as a whole world full of Crichtons.
  • Humanity Is Superior: Trope Namer, but said during an insane rant and not quite true. A subversion of a trope that it named... isn't Farscape awesome?
    • This trope is played straight AND at the same time is used as a Pre-Ass-Kicking One-Liner in the comics. And it is most glorious.
  • Human Outside, Alien Inside: most of the more humanoid species have startling differences. A subtle example is the Sebacean heat sensitivity. More extreme are the Delvians, who, despite looking more-or-less like blue humans, are plants!
  • Hustling the Mark: When a pirate captain arrives looking for Staanz, Rygel wages her whereabouts in a game of Tadek. The Hynerian plays a mean game, but loses to a surprise maneuver moments after proclaiming his victory. In defeat, he tells Staanz's pursuer where to find the coordinates. A scene later, Rygel admits he fed the pirate false directions, intentionally losing the game so as not to arouse suspicion.
    • He even complains about how difficult it was to lose intentionally without his opponent realizing it was intentional, which would have spoiled the entire gambit.
      • It's not that it was difficult to intentionally lose without tipping off his opponent. It's the fact that his opponent was that terrible of a player that no matter what moves Rygel made to throw the game, the guy somehow still managed to make worse ones.
  • Hyperspace Is a Scary Place: Wormholes in Farscape are treacherous and difficult to navigate, and cause all sorts of tricky problems with time and space and turning into liquid when you don't quite understand them, and are inhabited by bizarre and dangerous creatures- ranging from gigantic phase-shifting serpents to sentient "Pathfinders" of dubious morality.
    • On the other hand, plain ol' FTL technology isn't so failsafe, either. In "Though the Looking Glass", Moya somehow becomes stuck in Starburst mode and splayed out in other dimensions - one of which causes mind-splitting noise, another which causes visual pain, and a third which causes elation and euphoria, in addition to the normal one - and has to be reassembled by moving all four ships in unison through the dimension while avoiding the interdimensional gatekeeper monster... thing.
      • Starburst isn't "plain ol' FTL technology", but an evolved trait of Leviathans. It's also the first thing the control collars disable, possibly so they don't run away, but perhaps also because Starburst isn't very reliable for passengers.
      • Starburst is perfectly safe, the problem is that the direction and distance are random. It makes a fantastic emergency escape technique (since it's literally impossible for even a telepathic enemy to follow you when even you don't know where you're going) but as a way to travel, it sucks.
  • Hypocritical Humor: Not necessarily a direct one, but an overall example. The rest of Moya's crew constantly disrespect and insult Crichton, snorting at his human inferiority... and then when they get in trouble, it's extremely common for them to run flailing and shouting for him to help them.

D'argo (while racing down an exploding hallway): "Criiiiiiiiiiiiiichtoooooooooooon!"

  • I Ate What?: In season 3, Jool was given fellip urine as as a very strange form of anesthesia (her nurses thought it was needed to treat her injury). Because of the intoxicating effects of the painkiller, Jool is too amused to be horrified... until later. It gets played for laughs, however, and eventually leads to breaking her haughtiness.
  • I Call It Vera: John's pulse pistol, which he calls "Winona."
  • I Cannot Self-Terminate: Near the end of the season 2, Crichton rambles incoherently about how he's been trying to do something, but the neuro-chip in his head won't let him. He gestures vaguely at a gun lying amidst scattered chess pieces. When D'Argo presses the matter, ("Do WHAT, John!?") Crichton begs D'Argo to kill him.
    • In "Home on the Remains", Temmon begs Chiana to kill him, after being horrifically wounded by the Budong's acidic pus.
  • I Choose to Stay
  • I, Noun: "I, E.T".
  • I Did What I Had to Do
  • I Don't Like the Sound of That Place: Tormented Space, a region of space which is tormented (natch) by electrostatic anomalies, making it harmful to Leviathans. The region is backward, barbaric, and far removed from civilization, which is why most people sensibly avoid it.
  • If You Die, I Call Your Stuff: After Maldis puts Crichton into a temporary coma ("That Old Black Magic") Rygel goes so far as to give Crichton what seems to be the Hynerian version of the last rites, declare him dead, and claim all his possessions for himself.
    • Inverted in a later episode: Crichton, about to go on a suicide mission, sourly tells Rygel he can have all his stuff. "You're a material guy, Rygel. Have some material." The tone of this is quite hurtful, and Rygel is surprisingly affected.
    • When dying for real though, alternate Crichton teases Rygel by saying he still can't have his stuff. The pair of them share a laugh over this.
  • I Gave My Word: In "Promises", Aeryn orders that Scorpius will not be harmed because he saved her life. She binds John to this promise, as well. Of course, she's very sick at the time, so it arguably wasn't a fair way to get sanctuary. This is later referenced in "Hot to Katratzi".

Crichton: (about killing Scorpius) You made me promise that I wouldn't.
Aeryn: Well, I release you from that promise.
Crichton: Say that again.
Aeryn: I release you from that promise.
Crichton: Thank you. (points gun at Scorpius's head) I'll give you my bike if you kill him.

  • I Know What You Fear: Maldis and (to a lesser extent) Tahleen.
  • "I Know You're In There Somewhere" Dogfight: Realizing that he's losing control over himself to Scorpius' neuro-chip, Crichton flees moya in his module, only to be pursued by Aeryn in her prowler. After exchanging words, Aeryn orders John to land. John complies -- By smashing into Aeryn's cockpit with his landing gear, sending her to death in the icy lake below.
  • I Like Those Odds: While John isn't exactly happy about it, he does believe they can beat the bad odds since they have before.

Crichton: This Eidelon education program...What are the odds it'll work?
Aeryn: Not good.
Crichton: "Not good" is the best odds we ever get.

John-in-Aeryn: Oh, come on, man! I'm... They're here. They're right here. They've been here for a couple of arns, and I just had to...
Aeryn-in-Rygel: You are mentally damaged.
John-in-Aeryn: No, I'm a guy. A guy. Guys dream about this sort of thing!
Aeryn-in-Rygel: I'll tell you one thing Crichton. If I find you've been dreaming anything else to my body I'll break your legs. Even if they are mine.

  • I'm Melting: What happens to anyone not piloting John's module who attempts wormhole travel. Even John has no clue why his crude ship is able to navigate one, while Prowler pilots turn into goo.
  • Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: The Keedva, in a Shout-Out to Return of the Jedi.
  • Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy: The Peacekeepers are rather pathetic for such a supposedly elite force. The Scarrans and the Nebari actually match their fearsome reputation, and give a much better showing of themselves against Moya's crew. More the Conservation of Ninjutsu. The fewer Peacekeepers you have, the more competent they are. Small strike forces of Sebaceans are very deadly and competent. Aeryn Sun as the only Sebacean in a group is practically a superhero. Sebaceans in large groups are cannon fodder. The Peacekeepers are even strangely Genre Savvy about the whole thing...

(To Crichton) "Sebacean. Intellectually suited to carry weapons and die, marching in formation."

    • Justified, as Peacekeepers fall into basically two groups: the first are the mooks, who are trained to be part of a large, cohesive unit. They are NEVER alone. Part of Aeryn's angst throughout the 1st season, as she sheds her Peacekeeper roots, is learning how to function on a ship with a very small crew, apart from her battle unit for the first time. The other class of Peacekeepers are elite supersoldiers, spies, and very high ranking officers like Captains, Fleet Commanders and above, like Scorpius, Braca, Grayza, the Special Directorate Disrupter from the "Look at the Princess" trilogy, Xhalax Sun (originally a faceless mook pilot like Aeryn but eventually a special forces assassin)... basically, one-man (or one-woman) armies. Aeryn becomes this as she learns to function on her own, independently, as more than just a grunt following orders.
  • Improbable Food Budget: Averted, since almost a third of the series dealt with their perpetual lack of food.
  • Improvised Microgravity Maneuvering: Crichton accomplises this by using the recoil from his pulse rifle to maneuver.
  • Incredible Shrinking Man: Br'Nee briefly shrinks Zhaan to size compatible with one of his test beakers.
    • When the crew is shrunk in "I Shrink, Therefore I Am", Sikozu immediately starts listing all the reasons why this is impossible: their brains should be too simple to function, and they shouldn't be able to breathe normal-sized air molecules - until Rygel tells her to just shut up and accept that the impossible has happened.
  • Indo-European Alien Language: Subverted due to the translator microbes; each species hears an equivalent meaning in their own language. Since Crichton is the POV character, the viewers hear English. "Litigaria" was a planet whose population were 90% lawyers. A "Dentic" is a tooth-cleaning slug. And a living spaceship is a "Leviathan." Used to get around the alien curses such as "frell" and "dren"; they sound familiar, so he can understand them, but there's still something different because they are different concepts.
    • When we actually hear what Luxan, Hynerian, Sebacean and Scarren languages sound like without the translator microbes, they are quite exotic, inhuman sounds (though Claudia Black actually made the backwards-sounding Sebacean language herself without technological assistance, to the surprise of many viewers who thought it was a digital creation).
  • Indy Ploy: The gang's favoured way of doing, well, pretty much everything, actually. Every time they actually try A Simple Plan or a Zany Scheme, it inevitably goes wrong. By the end of the series they've become highly skilled at Xanatos Speed Chess -- Taught By Experience.
  • Infant Immortality: "...Different Destinations" ends with the mass murder of an entire nunnery, including the eight-year-old novices.
    • And in "Prayer," a Scarran officer aboard a research vessel disposed of a test subject's unborn child by using his heat-projection to fry it alive inside the womb. And the holographic display also shows the fetus writhing and shrivelling in the heat. However as the mother turns out to be a mole, it's very probable they faked it to scare Aeryn.
    • Played absurdly straight with Aeryn's fetus, which survives getting diced into potpourri (along with his parents), indigested into Rygel's stomachs (yes, plural), reassembled, and re-inserted back into Aeryn's womb. Science!
  • Insectoid Aliens: The "Ancients" in their actual form. The Drak are a less benign version of this trope.
    • Also the Hanji (however you spell that), and if you count spiders, a 4th-season villain's arachnid form. Several other creatures also count, including a Crustacean-like humanoid.
    • And Pilot. And the Coreeshi's biomechanical body armor (though we technically don't know what they look like inside). Also, Scorpius was originally conceived of as an insectoid character. Then there was the 4th Season villain who had an insect hive inside his head, which he used to psychoactively influence people to commit murder.
  • In Space Everyone Can See Your Face
  • Insufferable Genius: Jool and Sikozu, who are both incredibly intelligent and very arrogant. Jool eventually outgrew her arrogance and bratty attitude, whereas Sikozu remained arrogant and rather self-serving throughout the series - though she looked to be outgrowing these traits towards the end of Season 4. Had there been a Season 5, she might have been allowed to develop further.
  • Intangible Man: Maldis. In both of his appearances, Zhaan must use her psychic abilities to render him solid, which allows Crichton to finally deck him.
  • Interspecies Romance: D'Argo gets a lot of tail. A Luxan, he was married (and had a child with) a Sebacean (human-offshoot); had a long-running romance with Chiana (a Gray Skinned Space Babe); thought about Jool (an Interion); and admitted planning on "approaching" Zhaan (human-looking plant) in one episode. And this doesn't begin to cover innuendo with random denizens of Adventure Planets.
    • Then there was John Crichton's brief pairing with Zhaan. It's debatable if this applies to his relationships with Aeryn Sun or Gilina Renaez, considering how closely related Humans and Sebaceans are.
    • Scorpius (Sebacean/Scarran hybrd) had relationships with Natira an alien of unknown origin, seemed to flirt with random aliens of the week (M'Lee, Ro'Na), had a relationshop with Sikozu, a Kalish and a bioloid not to mention all the Ho Yay with Crichton and Braca...
    • Jool and Naj Gil (a Scarren) seemed to be developing a close relationship, but he dies before anything comes of it. Then there's all the Les Yay between Jool and Chiana...
  • Interstellar Weapon: The worm hole weapons that the Peacekeepers and Scarran are trying to develop. And then Crichton succeeds and bad things happen...
  • Intertwined Fingers: A heartbreaking one, where John and Aeryn do this across one of Moya's grates as they're about to be separated from each other
  • In the Future We Still Have Roombas: The DRDs.
  • Invisibility: One of the most noticeable abilities of the Skreeth.
  • Invulnerable Knuckles: Averted in "Die Me Dichotomy". Crichton, (in the midst of a Split Personality Takeover) hallucinates punching a constantly-reforming mirror with Harvey's face on it, unaware that he actually broke it on the first try, and on the other strikes he was punching the metal wall behind it; when Aeryn finally pulls him away, his knuckles are bleeding.
    • In "The Way We Weren't", an anguished Aeryn Sun punches a padded target dummy until her knuckles bleed.
  • Ironic Echo: "Vitas Mortis" has this Type 1 exchange between Aeryn and Chiana, who is stuck doing the crew's laundry in a knee-deep basin of Moya's amnexus fluids. She refuses to add Aeryn's clothes to the mix, remarking "Since when did I become your servant?" Chiana is soon trapped in the solidified amnexus fluid, whereupon Aeryn gleefully refuses to help her: "Since when did I become your servant?"
    • In the two-parter "Liars Guns And Money", Crichton leaves Scorpius to die in the Shadow Depository, while singing The Star-Spangled Banner as a form of Psychic Static. Two episodes later, Scorpius briefly hums a verse of the song before entering the Diagnosan's surgical room, taking the neurochip and leaving Crichton paralyzed and incoherent.
  • I Surrender, Suckers: After boarding the Zelbinion, Lomus runs into Aeryn and is ordered to freeze. He raises his hands over his head....then breathes a giant fireball right at her.
  • It Gets Easier: Crichton gets called on this during Won't Get Fooled Again. He admits that he's changed, but people need to change to survive.
    • Actually, this was "Terra Firma," where Crichton finally did return home for real, but for practical reasons- not wanting his enemies to follow him- and also because of a particularly tragic Character Development where it was all but spelled out by other human characters that he suffered from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, he chose to return to space aboard Moya, and later, to collapse the wormhole to Earth.
  • It Got Worse: With literally only one or two exceptions, pretty much the entirety of season 3 is one long bout of this. Producer David Kemper even joked about the season 3 premiere "Season of Death", saying that they used that phrase as a reminder when plotting the rest of the episodes.
  • It Has Been an Honor: Just a few examples: John to D'Argo in "Family Ties".

Crichton: I love hanging with you, man.

    • Before John blows up a nuke in season 4.

John: Love you.
Aeryn: Love you, too.

    • Bittersweet goodbye in The Peacekeeper Wars.

John: You're the closest friend I have.
Ka D'Argo: You could have done better.
John: Not in the entire universe.

Chiana: What happened to you guys? Why... why didn't you call in?
D'Argo: Well, the restaurant, it, uh, sort of burned down -- I don't want to talk about it, it's a long story.

  • It's a Small World After All: Happens quite a lot.
    • Taken to some ridiculously extreme lengths in the comic books as justification to bring Crais's parents into the plot.
  • It's All My Fault: Pilot was originally judged too young to bond with a Leviathan by his elders. When a Peacekeeper by the name of Lieutenant Velorek offered to take him onboard Moya, Pilot jumped at the chance to travel through space. Unbeknown to him, he had just signed the death warrant for his predecessor, Moya's original Pilot. When he finally discovers the truth, after railing at Aeryn for her part in the execution, he promptly disconnects himself from Moya, guaranteeing a slow death for himself. When Crichton and Aeryn question him, he blames himself for everything, saying that if he had refused, Velorek may have never found another Pilot willing to accept the deal.
  • It's Not You, It's Me: Aeryn plays it straight, sort of:

Aeryn: (after an unsuccessful pickup attempt by Dregon) Now, don't feel bad. It's not you, it's me. I don't like you.

  • It's Not You, It's My Enemies: In "Dog With Two Bones", Crichton is plagued with anxieties about his relationship with Aeryn; He experiences a vision of their wedding reception being broken up by Peacekeepers, who slaughter all the guests. Scorpius strolls into the room and asks, "What did you expect?"
    • John explains to Aeryn in Twice Shy that this trope is why he's been avoiding her.

John: Shut up and listen to me. Scorpius is here, looking for the key to what is inside my head. The neural chips, Aurora Chair, threatening Earth – none of it works because he does not understand me. You're the key. My Achilles. You. If he figures that out, the world and all that's in it is nothing. He will use you and the baby, and I will not be able to stop him.

    • And then Aeryn gets kidnapped by the Scarrans, forcing Crichton to turn to Scorpius for help, offering wormhole knowledge as incentive... which was exactly what Scorpius was intending. In a word, whoops.
  • I Want Them Alive: John's wormhole knowledge, the one thing keeping his enemies from tearing him limb from limb. Naturally, John abuses this fact at every opportunity.
  • I Was Beaten by a Girl: Crichton, constantly, by pretty much every girl he meets. And he's a buff guy, too. Justified in quite a few cases because he does meet up with a lot of Peacekeepers who happen to be women - and one-on-one, trained Peacekeepers can kick anyone's ass - the others...well... just seem to get the drop on him. A lot.
  • Jerkass Gods: In "Prayer", Aeryn describes an ancient myth about how the ancient Sebaceans used to worship a goddess named Tenka Bru, until she suddenly destroyed the seven main planets they lived on. When her dying worshipers asked why she had done this after they had paid her tribute, she replied, "Because I can." Apparently, this is why the modern-day Peacekeepers refuse to believe in any theology.
  • Jet Pack: The engine room of a Peacekeeper Command Carrier is so large it requires jetpacks to conduct routine maintenance. Needless to say this leads to a mid-air jetpack duel between the protagonists and some Peacekeeper mooks.
  • Joker Immunity: Scorpius just will not die, much to John's frustration. And Harvey hangs around a lot longer than John is comfortable with, as well. But at least John's not the only one who's frustrated. There is always at least one organization that is out for Scorpy's ass (and we're talking big military instillations here) and they just can't seem to kill him! To be fair though, his ability to resist a lot of torture et al. (and somehow always be needed by someone for something) could be partially due to the fact that his entire childhood was one big Break The Innocent Hybrid Child moment, leading to Corrupt The Innocent Hybrid Child, leading to him becoming a cross between a Revenge-Driven Determinator, a Well-Intentioned Extremist and a Magnificent Bastard. Apparently his entire past has taught him one thing: always have an escape route/contingency plan.
  • Just Think of the Potential: Br'Nee tries convincing John of the scientific benefits of studying a Delvian. This is only after John has seen though his trick and prevented him from absconding with Zhaan without permission.
  • Kaleidoscope Hair: Jool's hair changes color depending on her mood.
  • Karmic Death: Although it is left up in the air as to whether he actually dies or not, B'Sogg. He has trained the Keedva to be his personal killing machine, and even sent it after his own brother, Temmon - resulting in the latter becoming mortally wounded after running into one of the Budong's acidic pustles trying to escape. Temmon eventually dies at the hands of Chiana, after he begs her to not let him suffer like that. Later, Chiana confronts B'Sogg about all the atrocities he's committed, and, in a rage, shoots open one of the pustules so that the pus will pour directly onto B'Sogg, resulting in his arm melting off. Chiana leaves him writhing in agony, screaming for her to not leave him to suffer - mirroring his brother's final words.
  • Kill Him Already: After they enact a daring rescue of Scorpius to make sure he hasn't told the even-worse-guys wormhole secrets, Crichton tells Aeryn to kill him so they can go. She reacts badly. "Oh, you want me to kill him?!" "Well, I'm not the assassin, am I?" Scorpius watches with interest as they quarrel completely pointlessly.
  • Kill It with Fire: How Chiana deals with Commander Javio in "Nerve".
  • Kissing Under the Influence: In "Meltdown" Crichton and Aeryn are affected by fluids from Talyn that make them consumed with mutual lust. In one amusing scene they are interrupted from making out, frantically complete some essential repairs, then gratefully go back to snogging again.
    • Likewise in "Twice Shy", an alien infiltrator named Talika exaggerates the crew's most prominent traits prior to draining them. Chiana's famously-considerable sex drive is jacked up to overdrive, leading to her almost kissing Talika, cornering and attempting to flirt with Aeryn, and forcibly trying to molest Crichton on top of a control panel.
  • Kiss Kiss Slap
  • Klingon Scientists Get No Respect: Peacekeeper techs.
  • La Résistance: The Nebari Resistance.
  • Lame Comeback: Once Rygel is thawed out from his cryogenic sleep ("Thank God It's Friday...Again"), he roundly mocks Aeryn's "false superiority" at thinking she's some sort of a scientist. Aeryn retorts that while she may not be a scientist, she's definitely 'superior' to him.

Rygel: If I were warmer, I would have an appropriately venomous reply.

  • Lampshade Hanging: Practically every sci-fi trope used in the series. Crichton is almost always the one doing the hanging.

Rygel: I am nobody's puppet!

      • And the "Ahhhh" was not a cry of pain or surprise. There was just too much ham there for Maldis to put into actual intelligible speech.
    • Crichton himself. View for instance his act when he successfully manages to start a bidding war between the Scarrans and the Peacekeepers...all with a thermonuclear bomb strapped to his hip.
    • T'raltixx from "Crackers Don't Matter".

T'raltixx: I need more light!
T'raltixx: I am magnifiiiiiiiiceeeeeent!

  • The Last Dance: The old, dying Leviathan, Elack, from the beginning of season 4 and his Pilot.
  • Late Arrival Spoiler: Delvians being a race of Plant Aliens originally came as a huge surprise for Crichton (and the audience) when Zhaan casually mentions it in "Bone to Be Wild". Now, any character biography of Zhaan will list this fact fairly early on.
    • The fact that Scorpius placed a neural clone of his personality into Crichton's brain during the latter's time in the Aurora Chair was a big reveal in "Won't Get Fooled Again" (and was hinted at several times prior to that episode). Nowadays, it's a well-known fact.
  • Lava Is Boiling Kool-Aid: In the episode Lava's a Many Splendored Thing, Crichton spends some time wading around in it, protected by an anti-pulse-weapon energy shield. Periodically, it goes into power saving mode, causing only mild discomfort while he shoots himself to reactivate it. Meanwhile, Rygel spends several minutes submerged, protected by a cocoon of synthetic amber.
  • Lego Genetics: "DNA Mad Scientist". Following this episode, Aeryn is able to recite complex computations for piloting Moya, a side-effect of being injected with Pilot's DNA.
    • Talyn was conceived via a 'contraceptive' which had been contaminated to produce weapons. He is a perfect hybrid of Leviathan and Peacekeeper vessel, the first of his kind.
  • Life or Limb Decision: Aeryn threatens to do this after getting her foot caught in the floor grating aboard a transport pod ("The Flax").
  • The Little Detecto: A handheld device used by Larraq in tracking down the Intellent-Virus' latest host. On the DVD commentaries, the cast compares the prop to a TV remote crossed with a vibrator.
  • Living Memory: The Neural clones.
  • Living Ship: Moya, other Leviathans. And god help you when Moya's baby throws a tantrum...
  • Locking MacGyver in the Store Cupboard: During the two cycles he's been held in Scorpius' jail, Stark cobbled together a magnetic crypt encoder from metals he's collected, which will unlock the cell door once it finds the right code.
  • Losing Your Head / Taken for Granite: In a particularly grueling adventure, Crichton is roped into an Arranged Marriage with Princess Katralla. As soon as they finish exchanging their vows, the couple is expected to voluntarily be turned into statues for the equivalent of 80 years. And just because the universe hates Crichton, his petrified head is chopped off and thrown into an Acid Pool.
  • Lotus Eater Machine: Several times.
  • Loud of War: "The Flax" begins with Zhaan, Rygel and D'Argo all bickering. Unable to interrupt, Pilot fills the bridge with a deafening sound to get their attention. When D'Argo roars at him, Pilot smugly apologizes, claiming he "must've hit the wrong comm."
  • Ludicrous Gibs: Scorpius's early attempts at manned wormhole flight result in the pilots suffering "tissue liquefication", which is Exactly What It Says on the Tin.
  • Machine Empathy: In the episode "Back and Back and Back to the Future", the following exchange occurs between Zhaan and Rygel. Though Moya is a living being, the fact that she's a ship means Zhaan would have to have a certain level of Machine Empathy to detect the problem.

Zhaan: Rygel. You've been aboard Moya longer than anyone else except Pilot. You know her sounds and her rhythms. Just stop and listen to her for a moment.
Rygel: Moya sounds fine.
Zhaan: Does she? Not to me. Something feels... out of balance.

  • Mad Scientist: NamTar. Though Kornata also counts, since she inadvertently set his experiments in motion.
  • Made of Iron: Scarrans are tough to kill.
  • Magic Plastic Surgery: Matala is a female Scorvian spy who underwent genetic surgery to resemble their archenemies the Illanics (a cousin of the Luxan species).
  • Malaproper: Aeryn, whose attempts to use Earth slang in casual conversation are less than successful.

Aeryn: "She gives me a woody." (John gives her a look.) "Woody. It's a human saying, I've heard you say it often. When you don't trust someone or they make you nervous, they give you--"
Crichton: "Willies! She gives you...the willies."

  • Maligned Mixed Marriage: D'Argo and Lo'laan.
  • Mama Bear: Unsurprisingly, Aeryn becomes one of these after giving birth. Very surprisingly (for her character), the safety of her as-yet unborn baby seems to be the main thing that makes Grayza agree to the peace treaty in Peacekeeper Wars. Also Zhaan is this the living incarnation of this by the end of season 2/beginning of season 3. Oh, and you can't forget Moya.
  • Man, I Feel Like a Woman: In the body-swap episode "Out of their mind", Crichton is stuck in Aeryn's body and cannot resist the urge to experiment a bit. Aeryn catches him and threatens to break his legs. Even if they are hers.

Aeryn (in Rygel's body): You are mentally damaged.
Crichton (in Aeryn's body): No, I'm a guy. A guy! Guys dream about this sort of thing!

    • Inverted at the end of the episode, when it is strongly suggested that Aeryn also took some liberties when she was stuck in Crichton's body.
  • Man On Fire: After her cover as a maintenance worker is blown, Chiana manages to deflect Javio's pistol with a tank full of flammable gas. Chiana then aims the pressurized flames right at him, burning him alive.
    • Played for laughs in "Liars Guns And Money." During the raid on the Shadow Depository, one of Scorpius' troops is set on fire, and is seen comically running around and screaming; very few people seem to notice or care, Scorpius least of all.
  • Manipulative Bastard: Almost everyone who isn't entirely stupid at one point or another. Rygel and Crichton stand out among the protagonists, and as previously mentioned, Scorpius is the full-on Magnificent version.
    • That is acknowledged in the penultimate episode:

Crichton: You used me.
Scorpius: We use each other.
Crichton: You're better at it.

  • Manly Tears: Especially in the final regular episode between Crichton and his father, which is followed by a moment with Crichton and his son.
    • D'Argo experiences this in "Liars, Guns Money, Part 2" when he admits to being tempted to turn in Crichton to Scorpius to get Jothee back:

"Jothee is my blood, my child, all that I have left to remember my wife. Now, why isn't that enough?"

  • Master of Disguise: Maldis first greets Crichton under a myriad of guises; these include Igg (a street-corner jester), Haloth (an aged wizard) and Kyvan (a dealer in trinkets).

I got a lotta names, John-Boy. Call me whatever pops your cork.

  • Master of Illusion / Fake Memories: Two particular skills learned by Delvian priests. In "Rhapsody In Blue," Tahleen orders Hasko to mess with the heads of Moya's crew by confronting them with confusing or frightening visions, while Lorana implants Fake Memories into Crichton to make him believe he has a wife.
  • Mauve Shirt: Possibly a Most Triumphant Example, Officer, no, Lieutenant, wait, Captain Miklo Braca, officer of the Fleet, Peacekeeper Interplanetary Service. A "consummate Peacekeeper." He seems to be the only Peacekeeper who ever gets promoted over the whole series.
    • Taken further in the comics. He ends up as Admiral Braca, fleet commander, and, informally, the highest-ranking Peacekeeper after Commandant Aeryn Sun.
  • Mean Character, Nice Actor: D'Argo is a stern, intimidating warrior with only the very occasional moment of levity. Actor Anthony Simcoe, by contrast, is an extroverted and wacky guy, and in fact had considered leaving the show early on because he felt it wasn't worth putting on the heavy prosthetics every day to play such an initially one-note and serious character. Eventually the writers did allow him to show his comic chops, such as in "Out of Their Minds" when Chiana's mind is put into D'Argo's body, or "Won't Get Fooled Again" which features a Camp Gay D'Argo hitting on Crichton. He also becomes less mean and more melancholic, as his motivation shifts from staying free from imprisonment to rescuing his son Jothee.
  • Meaningful Echo: In the premiere episode, Crichton is the one who negotiates to let Aeryn travel with Moya. Aeryn protests that she is a Peacekeeper, bred for service. John initiates her Mook Face Turn with one line, "You can be more." Aeryn's ex-lover, Tam Velorek, said that exact line three years prior; Aeryn didn't listen to him.
  • Medium Shift Gag: In one episode, Crichton hallucinates that everything has become a Looney Tunes-style cartoon.
  • Meet Cute: A painful one.

Aeryn: (CLAMP!) What is your rank and regiment? And why are you out of uniform?!

  • Mental Fusion
  • Mental Story: A few examples.
    • "Revenging Angel" is a Two Lines, No Waiting episode. One plot is about D'Argo, Chiana, and Jool trying to stop D'Argo's ship from self-destructing, while the other plot takes place inside Crichton's head as he's lying in a coma (and is a Looney Tunes pastiche).
    • "John Quixote" takes place in a virtual-reality game based on Crichton's memories.
  • Mercy Kill: Chiana performs one on one of her former lovers, Temmon, after his stomach is burned open by highly acidic pus.
  • The Messiah: Zhaan fits this, as long as you don't do something stupid... like threaten her adoptive family. Pilot and Moya are also incredibly tolerant of pretty much anything and everything you can throw at them... until you try to hurt their crew or, God help you, try to hurt Moya's baby.
  • Microts: They love their 'Microts' in Farscape. And their 'Arns'. And their 'Cycles'. And their 'Metras'.
  • Mindlink Mates: Known as "Unity" in Delvian parlance, this is their preferred style of lovemaking. And since the shape of one's groin is irrelevant in such a situation, we see some implied instances of girl-on-girl Unity. (It's unknown if the same goes for males.)
    • While it is clearly implied to be sexual in nature on numerous occasions and some characters have certainly used it in a sexual manner, Zhaan tells John very explicitly "This is not sex, John!" when he proposes joining in Unity to cure her madness (It Makes Sense in Context).
  • The Mole: Many and varied. The biggest example would have to be Sikozu in The Peacekeeper Wars. Other examples include Matala, Jenavian and ro-NA.
  • Mook Carryover: Officer Braca (later Lieutenant, then Captain, then Admiral in the comics) was second-in-command to most of the series' big bads, in order. He just kept trading up.
  • Mind Control Eyes: A signifier that someone is possessed by the intellant-virus.
  • Mind Rape: The Aurora Chair, Scarran interrogation techniques, Stark in a bad mood, Tahleen in an ambitious mood...
    • The Nebari are fond of doing this. Chiana was going to have it done to her before she joined the crew.
    • The Kkore have their own version of the Aurora Chair. Scorpius is most impressed even as he is subjected to it.
  • Morally-Ambiguous Doctorate: Br'Nee, the last survivor of a team of botanists who forcibly relocated M'Lee's people to a jungle asteroid, apparently in order to destroy the animal population so that the plants would flourish. Eventually left with no food, the calcivores (bone-eaters) slaughtered the science team, and then each other. Br'Nee later tries capturing Zhaan as a lab specimen.
    • Doctor Tumii.
  • Monster Lord: Scarran leadership to rank and file "horse faced" scarrans.
  • Monster of the Week
  • Mook Face Turn: Aeryn and Gillina.
  • More Hero Than Thou
  • MST3K Mantra: Lampshaded in one episode where the crew gets shrunk after Sikozu complains about how implausible the whole situation is.
  • Mugging the Monster: Memorably deconstructed with the robbery of the bar where D'Argo, Rygel, Scorpius and Braca are meeting in "I-Yensch, You-Yensch". The episode uses the robbers' incompetence and stupidity not to allow for a power-fantasy ass-kicking, but to make the situation even more dangerous and volatile.
  • Multi-Armed Multitasking: Pilot.
  • My Name Is Not Durwood: "GROON-shlick!!"
  • A Nazi by Any Other Name: Crichton lectures NamTar on the barbarity of his experiments by comparing him to Dr. Mengele. Needless to say, NamTar thinks this "Mengele" sounds like a pretty awesome guy.
  • Neck Lift: D'Argo's preferred method for greeting people. Crichton is often on the receiving end of these from other aliens, as well.
  • Neck Snap: During one of Crichton's brief flashes into the future, Matala responds to being confronted by him and D'Argo by snapping both their necks.
    • In one of Einstein's "Unrealized Realities", John is flung back to his first meeting with Aeryn. Of course, rather than letting her beat him up again, he fights back using the techniques she taught him. ..Then makes the mistake of reeling off her name and regiment. After Aeryn scissors him with her thighs (again), she asks "How did you know my name?" He crowns his stupidity by telling her a better question would be asking how he knew about a birthmark on her hip... then, infuriated, she breaks his neck. Well done.
    • To be fair, at the time Crichton believed that these "flashbacks" were all illusions created by Einstein, the resident godlike alien; as such, he doesn't take it at all seriously until Einstein points out the tuft of Chiana-Aeryn's hair in his clenched fist (taken from their scuffle in one of the alternate realities).
    • Scorpius manages a one-handed version while swinging from a ladder in "Coup By Clam."
    • Crais performs an absurdly casual version of this on Lieutenant Teeg.
  • Negative Space Wedgie
  • Negate Your Own Sacrifice: Stark does this for the crew at the end of one episode. It takes a while for us to know it was negated.
  • Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Crichton and company often make the problem they're trying to solve worse—and sometimes they have no choice but to cut and run when they can't make things better or even return to status quo.
    • Durka's mental cleansing by the Nebari reformed him into a penitent man who renounces his violent ways. ...That is until Rygel, hell-bent on avenging his past torture, tries to blow Durka up with a shoddy grenade. The bomb doesn't do much besides kick up dust—not to mention undoing Durka's conditioning, unleashing his monstrous personality on the crew.
    • The Peacekeeper Chancellor says this to Scorpius when Scorpius "starts" the Peacekeeper-Scarran war in the Peacekeeper Wars mini-series: (paraphrasing) "You've pulled us into a war we can't win! Congratulations." Needless to say Scorpius doesn't think so, and suggests that the only reason he was sent anywhere near the massing Scarran invasion fleet was so that he'd end up getting killed in the opening salvo.
    • "...Different Destinations" has Crichton. Aeryn, D'Argo, Stark, and Jool sent back in time to a famous battle where a Peacekeeper regiment defended a nunnery from an attacking horde. John accidentally captures the opposing general, who he figures out will offer a ceasefire if he's allowed to go back to his armies. So John smuggles the general out of the monastery wearing some of the nun's robes only to be spotted by one of the nuns, who kills the general. Interestingly, this is not the Nice Job Breaking It, Hero instance: the horde were not angered by the death of the general, but instead because Crichton dressed him in female clothes.
    • The episode at large as well has the group trying to Set Right What Once Went Wrong, but each thing they do just makes things worse: first the war goes on much longer and is much bloodier, then the whole planet is irradiated, killing all life, and finally the planet no longer exists at all. Crichton et al manage to fix everything, except for one tiny detail: instead of a cease fire, the horde is so angered at losing Crichton and the others that can't control their bloodlust they slaughter the remaining nuns, including a young girl
    • The crew needs a member of a warrior race that's addicted to performance-enhancing drugs for their latest mission... except the only one they can get ahold of renounced violence and became an Actual Pacifist since their last run-in with him. They actually have to convince him to start doping and kicking ass again. At the end of the mission, he cheerfully and gratefully tells Zaahn "Thank you for teaching me to kill again." The look on her face is all one could ask for from the hero in question realizing they've fulfilled this trope.
  • No Biochemical Barriers: And how! Let us count the ways:
    • Seemingly every species in the galaxy breathes the same atmosphere.
    • Humans, Sebaceans, Luxans, Nebari, Delvians, and Hynerians can all metabolize one another's foodstuffs (although they don't like to).
    • Humans and Sebaceans, Sebaceans and Luxans, and Luxans and Nebari can all have sex with one another.
    • Sebaceans and Humans, and Luxans and Sebaceans, can produce offspring.
  • No Except Yes: Our cheeky little Nebari and devious Hynerian can't just sit by and allow cargo to be onboard and not search through it. In "A Bug's Life", Chiana heads to the cargo hold to open Larraq's crate, only to find Rygel already poking around it. Chiana says they're both here for the same thing – to "snurch" any valuables. A very pompous Rygel replies that he doesn't "snurch," he "procures".
  • Noodle Incident: "That thing with Maldis and that fahrbot wife of his" in an Unrealized Reality Crichton visits in the comics. Implied to have been enough for Zhaan to swear off Unity forever.
  • No One Gets Left Behind
  • No-Paper Future
  • Non-Mammal Mammaries: Despite Bizarre Alien Biology. This includes Zhaan, who's a plant—yet has by far the largest breasts on the show.
  • Not Me This Time: John is thrown into what looks very much like Earth, and immediately suspects Scorpius of messing with his head. However, when he finds Scorpius (who turns out to be Scorpius' neural clone, Harvey) in the simulacrum, he protests that he's not the one doing it this time - and sure enough, it's actually the work of a Scarran torturer.
  • Not So Different:
    • Jothee's claim he'd not let himself get recaptured at any cost... was exactly what D'Argo had said in his initial appearance.
    • John and Crais have a moment together in the episode "Family Ties" where they acknowledge that they have come more or less full circle, with Crais in a cell and realizing how much damage he has done to the protagonists and finally admitting his true motivations for hunting them for so long. It doesn't hurt that they also look like the same species.
    • In the final episode, "Bad Timing", Scorpius forces John to acknowledge that they both use, manipulate, and betray each other, making John admit that he has become much more like Scorpius than he would like to admit. Scorpius has a bad habit of claiming that they both want the same thing and trying to play on John's sympathies to get his help throughout the last two seasons but John is (quite understandably) reticent to accept Scorpius's claims of similarity.
    • In the Season 3 episode "Wait For The Wheel". Zhaan (priestess and healer) says to Aeryn (former stormtrooper)

Don't be afraid to understand yourself. We're not so different as you assume. Violent past, no faith in the future, and then a transformative experience aboard this very ship.