| Fear Burns Down to Ashes | |
|---|---|
| |
| Production | |
| Episode |
4.15 |
| Production # |
415 |
| Original air date |
February 23, 2004 |
| Written by | |
| Directed by | |
| Developed by | |
| Producer | |
| Executive Producer |
Allan Eastman |
| Production Designer | |
| Cast | |
| Guest stars |
Dominika Wolski as Hada |
| Chronology | |
| Preceded by | |
| Followed by | |
Start with who is standing there.
Then smile."
Bogdo Geghen Seer of Agharta,
CY 1890
"Fear Burns Down to Ashes" is episode 15 of Season 4.
Synopsis[]
Rev Bem contacts Dylan Hunt, from the planet Juko, and tells him he's found a weapon capable of stopping the Spirit of the Abyss. He tells Dylan to come alone. The crew doesn't want Dylan to go, because of Juko's reputation as a violent planet, and a haven for drug addicts. Telemachus Rhade (who's never met Rev beforehand) doesn't trust him, because he's a Magog. Dylan's not dissuaded. He says he's going, in the Eureka Maru, but he tells Beka Valentine and Rhade to follow him, but give him some lead time. They start to make plans immediately after he leaves, intending to land in Lancer Drop Pods.
When Dylan lands on the planet, he steps on a small object; a replica of a Magog swarmship, made of a transparent material. Both this object and whom he's to meet make Dylan feel uneasy. He finds Rev, who throws one of these miniature "swarmships", at Dylan, which hits him in the neck, and he falls unconscious. A couple of uniformed men destroy Dylan's communicator and Force lance, and take him away, not before Dylan managed to tear a badge from one's uniform in the struggle. Rev takes the "swarmship" from Dylan's neck, and gives it to a hooded young woman.
Upon landing, Beka and Rhade can't locate Dylan, but they also come across the miniature swarmships. Beka recognises it as injectors for Beta-Amyloids, a powerful and very addictive drug. The Beta-A's extracted from the spine of a person, and injected by the miniature swarmship device into another. giving that person a powerful high. They soon find Dylan's forcelance, and the badge he tore from his abductor's jacket, which Beka recognizes as an insignia of the Collectors.
Dylan awakes to find himself in the Command Center of a heavily damaged High Guard ship, the Midian Breach, which is headed for 1167 Tachen, a Black Hole. The Artificial Intelligence is offline, and there doesn't seem to be anyone else on board.
Trance explains that Beta-A's record a person's emotional responses. They were initially used in an attempt to treat emotionally disturbed people by injecting Beta-A's from healthy people, but they turned out to be too addictive, in themselves. She theorizes this may have been done to Rev, to get him to cooperate with the Collectors. Rommie retrieves records on the lead researcher on Beta-A's, Dr. Sakkai Saguro, who's recently disappeared. Trance says Saguro's working with the Collectors, and the Collectors will use Dylan's Beta-A's to access his deepest fears, and mentally break him.
Trance and Rommie tell Harper to use Saguro's research to figure out what they're doing to Dylan, but he's limited by the lack of access to Dylan's Beta-A's.
Dylan finds Rev chained up on the ship, and frees him. Rev tells him the Collectors are working with the Magog, and they took Beta-A's from Dylan.
Dylan works to re-activate the ship's systems so that they can move away from the black hole. He asks Rev about the weapon he mentioned in his original message, but Rev says that he doessn't have the weapon under his control. Rev says the Abyss fears Dylan, and doesn't want to make him a martyr, so it wants to leave him, trapped, by the black hole.
Beka and Rhade talk to the locals on Juko, trying to find out what happened to Dylan. One gives them a lead, but an onlooker contacts the hooded woman to warn her. Beka and Rhade are attacked by more Collector henchmen, but they fight them off, and capture the informant, who tells them the Beta-A's of Nietzscheans are very powerful due to their genetics. She offers to help them, in exchange for a "hit" of Rhade's. When they leave the area, the locals quickly loot the bodies left behind.
Beka and Rhade search for an entrance to the underground complex which their guide tells them about, but have no luck. Finally, Beka and Rhade uses their gune to shoot a circular hole in the ground, and they fall into a tunnel.
Rev's getting weaker, but Dylan gets some systems back online. He plans to pump air through pipes which run through an open hangar to cool it, then into the engines, which are hot. He hopes the resulting pressure changes will jump-start the engines and get the ship moving. The plan seems to be working, until one of the engines explodes and the reactor goes out of control. The ship begins to drift towards the black hole even faster.
While Beka and Rhade search the tunnel, their guide contacts the hooded woman again, to warn her. She confronts them, and reveals herself to be Dr. Saguro. She claims, she's actually leads a splinter cell of Collectors who support Dylan. She tells them Pish Tryan wants to turn Dylan to his side, and she convinced him to try to use the Beta-A's, believing Dylan would be strong enough to survive and gain strength from it.
Harper's developed a "protein reader" to read Beta-A's and determine a person's deepest fears. He tests it on himself , giving an image of himself being infested by the Magog.
Rev tells Dylan the Abyss is looking for the darkness within Dylan. Dylan tells Rev he doesn't fear the black hole, but he fears losing everyone he cares about. Rev's getting more agitated and aggressive, and tells Dylan to "embrace the darkness". He then attacks Dylan, who hits Rev with one of the injectors, and extracts a black and red glowing substance from him By removing this from Rev, he regains self-control. Rev explains how the Collectors captured him, and injected him with the "entity" in order for him to lure Dylan into their trap. He explains that Dylan's the weapon which he had told him of to use against the Abyss, if he can survive.
Rommie verifies that Saguro's indeed telling the truth, and supports Dylan. Saguro reveals she still has the injector with Dylan's Beta-A's. They use Harper's machine to read it, revealing the black hole. Rommie sends out slipfighters to check nearby black holes for any ships drifting near them, and one locates the Midian Breach. They find it very difficult to get close enough to pull it out.
Rev tells Dylan he saw a slipfighter in one of the hangars, and they head towards it. The outer doors are open, so they attach themselves to a strut with a line before opening the inner door. When the door opens, they're sucked into the hangar. Dylan reaches the controls, and shuts the outer door. They get into the slipfighter, and leave as the Midian Breach explodes from the point singularity and the reactor core, and falls into the black hole.
The crew on the Andromeda sees the Midian Breach explode, but the slipfighter emerges from the wreckage. Beka takes the Maru to retrieve it.
Back on the Andromeda, Rev's taken to the med deck. Dylan tells him he fights the Abyss by embracing the darkness in himself, using it when he needs it. Trance cares for Rev, assuring him that light and dark exist in balance, and one can't exist without the other. Rev tells Trance he always knew who she was, but didn't understand. Trance tells him that she, herself, had much to learn before she could reveal the truth. Rev says he wants to stay on the ship, and goes to sleep.
Trance relays Rev's wishes to Dylan. She asks him if he feared losing his fight, and Dylan tells her he only feared losing those he cares about.
Trivia[]
- The title is the literal meaning of the term "incinerate".
- Midian is a location used several times in religious stories.
Memorable Quotes[]
Dylan: Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, Rev, and this all looks butt-ugly to me.
Beka: You're making it really hard not to shoot you.
Sakkai Saguro: Isn't that why you built the reader. (She looks at it) Genius. Who designed these modifications?
Trance/Rommie: He did.
Sakkai Saguro: This is your work?
(Harper turns and is shocked and in awe at Sakkai Saguro, dropping the tool in his mouth.)
Sakkai Saguro: Mmmmm. We should make babies together.
Harper: You two, out.
Rommie: No.
Trance: Whatever.
Dylan: Now there, Rev, that's the way.
Rev: Uh-huh uh-huh.
Dylan: You like it?
Rev: Uh-huh, uh-huh. (This refers to the song That's the Way (I Like It))
Gallery[]
