Andromeda Quotations

Andromeda is a television series based on the unpublished works of Gene Roddenberry. Its fifth and final season aired as a Sci Fi channel original in 2005.

Quotations are a recurring theme in Andromeda's pathos and mystique. As the show takes place in the far future, it regularly refers back to both real and fictitious persons to reveal the dramatic tragedy in the history of civilization. For example, the eponymously named Nietzschean people habitually cite the social critic of their namesake, Friedrich Nietzsche, but also refer to the important personae that succeeded him in future eras. This fusion builds a surrealist, if occasionally tenuous, connection between reality and speculative fantasy, making accurate quoting of the series an elaborate exercise.

Every episode commences with a quotation from an influential figure or publication in the Andromeda universe, setting up an ironic context for the plot to follow. It is a briefly animated sequence. White text fades in line-by-line from a completely black background, set to dramatic fanfare. The year of the quote is usually given and is abbreviated either as CY (Commonwealth Year) or AFC (After the Fall of the Commonwealth). Adding to the glamour of the scene, the author is sometimes labeled "Anonymous" or only the name of the work is given. While the opening quote may allude to works that exist in real-life, it is never credited to a real person.

Since the opening quotes are integral to the series, efforts have been made to format their display on this page as they are presented in the show. Efforts have also been made to link when a character quotes another figure in Wikiquote, where appropriate.

"Under the Night" (Series Premiere)

If the Commonwealth's High Guard
had a weakness, it was this:
Its officers were too competent,
too caring, and too brave.

Yin Man-Wei
The Rise and Fall of the Systems Commonwealth
CY 11942

Dylan: ...he'll learn

Gaheris: If he lives long enough

Dylan: Ever the cynic. You know I can't wait to hear your toast at my wedding "To Dylan and Sarah, I'm sure you'll have a long and happy life together. Unless you die"

Gaheris: Nietzscheans don't believe in optimism. It inhibits survival.

Dylan: So does pessimism

Trance: Oh, he's the guy who retired. Didn't you say he bought a farm?

Harper: The farm. Bought the farm, Trance.

Trance: What's the difference?

Beka: Torn pressure suit and a bad emergency seal.

Trance: Oh, that is different.

Harper: I'm telling you, the guy is huge. He's like some kind of Greek god or something! [a reference to Kevin Sorbo's role as the title character in Hercules]

Harper: Lucky for you I'm a freaking genius.

"An Affirming Flame"

Some say the Commonwealth would have
fallen even without Nietzschean treachery.
They underestimate both the Commonwealth
and the Nietzscheans in a single breath.

Yin Man-Wei
The Rise and Fall of the Systems Commonwealth
CY 11942

Harper: The ship! She's alive! And she is ticked off!

Tyr: I don't care if we wake up when the suns have all burned out and the universe is winding down to die, as long as I'm there to watch.

Gerentex: Forget them! Just get US out of here!

Harper: Yes, sir. Mr. fearless leader, sir.

Beka: We're not saluting you, and we're not calling you Captain.

Harper: Who does he think he is?

Rev: I assume he thinks he's a Neitzschean.

"To Loose the Fateful Lightning"

"Those who fail to learn history
are doomed to repeat it;
those who fail to learn history correctly--
why they are simply doomed."

Achem Dro'hm
"The Illusion of Historical Fact"
-- CY 4971

Rev: ...But you did go an hour without killing me. And if you can go an hour, maybe you can go a day, then a week. And then maybe, just maybe, a lifetime.

Rommie: Dylan may not be a god, but on this ship, I am.

Harper: That is the Andromeda I know, love, and gave human form to!

"D Minus Zero"

"Here's everything I know
about war: Somebody wins,
somebody loses, and
nothing is ever the same again."

Admiral Constanza Stark,
CY 9784

Harper: Is this the part where we bravely run away?

Harper: OK, how come they can hit us and we can't hit them?

Tyr: And when the Magog unleash their dreaded bouncing ball attack, we'll make them rue the day.

Dylan: I want Andromeda bucking like a drunken Vedran with a Nightsider on its back"

Beka: Sounds like my last date.

Dylan: You can tell us about that later.

Tyr: [to Dylan] Work as a team? With them? They're amateurs - children! And you? You're an anachronism. You haven't the first idea how unforgiving this universe has become, and I will not allow you to learn at my expense!

Beka: [to Tyr] Look on the bright side. Maybe some stray cosmic ray will zap just the right gene and give your children some killer mutation that will make the other Nietzscheans weep with envy.

Tyr: If the radiation is affecting me, then what do you suppose it's doing to Trance? To Harper? To you?

Beka: Tyr. Didn't know you cared.

Tyr: I care about survival. [Nonchalant] Do you?

"Double Helix"

Machiavelli's ideas are
basically sound ones for the
Nietzschean People.

Unfortunately,
he was an optimist.

Cerebus Khmer
"Aphorisms" - CY 8969

Rhade: To a Nietzschean, a game is never just a game.

Dylan: I trust Tyr to be Tyr.

Harper: [sarcastically] Opening the hangar door in the middle of combat, this should be fun.

Tyr: [to Dylan] Let's hope you're here to pat yourself on the back tomorrow.

"Angel Dark, Demon Bright"

The Heavens burned, the stars
cried out

And under the ashes of infinity,

Hope, scarred and bleeding,
breathed its last.

Ulatempa Poetess
"Elegy for the Commonwealth"
CY 9823

Rev: While I admit the universe does have a sense of humour, I doubt very much that this is a joke.

Tyr: Would you let go of your useless emotional bias and think logically for a moment?!

Harper: Note to sculptors - Statues of me should look, I dunno, wise, concerned. I suggest posing me with a soldering wand over my head like a sword.

Andromeda: I'm a warship, and I don't like walking away from a fight.

Tyr: You know, I can cook, too. You'd be surprised at the skills you acquire as a mercenary.

Tyr: My people have a legend about the Battle of Witchead. They say that the Nietzschean forces arrived here with overwhelming numbers. Their victory seemed assured. But then, in the critical hour, the Angel of Death appeared, summoning forth the Fires of Hell. The Nietzschean fleet was struck down. Crippled. Their glorious victory turned to ashes.

Beka: You knew all along?

Tyr: [to Dylan] I've never seen an angel before.

Tyr: Guilt is a wasted emotion... or so I keep telling myself.

Tyr: I let my own survival outweigh the survival of an entire people.

Dylan: that's a very Nietzschean thing to do

Dylan: God bless the Nietzscheans, where would the Commonwealth be without them?

"The Ties that Blind"

Many say living in the Way is difficult.
Is sleeping difficult?
Is waking?

Serentity Vikram Singh Khalsa
Collected Words,
301 AFC

Trance: Patching him up is easy as cake.

Dylan: Easy as pie.

Trance: Are you sure about that? I think that making pie is a lot harder than cake.

Dylan: Just fix him, Trance.

Trance: Oh, he'll be fine. Compared to baking, brain surgery is a snap.

Rev: Hello Tyr. Have you come to join me in meditation?

Tyr: Meditation is for weak people with troubled minds. Is your mind troubled?

Rev: You have an interesting way of starting a philisophical discussion.

Dylan: Talking to yourself is the first sign of mental collapse.

Rommie: [simultaneously as avatar and hologram] Only for wetware.

Rev: It's not smart to make fun of a Magog with a migraine.

Dylan: Any of your prayers been answered, Rev?

Rev: Many, just not today.

Rester: You want our identity and purpose? This is 'Nahwals Lament', we're here to kill you!

Rev: Well bless you too.

"The Banks of the Lethe"

We say atoms are bound by
Weak Attractions.
Why not admit the Truth:
The Universe is held together by Love.

Michio Von Kerr,
Wayist physicist,
CY 9942

Dylan: I like them.

Beka: Yeah, but you like everyone, even people who try to kill you... especially people who try to kill you.

Sarah: I can't leave. Not until my experiment finishes running.

Dylan: You mean this? [Points to a computer terminal]

Sarah: Yes.

Dylan: [Dylan shoots the terminal, causing it to explode] Well now it's finished.

Harper: It's a teleporter… It scans you, destroys you, transmits you through the projector, and then rebuilds you from the particles up. Hilarity ensues.

Beka: I think Mr. Heisenberg would object.

Beka: Careful, Harper. That is one of Trance's plants.

Harper: I know.

Beka: She loves them.

Harper: I know.

Beka: She gives them names.

Harper: Trust in the Harper, the Harper is good. It goes in here... [Plant disappears] ...and it comes out there. [Plant reappears and explodes]

Beka: I believe she called that one "Walter".

Harper: All that work and he's still not going to get to first base. [pauses] Wait a second... maybe he can. Call me the Love-God, Baby.

Dylan: [to Rommie] When I touch you, do you feel me, or do you measure the pressure of my fingers against your skin? When I speak, do you hear me, or do you interpret an acoustic wave? I can't be objective about this, I'm not a machine.

Hohne: I must say, the prospect of tearing you apart particle by particle and re-assembling you on a ship 300 years in the past is quite exhilarating. We admire your devotion to science.

"A Rose in the Ashes"

"The truest measure of a society is
how it treats its elderly, its pets,
and its prisoners."
-- Keeper of the Way Vision of Faith VII
CY 9891

Tyr: Now can we blow them up?

Tyr: I can usually spot a planet. They're large. I have good eyes.

Warden: The majority of prisoners benefit from the smooth and efficient operation of the system. You are disrupting it. Why can't I make you understand that?

Jessa: Poor communication skills?

Beka: You're a good tactician, Tyr. One hell of a wet blanket.

Dylan: That's a million-to-one shot.

Trance: No, it was only one in 348.

"All Great Neptune's Ocean"

"Democracy may only be a few
steps removed from anarchy,
but at least it's not as loud."

Crowned in Starlight
Than Hegemon, CY 9843

Harper: Which explains why the two fish-necks get to hang out with the hot chick with the lungs. In fact, I think I will sit next to the lung lady.

Rommie: And create a major diplomatic incident? I don't think so.

Beka: What if they start shooting? How am I supposed to run in a dress?

Rommie: Good heavens! What kind of dinner parties have you been to?

Harper: That's their Hail To The Chief?! It sounds more like a tuna with a toothache.

Rommie: It sounds better underwater.

Beka: Oh, somebody shoot me.

Harper: Interplanetary pitchman, Seamus Harper.

Beka: I'm sorry. Was that Seamus or "Shameless" Harper?

Tyr: I think that's the most pathetic and ill-planned excuse for an assassination I've ever seen. And... I speak as one who has had some... slight... experience in these matters.

Tyr: For the man determined to cook history's greatest omelet, you're awfully squeamish about cracking your eggs.

Yau: Assassins have been known to be eccentric.

Harper: Not Tyr. Err, overbearing, self-righteous, vain, vicious, brutal, way too serious and a little big, but eccentric? No.

Harper: Comme on, Rommie. Interface with me. It's the closest I'm ever gonna get.

Rommie: Harper, that would work for about a millisecond, then your brain would fry like an egg on a plasma relay.

Harper: Fine. But I reserve the right to confess later.

Beka: Hey, I read the first officer's job description. 'Playing Devil's Advocate' – it's on page three.

Dylan: Get thee behind me, Satan.

Rommie: What is it Rev Bem always says? The universe doesn't always give you what you want. It gives you what you need.

Dylan: I'm just a man.

"The Pearls that Were His Eyes"

Wealth is too precious
to be entrusted
to the rich.

Anonymous Kalderan Proverb,
circa CY 500

Dylan: I have only one question. What are we talking about?

Beka: If you don't want me to go, why don't you just say so?

Dylan: I don't want you to go.

Beka: Damn. Didn't think you'd say so.

Harper: [Regarding a list of much-needed but expensive parts for the Andromeda] OK, I can get most of this stuff, but we'll have to rig for a quick getaway.

Rev: Harper –

Dylan: Harper, we're not gonna steal anything.

Rev: Thank you.

Tyr: Well, what would you suggest?

Dylan: There's an old Earth custom, Tyr. It's called a garage sale.

Tyr: What's a garage?

Thug: C'mon baby, gimme some sugar. [Beka extends forcelance] What the hell is that?

Beka: Sugarcane.

Beka: Trance, do not let him buy you off with a backrub. This is Sam Profit we're dealing with.

Trance: I think you're just cranky from the gravity. Why don't you just think of it as a way of decreasing his corporate resources? [to the masseur] Now, let's start with the tail.

Trance: You know, I left some bubbles in the tub. I should probably go use them.

Sid: Tell me about Ignatius. I..I'm really sorry that I missed his funeral.

Beka: You didn't miss much. "Eject cargo pod: Yes/No"

Tyr: I wish you would stop looking for beauty in things that want to kill us.

Beka: Y'know, Trance, what I could do with 10 million guilders?

Trance: Oh, you could buy lots of drinks with little umbrellas in them.

Trance: I'm still trying to figure out this whole "poisoning yourself for fun" thing. I think I like it.

Trance: Hey, exactly where on the body is the moneymaker located?

Trance: What did they do to you?

Beka: Nothing – I walked into a door.

Trance: So... did you tell the door what it wanted to know?

Rev: Don't tell me, you've got a plan.

Dylan: OK, I won't.

Rev: He always has a plan.

Sid: Flash. It's the ultimate edge. You'll love it. 5 milligrams today, 5 milligrams tomorrow, and the next day you will be selling your first born for just 1 milligram more.

Beka: You can't stop a Valentine with a head full of steam. Believe me, I know, I tried.

Tyr: I wouldn't crack open any epic novels if I were you.

Tyr: I think it's quite possible she may have taken advantage of your generosity and gone back into business for herself.

Dylan: Because that's what you would do?

Tyr: Not after warning you.

Sid: My feeling is that when it comes to destroying evidence, nothing beats a sun.

"The Mathematics of Tears"

"If hope is the engine of the soul,
Then duty is the navigator...
And love is the fuel."

High Guard Supreme Commander
Sani nax Rifati
"Persuasions and Exhortations"
CY 4279

Beka: Once a century – they get less action than you do, Harper.

Harper: Ha ha. No they don't.

Rommie: The Systems Commonwealth wasn't built in a day.

Harper: I really should shave those little hairs off the back of my neck.

Harper: Well, that's really sad that a whole world had to die, but you look great!

Harper: I think I know what's wrong with your slipstream drive there, Dutch. It's missing!

Harper: High Guard engineers. They're so touchy.

Rev: I've discovered something disturbing about Lt. Pearce.

Harper: What, that she's a psychotic android with a grudge?

Rev: I was going to say that she's not on the crew manifest.

Tyr: You're risking your lives to save a machine?

Beka: She's not just a machine, she's family.

Harper: Ok, this is getting weird.

Beka: Getting?

Beka: You missed Tyr's cavalry act.

Tyr: They were playing Wagner. It's the most fun I've had in about six months.

Beka: I suppose now would be a bad time to put in for vacation?

Dylan: Err... yeah.

"Music of a Distant Drum"

KLUDGE (Klooj) - N. Disparaging
term for genetically unmodified
human being. See also "Über"

A Concise Dictionary of Slang
and Euphemism
C.Y. 9021

Tyr: Alright. One more question. Who am I?

Tyr: We can eat virtually anything as long as it's organic.

Yvaine: Well, we've got plenty of driftwood.

Beka: I kept dreaming about you. It was very… um, what's the opposite of sleep-inducing?

Dylan: Arousing?

Beka: Yeah, it wasn't that kind of dream. It was very disturbing. Yeah, that was the word I was looking for, disturbing.

Beka: Fine. If you'd rather chat with the local bugs than make a small fortune, who am I to argue?

Tyr: I'll teach you rule Number 1. You never aim a gun at someone unless you intend to use it.

Hanno: Be careful. I might live up to your expectations.

Tyr: Or, you might not live at all.

Beka: Your entire crew has an ulterior motive. Rev Bem wants to use your Commonwealth to spread his faith. Harper is in lust with your ship. Tyr is always plotting something, and God only knows what the purple one is up to. Does it really surprise you to find out that I'm no different?

Tyr: I should have killed you.

Arjun: Give. You're nothing. You-re no one.

Tyr: You're wrong. I am Tyr Anasazi of Kodiak Pride! Out of Victoria by Barbarosa! And I will never surrender!

Tyr: These aren't the old days.

Dylan: Not yet, but I'm working on it.

"Harper 2.0"

"One head cannot
contain all Wisdom."

The Olduvai Cycle

Systems University Archives,
CY 8550

Harper: It's a... killer beach-ball.

Beka: So, what's the verdict?

Tyr: He's dead.

Beka: Yeah, I meant what killed him?

Tyr: What didn't kill him? We've got stab wounds, laser and radiation burns, this appears to be some sort of residual neurotoxin. And these pinpoint wounds, I've never seen anything like them.

Beka: Weird. Perseids can be annoying, but this is just ridiculous.

Dylan: Why do you think he attacked you?

Harper: Jealous of my good looks, maybe?

Harper: Hey! What's up Rommie? Romalan. Romalanski. Read-only-memory.

Rommie: A simple Rommie will suffice.

Rommie: Harper, I had no idea you were such a cunning linguist.

Harper: Enlighten you? The divine is good, don't do Flash, and if you're nice to people, they probably won't be nice to you. Now run along kids, daddy's working.

Harper: [about Trance] She's much more interesting – an enigma wrapped in a riddle, with a tail in the middle.

Harper: As the senior medical expert here, I can tell you, I am not gonna have a stroke, ok? Now, are we through here. I don't know Dr. Harper, are we? Yes. I think we are. Err, meeting adjourned.

Rev: You need the one thing that all of your knowledge cannot provide... Wisdom.

Harper: Wisdom. Great. Show me the yellow brick road, Mr Wizard. How do I get wisdom?

Rev: Let go, Harper. Let go. Give over to The Divine. All that you are. All that you have. Including your pain. Calm your breath. Repeat. My pain belongs to the divine. It is like air. It is like water.

Harper: My pain belongs to the divine. It is like the air. It is like the water.

Rev: Good. Again.

Harper: My pain belongs to the divine. It is like air. It is like water. It's like a freakin' freight train running through my brain. You sure this works?

Rev: Harper. Think of hunger. Think what is must be like to go days, even weeks without food. Now, imagine what it would be like to know that in the midst of that starvation, you could eat, feast, satiate your hunger. But only by killing the people that you love. That is my pain. It is with me each day. My pain belongs to the Divine. It is like air. It is like water.

Harper: Rev, right now, I'm the smartest guy in the universe, but that don't count for squat unless I can help my friends.

Beka: Errr... weirdness, incoming.

Jager: Prayers. Oblations. I prefer... laser probes.

Harper: I want my Rommie.

"Forced Perspective"

Humans say the Road to
Hell is paved with
good intentions.

Why? Do they think there's a
shortage of bad ones?

Karm'Luk P'an Ku,
"The Joy of Lucidity"
CY 8633

Beka: The Maru is not just a ship, it's my livelihood. It's the hospital where I was born. I opened Christmas presents in the airlock when I was a kid. And after the Salvage Guild debutante's ball, it's where I lost my…

Dylan: Where am I?

Lawyer: Confess.

Dylan: I confess, I don't know where I am.

Trance: Umm, hi, guys, this is Trance. Umm, I just.. You know how sometimes things happen that you can't quite predict and sometimes they're good and sometimes they're not, well, this is one of those "not" times. Help.

Dylan: People are dying. We have to do something.

Gaharis: Fine. Then lets find Ferrin and put one [bullet] through his head. Problem solved.

Dylan: You see, this is why I am in charge.

Venetri: A good architect brings physical form to the dreams of his clients.

Dylan: Yeah, in your case, your client is a paranoid dictator.

Venetri: Unfortunately.

Dylan: Mr March, I think you're becoming a pessimist.

Gaheris: I'm a Realist, and I think we need to revisit a Realist solution.

Lawyer: In light of his mercy, do you have anything to say to us?

Dylan: I think we're all a little tired of my name, rank, and serial number.

Trance: Here, I want you to drink this very slowly – it's water.

Dylan: How?

Trance: How? Well, when two hydrogen atoms love each other very much, they bond with an oxygen atom…

Dylan: You were a thief?

Trance: No, thieves have bad intentions, I never do… but, I am going to steal you now, so let's get out of here.

Dylan: At least you are consistantly Nietzschean in your views.

Gaharis: Thank you.

Dylan: That's Venetri.

Trance: You're kidding!... Who's Venetri?

Beka: Where'd you get all the candles?

Tyr: I rendered them from the fat of my enemies.

Beka: I can't wait to see the entrée!

Beka: Wow. You're quite a renaissance man, Tyr. Gourmet chef, mercenary killer...

Trance: That's the thing about guessing. Ninety per cent of the time it's fifty-fifty.

Trance: There are 1,342,063 others [possible futures] and some of them, some of them are really great. There's even the mathematical posibility that everything will turn out perfectly.

Dylan: Can you control that?

Trance: No. Life is chaos. Chaos is life. Control is an illusion.

Dylan: [Reading from Trance's report about the mission] "I looked for you, I found out where you were, I traveled to where you were, and I got you out." That's your entire report?

Trance: You wanted something more?

"The Sum of Its Parts"

"Between birth and death lies desire,
Desire for life, for love,
for everything good.

And this is the source
of all suffering."

Outcast Consensus 17,
CY 10942

Beka: So, what you're saying is that you randomly chose a bunch of human female features, you mixed them all up, and this was the first face that you came up with?

Rommie: I may have experimented with a few options.

Beka: Define "a few".

Rommie: 170,894

Beka: I KNEW IT!!

Beka: Errr, weirdness alert.

HG: What is it you humans say? Take me to your leader.

Dylan: If someone says they want to initiate peaceful contact, we have to at least give them a chance.

Tyr: Captain Hunt…

Beka: Save your breath, he's got that look again.

HG: This is where the parts come together? With your hands?

Harper: Exactly. My hands.

HG: You are like… a slow Directing Intelligence Unit.

Harper: OK… I'll take that as a compliment.

Beka: [About HG] Is there any way you can escort him on a tour of the ship's public areas? Something? Anything? Let him ambassadorise somewhere else. Please?

Rommie: I believe the phrase "No chance in hell" would be appropriate.

Dylan: That was heartfelt and deeply convincing.

Dylan: Does it look like sabotage?

Harper: Errr, sources say....YES!

Harper: Introducing "Harper Nanobot 107". I like to call this model the "Ms. Pacman". [Imitates the sound made by Pacmen] It's an obscure reference to an ancient video game.

Tyr: Never underestimate the power of words.

Rommie/HG: VX, I have learned many things from interfacing with humans. Including one particulary useful phrase. "Go To Hell".

"Fear and Loathing in the Milky Way"

Warning: Do Not Operate Heavy
Machinery or Navigate The Slipstream
While Under the Influence
Of This Beverage.

Sparky - Cola (Label),
291 AFC

Harper: Trance, I'm telling you. That waitress really dug me. We shared this thing. This, err... pure, special, cosmic connection.

Trance: Wasn't that what you said about that stripper you met on Mendocino Drift? The one who had the elbow spikes and threatened to perforate you, stick a light in your ribcage and turn you into a planetarium?

Harper: She is not a stripper. Her name was Dusky and she was a professional dancer.

Gerentex: Don't push me human. I can't say that I'd mind indulging in a little senseless violence right about now.

Harper: Funny. I was thinking the same thing.

Gerentex: [to Trance] Aren't you dead?

Trance: I got better.

Gerentex: Huh. Lucky you.

Gerentex: Let me put it this way, monkey brain, either you take me where I want to go, or I'll send you back to Captain Valentine in a box!

Harper: Do you practice those lines in the mirror? Cause they really need work.

Reaper: I'm looking for a Nightsider.

Trance: Well, we have one right here…

Harper: Uhh, please secure any loose articles and keep your hands and feet inside the vehicle at all times.

Gerentex: Oh, shut up.

Rommie: Take this disgusting substance for example. Sparky Cola. It has no nutritional value, rots the teeth, and slowly dissolves the digestive tract. And yet he imbibes at least 3000 milliliters of it every single day.

Beka: Yeah, Harper's twin muses, Chaos and Caffiene.

Gerentex: Oh, you'd like that, wouldn't you? Let's have old Gerentex take us into his confidence and reveal his latest scheme for wealth and success, and then we'll betray him and keep it all for ourselves!

Trance: We would never do that!

Harper: I would.

Trance: True.

Harper: You kill her, I kill you, you lose. You kill her and you kill me, the ship blows up, you still lose. Either way, you lose.

Trance: Umm, excuse me. Can we please discuss the "killing her" part?

Trance: If this is that good-cop bad-cop game you were telling me about, isn't this the point where I'm supposed to play good-cop?

Harper: Sorry, mon cheri, welcome to... a new game! Bad cop, worse cop! And guess which one I am!

Rommie: So what do we offer the Perseids this time?

Dylan: Protection, peace of mind, mints on their pillows...

Harper: Shut up, rat. Just tell me where to go.

Gerentex: I have several suggestions.

Beka: So he [Dylan] talks and we sit. Unless you've got any ideas.

Tyr: Sadly, I doubt our beneficent commander would appreciate it if we were to nuke the planet from orbit. Though I can hardly say I'd mind the exercise.

Harper: Cry me a river and drown in it.

Andulasia: I prefer my men strong and silent.

Trance: Well, you won't like Harper then.

Trance: Are you afraid of a little purple girl?

Gerentex: There are two kinds of people in this universe, Mr Harper. The kind with loaded guns and the kind who open doors. You open doors.

Gerentex: Run for your lives, but let me go first!

Harper: As much as I enjoy these long, lingering looks into your dark, beady eyes, I don't think I'm ready for a relationship.

Trance: I am so sick of this, you two, with your violence and your threats and your shooting stuff. Neither of you gets it, do you? There isn't enough love in the universe as it is, and you're both just helping to kill off what's left. So SHAPE UP, because if you don't show each other a little peace, love, and understanding, I'm going to kill you both.

Trance: When you think about it, beautiful things can change the universe.

Harper: I did not spend twenty years on that hell-hole we lovingly call earth by being Santa's little helper. I survived by being the nastiest peice of work to ever club someone over the head in the back alley over a hunk of cheese. So please, keep pressing that little button. Get your money's worth. Because then it's going to be the worse day of the end of your life.

Harper: How's this for a little known yet highly entertaining fact. You see, whenever the teacher lets us take the Maru out on these little class field trips, I key the power generators to my life sign.

Trance: You do?

Harper: See? Little known. The point is, if my life sign should suddenly, I don't know, expire, the generators overload and explode. [snaps] Like that. In a heartbeat, uh- in my heartbeat.

Trance: [to Gerentex] It's not your fault that nightsiders have hundreds of babies that eat everything in sight until they reach dry land and become sentient, it's just the way you evolved.

"The Devil Take the Hindmost"

"Only those born guilty Recognize
Innocence for what it Is:

The rarest thing in the Universe,

And the most Precious."

The Anointed, The Finder of The Way,
C.Y. 9799

Rev: As Harper would say, "that would suck."

Dylan: You know, Rev, there are some words that should never trip across the tongue of a Magog, and "suck" is one of them.

Rev: I'll make a note of that.

Rev: Give me the strength to follow the path. To give and not to count the cost. To struggle, and not to heed the wounds. I am the darkness become the light. I am the darkness become truth. I am the darkness become The Way.

Rev: There are no stronger weapons than mercy and hope.

Dylan: Maybe so, but I would still prefer a platoon of Lancers.

Tyr: We forfeited our profit and earned the wrath of our own guards by double-crossing them, for what?

Beka: The pleasure of knowing a whole batch of baby bugs are getting named Beka and Tyr?

Tyr: I can die happy.

Rev: We saved paradise, by introducing the serpent.

"The Honey Offering"

"The enemy of my enemy
is still my enemy."

Drago Museveni

C.Y. 8427

Tyr: I believe I've found a way to increase the peace.

Dylan: No offense, but you make an unlikely dove.

Dylan: Well, you've had the benefit of a more diverse exposure. Maybe you could share your experiences with her – that non-Nietzscheans aren't inferior?

Tyr: You'd like me to lie to her?

Dylan: Just ask her to tone it down a little. We inferiors are very sensitive.

Elssbett: Allowing yourself to be betrayed proves your inferiority.

Trance: She doesn't like flowers. What kind of person doesn't like flowers?

Tyr: Believe me, boy, Elssbett holds you in utter contempt.

Harper: I know. She's hot, and she's a good judge of character. So what if she holds me in utter contempt? At least she's thinking of me.

Dylan: Don't surrender anything while I'm gone, OK?

Beka: If you say so.

Dylan: I gave my word to your pride. My word is the foundation of the Commonwealth.

Elssbett: I have never met anyone who thought like that... Probably because the universe kills them before they can reproduce.

Beka: So, why is it, whenever anyone goes on a suicide mission, they take my ship?

Dylan: Becuase it has seatbelts.

Elssbett: If you've finished saying goodbye to your lover, I am ready to leave.

Dylan: [Gives a nervous laugh] She is not my...

Beka: Oh, why hide it? [Walks up and kisses Dylan. Turns to Elssbett] Just remember, he's pretty to look at, lovely to hold, but if you break him, you consider him sold. [Back to Dylan] Bye bye, Sweetie.

Elssbett: After the way I've treated you, how can you care what happens to me?

Dylan: I care because I'm human.

Trance: "Surrender!" "Surrender!" All his messages are the same. He sounds like an evil parrot.

Harper: I can't believe I'm going to die at the hands of converging red blips.

Trance: What if they're not decoys?

Beka: Then when we get to the Pearly Gates, make sure everyone lines up behind Rev. [to Rev] You've got spin control.

Rev: I'll… see what I can do.

Elssbett: You're starting a war.

Dylan: No, you are starting a war. I'm just re-arranging the sides.

Trance: They even have a guild devoted entirely to the art of "abdomen dancing". [she demonstrates]

Dylan: Trance, that's Eridanu sign language, and I think you just made a rather naughty suggestion to Harper.

Trance: Oh, well, fair's fair. Harper made a rather naughty suggestion to nearly half the women there at the reception. Without success, I might add.

Beka: Time they picked on someone ten times their own size.

Harper: Wow, you've got logichips coming out the quinitiflop. What are you, some kind of robot brain-scientist-rocket-surgeon thing?

Rommie: Harper! [Motions for him to leave]

Harper: Ok. Alright. I know when I'm not wanted. I usually don't listen, but, I know.

Beka: Some places they worship androids, and some places... they melt them down.

Rommie: Gabriel prefers "Synthetic Lifeform".

Beka: Gabriel prefers?! Yeah, I think I get it. Rommie has a crush on the new guy.

Rommie: [Indignant] It's not like that. Gabriel is a unique oppotunity, the first chance I've had to interface with one of my...

Beka: [Inturupting] Interface? Hmmm, I've never heard it put quite that way before.

Andromeda (Monitor): I'm supposed to be a warship, not a lovesick schoolgirl.

Andromeda (Hologram): The geometry is depressingly familiar.

Andromeda (Monitor): A triangle. The unattainable captain on one side, the charismatic newcomer on the other.

Rommie: Stop talking about me as if i'm not here. Both of... you.

Andromeda (Monitor): This is confusing.

Harper: Or our sensors aren't paying attention.

Andromeda: What do you mean "Not paying attention"?

Harper: Ah, gee, I don't know. Maybe that we're facing the second baddest ship in the known universe and our AI is making Moony-eyes at Mr tall, spark and handsome.

Tyr: Love is merely a trick the DNA plays to replicate itself.

Andromeda: I don't have DNA.

Tyr: My point exactly. Are the two of you planning to procreate? Will there be a nursery full of little grav sleds and data disks?

Andromeda: Cynic.

Harper: Hey. I finally got you in my bed.

Harper: I love Physics.

Dylan: Well, here's the happy groom now. I feel like I should have prepared a toast.

Beka: I think I've got one: Here's to Gabriel. Be nice to Rommie, or I'll rip your head off.

Gabriel: If I let her down, I'll rip it off myself.

Rommie: I killed him, Dylan. I loved him, and I killed him. [Crying]

Dylan: You had no choice.

Rommie: No, I didn't. Because I'm a warship, and warships only know how to do one thing, and that's kill. We don't have hearts. We don't have empathy. We're killers. We're attack dogs. And I'm afraid. The Balance of Judgment went insane, the Pax Magellanic went insane, and I don't want that to happen to me.

Dylan: You're forgetting something. The Balance of Judgment had no captain, no crew. The Pax lost her captain. Why do you think warships have captains in the first place? I'm your heart, Rommie. I always will be.

Rommie: [Calming Down a bit] These physical reactions. I didn't know Harper was so good.

Dylan: The Commonwealth needs you, Andromeda. The crew needs you. I need you. So, permission to chop yourself into pieces is officially denied.

"It Makes a Lovely Light"

"Come bitter Rain,
And wash from my Heart
That saddest of all Words:

Home"

Ulatempa Poetess, "Song of My Exile"
CY 9825

Harper: It's half mystical mumbo-jumbo, half putrid poetry, and half bad math.

Rommie: That's three halves.

Harper: Like I said, bad math.

Beka: Hello, Tyr. What do you want?

Tyr: Command codes for the Eureka Maru.

Beka: As in my ship? Awww. Did you wake up insane or was it a slow onset?

Tyr: No one's reached Tarn-Vedra in 300 years, and better pilots than you have died trying.

Beka: There are no better pilots than me.

Rev: There's a very fine line between gleaning and pillaging. I believe one draws that line with a laser saw.

Rev: If the universe is a manifestation of the Divine, could not the slipstream be the very mind of God?

Dylan: Well, if that's the case, then I'm afraid God had a seizure and forgot all about Tarn-Vedra.

Beka: And here comes God's little brain surgeon.

Rev: Beka, some humility, please!

Beka: Yeah, I tried that once. I didn't like it.

Dylan: Like they say, in slipstream, confidence is everything.

Rommie: Hasturi makes a lot of references to the ancient Earth epic, "The Odyssey".

Beka: Except when he confuses his Vedrans with his centaurs, and then he just veers right off of Homer and starts quoting Einstrom Becksman.

Harper: We are here. On your left will be a black hole we'll call, say, uh, "rock". And on your right, one we'll call "hard place".

Harper: Did you know that 82% of people on prison planets are Flash addicts?

Beka: Y'know what? They tell you that kind of stuff just to scare you.

Harper: Sure, to scare you out of killing your neighbours.

Beka: Is that an order, Captain? My Captain? Oh, I forget. Actually, your not a real Captain, are you? There's no High Guard. There's no commisioned officers. Who around here is an actual Captain? Don't, don't, don't tell me. Let me guess. It's coming to me, It's coming to me. Let's see, that would be ME.

Tyr: This has nothing to do with good or evil. Drugs create dependence. Dependence is weakness. Weakness is death.

Harper: She's Flash-fried and freeze-dried.

Beka: You know what, Tyr, you know what? I've got two words for you. Err, "Anabolic", err, "Steriods".

Trance: Sometimes you just have to allow people to make the mistakes they need to make.

Harper: That unfamiliar sound you're hearing is me exhaling with relief.

Harper: We needed a Plan B. You always have a Plan B.

Dylan: Yes, but my Plan B's work.

"Its Hour Come 'Round at Last" (Season Finale)

"Screams of a billion murdered Stars
Give lie to the night's Peace,

While we cling in desperation to the Few
Fragile spinning stones we call Worlds."

Wayfinder First Order Hasturi
aka "The Mad Perseid"
217 AFC

Dylan: It's a little-known law of thermodynamics – The Conservation of Optimism – there's only so much to go around.

Beka: In that case, it's simple – lower your expectations.

Dylan: You're right. I officially declare this glass 12% full.

Beka: That's the spirit.

Andromeda (Hologram): Stop! Where are you going?

Rommie: To find out what's wrong with me. Sometimes I can be a real pain in the ass!

Beka: We're never gonna make it.

Dylan: Well now who's the pessimist?

Harper: This is the engineer. You may have noticed the lack of a sudden drop in environmental pressure. Though this is a good thing, it, err, may not last, so enjoy the oxygen while you can.

Tyr: Harper, what's going on?

Harper: I don't know. I mean, umm, my current theory is that... somehow... an older version of andromeda's personality profile may have been reactivated and is now taking over the ship.

Dylan: How did you figure that out?

Harper: I think the key thing right now is to repair the problem. We can worry about minor details like assigning blame later.

Andromeda: Automated defenses ineffectual against this target. Deactivating.

Rommie: It's about time.

Harper: Say "good night" to the automated defenses. Good night, automated defenses.

Harper: [Listening to the sound of Magog] No. No, no, no, no, no. This is not happening. This is not happening.

Harper: What does it matter? We're all going to die. We're all going to die, except those of us that get infested with Magaog eggs. We're just gonna be...

Tyr: I am not going to die today just because you cannot control your fear.

Dylan: Do you regret it? Signing aboard with me?

Beka: Risking my life? Battling Nietzscheans and Restors and Magog and half the lunatics in the galaxy? All for a cause that's been dead for over 300 years? I wouldn't have missed it for the world.

Tyr: Harper! I know you! I've watched you! You are an annoying little man, but there is fire in your blood - now use it! Are these your demons? Well it is time to face them, now!

Harper: Memory core, memory core. Who's got the memory core?

Dylan: Remind me, when we're done, to give us all medals. "Order of the Commonwealth" for everyone.

Dylan: Beka, I may not make it.

Beka: Don't be ridiculous. You're too stubbon to die. We all know that.

Dylan: To hell with the odds. All that matters in life is that we try. Promise you'll try.

Tyr: Where there is life, there is hope!

Andromeda: Those worlds. They're hollow, and they are full of Magog. Trillions of them.

"The Widening Gyre" (Season Premiere)

If we do not live another day,

say this over our pyre:

They died like High Guard Lancers

With their faces to the fire.

Regimental Hymn of the
13th Imperial Lancers
CY 4233

Trance: OK, Trance, you can do this, you know you can. There is a perfect possible future where everything will turn out just fine, and the odds of creating that future are only 1,671,000 to 1. More or less.

Andromeda: We haven't exactly had a burning need for planetary warfare bots.

Rommie: I deployed Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum.

Dylan: How are the lads?

Rommie: Efficient, as usual. They drove off the first wave of the Magog assault ships.

Dylan: Yeah, but the Magog can always send more. Magog suck.

Andromeda: Well, on the bright side, the Worldship was heading towards the known worlds anyway, before you just didn't know about it. At least this way, you can face it head-on.

Beka: That was such a warship thing to say.

Harper: Tyr! Oh man, don't be dead. You can't be dead. I mean, crap, I'm alive.

Harper: You want to make them feel overconfident? I've got an idea: Why don't we let them paralyze us, bind us to the wall, and infest us with their Magog eggs? Oh, gee, we did that already! Boy, we got them right where we want them!

Harper: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Where there's life, there's hope. Faint, infinitesimal, minuscule, microscopic, virtually undetectable hope, but hope nonetheless.

Rommie: Twenty worlds, joined into a single structure, manipulated by artificial gravity and powered by an miniature sun. I guess it's true what they say: No matter how powerful you are, there's always someone bigger and stronger than you – I just never thought it applied to me.

Andromeda: Say it won't happen again. You have to promise to me, Beka, that when this is over, I will either be heading home with a crew aboard, or not at all.

Harper: Dylan! I hope that bomb explodes soon because I'm getting exhausted. Dylan!

Rommie: There are thousands of tunnels.

Dylan: You'd think they'd have signs.

Dylan: Don't they have any respect for tradition? Whatever happened to just clawing people to death?!

Trance: It's not impossible, it's just really unfair.

Tyr: Magog quoting Dante.

Rev Bem: Canto seventeen.

Harper: Uhh, guys, can we save the poetry for later, get the hell out of here?

Tyr: I know but one person idiotic enough to try and rescue three dead men from a Magog hive.

Dylan: That's me, Captain Idiot. Now, I don't know about the three of you, but we have a ship to catch.

Eureka Maru: Condition critical, condition critical.

Rommie: No, really?

Rommie: Oh Andromeda, am I glad to see me.

Tyr: [Imitating a child] Kill me. I'm doomed. You should have just let me die. [Stops imitation] Listen to yourself! Child, if I can teach you one thing...

Harper: [Interrupting] If you're gonna give me any more of that "Where there's life, there's hope" crap... Thanks... Because I really need to hear it right about now.

Dylan: The renewed Commonwealth. Before it was a dream, now it is a necessity.

"Exit Strategies"

The soul is larger than the sky

Deeper than the ocean,

Or the abysmal dark

Of the unfathomed center.

- Enoch Vere de Vere.

"Lamentations Sous-terre", CY 9734

Beka: Thank the stars for momentum.

Dylan: What about the others?

Beka: I'll check. Just hold still, you're uhh, you're dripping on my ship.

Tyr: Reverend Behemiel! [Slaps Rev] You dead?

Rev: Tyr Anasazi of the Kodiak Pride. Clearly I am not in heaven.

Beka: My first job is to repair your forehead.

Dylan: I'll be fine.

Beka: Yeah, okay, tough guy.

Tyr: Captain Hunt, In the past few months, you've been placing yourself in a number of very risky situations. It's not a healthy trend.

Dylan: Thank you, Tyr. I didn't know that you cared.

Beka: I hate planets. The dirt, the unregulated temperatures, and the water, which I also hate... unless it comes in bottles. Water turns into snow and ice, which I also hate, like I pretty much hate every kind of weather. I hate the weather. Did I mention that?

Dylan: [As they're being shot at by Nietzscheans who have declared that they only want Tyr] Anything you want to tell me?

Tyr: No, not particularly.

[Almost hit by a gunshot]

Dylan: We'll save the conversation for later.

Harper: Look! I can't go in there, alright? I, I can't deal with being in the engine room, or anywhere else where I was attacked. It stinks like Magog, and I'm feeling a little Magogophobic, okay? Don't look at me like that, Rommie. I can't! I wanna help, I wanna fix the ship, I just... I can't.

Dylan: [After falling ontop of Beka] Beka?

Beka: I didn't think you went in for hugs.

Dylan: Oh, I, err, I love hugs. It's the kissing that freaks me out.

Rev Bem: [After the Maru fell into a sinkhole] I realize we are all fallen angels, but twice in one day?

Dylan: Tyr, any ideas about what might change their minds about killing us?

Tyr: Killing them first?

Dylan: It sure would be easier with another helping hand.

Beka: Yeah. Unfortunately, one of them is slowly starving to death and the other one is out betryaying us.

Dylan: We don't know that.

Beka: Well, somehow, I don't think Tyr took all of our guns for Nietzschean "Show and Tell".

Dylan: With Tyr, you never know.

Andromeda: Reactor Overload. Power reactor 1 going critical. Unable to vent due to damage in the AP line.

Rommie: Harper, if you don't get in there and fix that line, we'll blow up! Do you hear me? You're going to die!

Harper: Good. 'Cause in case you didn't notice when I had that gun shoved in my gut, I want to die.

Dylan: [After seeing Nietzscheans being eaten alive] Bon appitite.

"Heart for Falsehood Framed"

Love? Truth? Beauty?

I prefer negotiable securities.

Doge Miskich var Miskich,
"All About Me" 301 AFC

Rommie: Peerpoint Drift is a den of thevies. I say let the Than blow them up.

Dylan: Well, that is why you, are not conducting the negotiations.

Beka: Rain, mud, unfiltered air, Magog raids. Thanks, I'll take a nice artificial gravity field.

Harper: We have nothing in common. Why do I worship you?

Beka: Uncharacteristic bout of good taste.

Hawkins: Look, lady…

Beka: I'm no lady, I'm a starship pilot.

Hawkins: Seamus Harper – Grand Theft Spacecraft, and Interstellar Flight to Avoid Prosecution, and Public Lewdness?

Harper: Only the one time.

Rommie: Frankly, I'd destroy you myself, but he's my captain and I listen to him. I suggest you do, too.

Dylan: I'm a soldier. Diplomacy is not exactly my strong suit either, but, trust me, it beats interstellar war any day. So, lets dust off our old copies of "Negotiation for Beginners" and see if we can avoid any bloodshed.

Dylan: I love a challenge.

Beka: We're not going to get past Leydon Bryce Hawkins with history lessons. He's smart.

Trance: And cute.

Beka: A fact which, like your age and place of origin, has really nothing to do with the task at hand.

Trance: Good point.

Beka: You know, Nietzschean males, always marking territory. You've gotta be careful or he sprays the trees.

Hawkins: C'mon – Trust me!

Beka: Trust you? Can we start with something easier? Perpetual motion, maybe? Universal translator?

Beetle: Make me an offer.

Tyr: I offer not to pull your heart out through your eye socket and nail it to your forehead.

Beetle: That's very reasonable. How's noon tomorrow?

Harper: Just do it like we practiced.

Trance: When we practiced, we messed up.

Harper: Except that part.

Tyr: (about the Than and Chichin in negotiations) Would you like me to kill them for you?

Dylan: (weary) Yes. (Tyr moves toward the door) Wait I'm just kidding. I've got a better idea, next time I offer to broker peace talks between a Chichin gangster and a Than warlord, just kill me.

Tyr: Alright.

Dylan: Kidding. Again.

Beka: He's good, quick on the uptake, smart, completely fearless. He reminds me of…

Harper: You. He reminds you of you.

Beka: Then I know I can't trust him.

Dylan: There, everybody wins. That's what the Commonwealth always strives for.

Miskich: And what do I win?

Tyr: No one's blown you out of the sky.

Miskich: Ahh…

Rommie: Triagonal, prismatic, quartz crystal. Trace elements of vanadium, chormium, maganese, and cobalt. Eighty-two-point-two-five grams. I wonder how many of these fake Hearts are out there. I lost count at three.

Dylan: You never lose count of anything. I mean I assume you could tell the difference the whole time.

Rommie: Of course. Harper is sweet, but he still believes pretty much anything I tell him. (as if to Harper) Oh, I'm sorry. I may have a brain the size of a planet, but I can't tell the difference between one pretty rock and another.

"Pitiless as the Sun"

We are not the masks we wear.

But if we don them,

do we not become them?

Keops Tsumai, "Fortunes", CY 9683

Tyr: Am I mistaken, sir, or did you just grant complete strangers unlimited access to this ship?

Dylan: Why, yes, I did. That way, we can monitor them closely and see what they do with it. There's something not quite trustworthy about them, don't you think?

Tyr: Your occasional bouts of deviousness never fail to surprise me, Captain.

Harper: Oh, great! So now we can invite some new scary super villains to the "people who suck" party!

Andromeda: Funny, Tyr, I didn't know this was your battle station.

Tyr: Whoever told you that sarcasm was a desirable feature in a ship was sadly misinformed.

Dylan: The fact is, even in the old days, fully loaded, crewed and armed, the Andromeda was only an even match for a Pyrian torchship. In case anyone hasn’t noticed, we’re not fully loaded, armed, or crewed, and the Pyrians have had 3 centuries to improve their technology.

Beka: …Not the best pep talk you’ve ever given.

Dylan: Oh, you want a pep talk. Okay, uh, do your jobs, don’t screw up, and we’ll get out of this alive… Maybe.

"Last Call at the Broken Hammer"

Life? Life's pretty much a knife fight in a dirt-floored bar.

And if they get you down,

you best get back up.

Gunnery Sergeant Hywell Cy'rabia, CY 4681

Trance: Alcohol doesn't affect me the same way it does you.

Beka: Yeah, right, like that time on Diphda 5. Next, you'll tell me you've got a hollow leg.

Trance: No, but I know where to get one.

Trance: (to Hsigo) I know this may be a stretch for you, but think. You're twice as big as me, and you look pretty scary, but I'm still standing up to you, so either I'm crazy, or I am really, really dangerous. Would you like to guess which? … I didn't think so.

[an alien has been shot up by the entire bar]

Dylan: Damn.

Beka: Got that right.

Dylan: No, I wanted to use him.

Tyr: Well, as he is he would make an interesting conversation piece.

"All Too Human"

"Worlds governed by Artificial Intelligence often learned a hard lesson: Logic Doesn't Care."

Yin-Man Wei, "This Present Darkness: A History of the Interregnum", CY 11956

Beka: Ah, the Basilisk. Funny how no one ever names their planet-killer the "Fluffy Bunny".

Harper: Yeah, Rom-doll, sweet-talk him. Try appealing to his inner geek. And, if that doesn't work, unzip your, uh…

Rev: Harper!

Harper: What? I'm just sayin'… It would work on me.

Kim: Friends? That's crazy! AI's don't have any…

Rommie: Any what? Emotions? You'd be surprised.

Kim: I have a security clearance so high, I have to kill myself if I remember I have it – and I'm not allowed past the front gate.

Rommie: Likelihood of survival: Zero… Dammit. OK, time for some lateral thinking: How do I get the nice men with guns out of my way? Got it – make them run.

Rev: In some cultures, it is traditional for those who know they are about to die to express any regrets they may have accumulated in life.

Tyr: Perhaps you'd like to measure me for my coffin, too, Magog? You make my skin crawl! Get away from me!

Rommie: I gave you my best offer. You have 73 seconds to change my mind.

Carter: 73 seconds, huh? That sounds about right.

Tyr: Rescued by a swarmship?

Rev: You see? Not only is there the Divine, he has a twisted sense of humour.

"Una Salus Victus"

"Requested:
One Mark V ECM unit, 1000 km of
Fullerene cable, one low-yield nuclear warhead.

Purpose:
Surprise party for a foreign dignitary."
Argosy Special Operations
requisition form,
CY 9512

Tyr: You're right. This might have been easier had we been able to follow your plan.

Dylan: Damn! That was almost an apology!

Tyr: It was nothing of the sort.

Beka: The Eureka Maru, proudly saving your ass since AFC 291.

Eureka Maru: Warning – specified proximity exceeds safety margin.

Beka: Override safety protocols, authorization code: "Shut up and do what I tell you!"

Eureka Maru: Authorization accepted.

Harper: I've known Beka for nearly five years, OK? She's the only one I know still nuts enough to put up with me on a daily basis.

Tyr: I'd let God sort them out, but someone told me he was dead! (laughs)

Dylan: Yeah, that Nietzsche - what a comedian!

Harper: Yeah, well, I don't feel very lucky. In fact, I feel like a big old can of unluck that's just about to open up on someone.

Parvati Quechua: You're not so bad, as far as kludges go. I have to admit, I like you – I really do.

Beka: Enough not to kill me?

Quechua: Well, no, but I promise to feel bad about it after.

Harper: On my mark – attack pattern Last Act of Freakin' Defiance!

Cuchulain: Until now, all I cared about was Tyr, and what he stole from us. Now I care very much about you.

Dylan: Well, you see, that's what the universe needs more of – people caring for each other. Have a good trip out.

"Home Fires"

With their miniscule families, humans are often forced to rely on a "state" or "nation" for support.
Pity them.

- Than-thre-kull Anthropology Text, approx. CY 7956

Harper: Look, Dylan, if you think Aquaman and the Silver Surfer here are going to help you stop the Magog, you may as well baste yourself with steak sauce now and avoid the rush. (The others look confused.) Aquaman? Silver Surfer? Did you people even go to school? No classical education whatsoever!

Harper: Yeah, sure, that explains everything. No chance that they've been left alone because they're a bunch of cannibals, or killer robots, or…

Trance: Harper!

Harper: What? You're gonna say I'm wrong? C'mon, every single High Guard remnant we've encountered has been psychotic, evil, or both… Present company excluded, of course.

Dylan: Of course.

Tyr: You should never trust any Nietzschean… except me.

Rommie: You know what I really want?

Tyr: An avatar unencumbered by cleavage?

Rommie: A real crew. I used to have 800 Lancers stationed on me.

Beka: Magog scampering? That's too easy.

Harper: Hey, I like gift horses!

Gaheris Rhade: About this "Best Man" job…

Dylan: Uh… yes?

Rhade: Does it always involve drunken bachelor parties and half-naked dancing girls?

Dylan: Pretty much, yeah.

Rhade: In that case, I accept.

"Into the Labyrinth"

"To a god, a wall is but a line on a page. We are all naked, seen beyond seeing."

Wayfinder Hasturi, aka "The Mad Perseid", 217 AFC

Harper: God hates me.

Trance: Don't take it personally.

Charlemagne Bolivar: There are at least three good reasons you shouldn't let the Sabra-Jaguar Pride join your new Commonwealth: We are renowned for our treachery; we are at war with the Drago-Kazov Pride; and we will constantly remind you of your genetic inferiority. Now, here's the upside: We are renowned for our treachery; we are at war with the Drago-Kazov Pride; and, did I mention, we command the third-largest fleet in the known worlds.

Dylan: And, in the case of an emergency, the ship can be piloted from the gunnery nose.

Charlemagne: Emergency? You mean in the event that the Command Deck crew is reduced to a fine red mist and splattered across the walls in a bloody mural?

Dylan: That would qualify, yes.

Höhne: Fascinating! And do such emergencies happen with a degree of frequency, or are they a rare occurrence?

Tyr: What would you like, Jaguar?

Charlemagne: The usual: Hundreds of grandchildren, utter domination of known space, and the pleasure of hearing that all my enemies have died in terrible, highly improbable accidents that cannot be connected to me. And you?

Tyr: [laughing] The usual.

Dylan: So you're saying the Castalians won't budge at all on this.

Beka: I could say that talks with the fish people are floundering, but that would be wrong.

Trance: Y'know, since we've got a little bit of time here, we might as well find a good way to spend it. I know! I've got this really great game. It's called "Harper tells Trance everything, so she can save his miserable life." Would you like to play?

Harper: I hate you.

Trance: You're just saying that.

Trance: Harper, you are my best friend, and because you are my friend, I really need you to listen to me: Do… not… look… at… the archive.

Harper: Y'know, Trance, I liked it better when I thought you were harmless.

Trance: Yeah, me too.

Harper: OK, my little Magog buddies: All good things must come to an end, and, unfortunately, for the bad things, it's pretty much the same deal.

Harper: I'm nobody's pawn. I don't even like chess!

"The Prince"

Absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Which is a problem.

If you are powerless.

- Drago Musevini, "Manifesto", CY 8433

Dylan: This is Captain Dylan Hunt of the Andromeda Ascendant.

[gunfire]

Tyr: Apparently, they've heard of you.

Tyr: I haven't a thing against tyrants per se, but tyrants who lose?

Tyr: My prince, if you rely on people to play by the rules, your reign will be sad, violent, and short.

Erik: Our entire defense fleet…

Dylan: Rommie, how long would it take for you to destroy that fleet?

Rommie: 6.2 seconds.

Dylan: That long?

Dylan: A Glorious Heritage class cruiser – like the Andromeda – could completely depopulate a world – like Ne'Holland – in under two minutes. More tea?

[Rommie uses planetary warfare pods to kill snipers]

Erik: You are just like Tyr !

Rommie: No , I'm better .

"Bunker Hill"

This is the price of freedom:

Your every drop of courage,

ounce of pain,

pint of blood.

Paid in advance.

- Sebastian Lee, "The Rising Tide", AFC 271

Beka: (referring to Elssbett) She didn't salute! Shouldn't she salute?

Dylan: Well, I'm thinking that maybe she went to the Beka Valentine School of Military Discipline.

Harper: Great, "Start the revolution without me!" Anything else I can do for you? Transmute the elements? Reverse entropy? Make you a sandwich?

Tyr: It will take a great deal more than a whispered promise to extract from me any more information than I have provided already. However, [whispers] you are oh so very welcome to try.

Harper: But Dylan always keeps his promises!

Tyr: Dylan has made a great many promises, and he only has one ship.

Beka: Uh, Dylan, now would be the time for one of those crazy, desperate, this-just-might-work ideas.

Dylan: Oh, I've got one, I was just hoping I wouldn't have to use it.

Beka: Note to self: Don't screw up.

"Ouroboros"

Spiral, spin, ride the whirlwind.

Knowing when the drumming stops,

There'll be no second dance.

- Ulatempa Poetess, "Rhythms", CY 9825

Rommie: Harper, are you sure this is wise? You barely understand this technology. If it doesn't work…

Harper: I know, I know… It'll twist me into an abstract painting. [poses] "Harper, Descending Staircase"

Harper: All right, all right, look, the two of you – at least pretend you're not having so much fun, OK? Remember, my life is hangin' by a thread here.

Rekeeb: … An Alice string. [He and Höhne giggle]

Harper: Exactly what I'm talking about – science jokes!

Beka: Umm… I'm… sensing freakiness.

Tyr: All right, we need a plan. [to Höhne] You! Come up with one! Now!

Harper: I don't believe in destiny. I don't even believe in density, except in the heads of Perseids – it's a compliment – I believe in Seamus Zelazny Harper. I cogito, therefore I sum, and I sum to cogito that damn machine right out of existence. Capice?

Rekeeb: Your human tendency towards violence…

Harper: …pales in comparison to my human tendency not to give up!

Beka: Trance! You will never guess who I just met!

Trance: A scary futuristic version of yourself? She went that way.

"Lava and Rockets"

You can't outrun Death forever,

But you can make the bastard work for it.

- Major Korgo Korgar, "Last of the Lancers", AFC 32

Beka: Been there, done that, bought the T-shirt.

Rommie: Ooh, that explains your wardrobe!

Beka: Don't even start with me. I've seen what's in your closet.

Rommie: I would like just one day where I can build missiles and tweak fire control in peace.

Beka: We definitely need to find you a hobby.

Rommie: That is my hobby!

Ferahr: It wasn't me, I swear!

Dylan: It wasn't you who did what?

Ferahr: What do you mean?

Dylan: I haven't even told you why I'm angry!

Ferahr: Then why…?

Dylan: Ogami mercenaries. Big, mean, and ugly. Who sent them?

Ferahr: Uh… lemme think… uh, I know… It wasn't me, I swear!

Rommie: I can pick up galvanic skin responses and respiration changes. I can also analyze pupil dilations in real time, which makes me a walking lie detector. So, tell me the truth, or I'll turn the bones of your hand into calcified gelatin.

Ferahr: Absolutely! Absolutely!

Rommie: What do you know? He's not lying.

Molly: I haven't lost any [passengers] yet.

Dylan: I thought I was your first customer.

Molly: Good point.

Molly: Have you got a Plan B?

Dylan: I always have a Plan B… come to think of it, you were Plan B.

Ferahr: Im not lying!

Tyr: And I'm the reincarnation of Drago Museveni.

Ferahr: With that hair?

"Be All My Sins Remembered"

I trust fast poison

The stars to wink out

And you, my love - and you.

- Lyric from "The Void", by Minstrel d'Becevex, CY 7956

Tyr: This warship – her capabilities – it makes us complacent. We may have to engage the enemy using nothing but our teeth and nails. (Beka bites him.) Ow!

Dylan: [on screen] Tyr, you've got command. I know you'll display the appropriate sensitivity and diplomacy in dealing with the Chichin. [Tyr hangs up, and Rommie re-opens the channel] And, Tyr – don't break my ship.

Harper: You flew us into a minefield?

Beka: Well, it wasn't supposed to be there, was it? So, mea very culpa.

Harper: [the Maru shakes] Is that normal?

Beka: Missile to the aft cargo pot, by the feel of it. What's the matter, no one ever shoot at you before?

Harper: Yeah, but I've never been shot in the aft.

Beka: Did you do it? Is it going to work?

Harper: Is my name Seamus Zelazny Harper?

Beka: God, I hope not!

Beka: I don't "do causes," Bobby.

Bobby: No, Beka, everyone "does causes." The only question is: Will you pick yours, or will it pick you?

Rommie: Perhaps you would prefer that I de-materialize Dylan's body from the Maru and magically re-materialize it here, on Command?

"Dance of the Mayflies"

Blink and it's gone

A moment, a breath

A Dance of the Mayflies

Just enough... For a lifetime.

- Ulatempa Poetess, "Rhythms", CY 9825

Harper: Oh, boy, unseen enemy. There's nothing worse… unless it's an angry unseen enemy.

Dylan: Until Rommie and Trance figure out how these bio-weapons spread, I want you out of harm's way.

Harper: All right, I know that used to be my favourite place, but…

Dylan: No "buts", go!

Harper: Yes, sir. Bravely running away, sir.

Harper: Sensors – trashed. AP circuits – trashed. EM lens – trashed. Rommie, it's a good thing I love trashy ladies, or I'd be tempted to trade you in for a new model. Maybe a supermodel!

Andromeda: [hologram] Dylan, I'm not reading any pulses or brainwaves from the corpses of the plague victims, and their bodies register at room temperature.

Tyr: Well, that would make sense – they're corpses.

Andromeda: [on-screen] Yes. The trouble is, they're walking around the ship trying to kill you!

Tyr: [to Dylan] You're surprised? That's what you get for incessantly trying to help!

Dylan: The ungreatful dead!

Dylan: Rommie, activate internal defenses

Tyr: since they're dead?

Dylan: there's no harm in killing them again!

[The internal defenses activate, apparently killing the walking corpses. The corpses reanimate.]

Tyr: It's not so easy to kill dead people!

Dylan: Trance, are you dead or alive?

Trance: Yes.

Dylan: Crystal clear, as usual.

"In Heaven Now Are Three"

The true quarry of any great adventurer is the undiscovered territory of their own soul.

Lady Aenea Makros, "The Metaphysics of Motion", CY 6416

Trance: She can't tell you.

Beka: Why? Why can't I tell him?

Trance: Because if you tell him, Tyr will die.

Tyr: Then, by all means, leave me in suspense.

Dylan: The Engine of Creation is a myth. It's like the Holy Grail of ancient Earth, or the Wyvern's Hoards of Gehenna Mortis.

Beka: Or a restored Commonwealth.

Dylan: [laughs, insincerely] That's not funny.

Beka: He never came back.

Dylan: But you have a different plan?

Beka: My plan is to come back.

Dylan: That's a good plan.

Dylan: It's my military upbringing: Strictly by the book. Sometimes, it's my own private book, of course.

Dylan: They're not butchers, just very strange lovers.

Beka: Yeah, he's totally controlling, and she's this sexy, shoot-from-the-hip kinda gal. What could they possibly have in common?

Dylan: Well, Harper always says that opposites attract.

Beka: That's just his excuse to meet women. Everyone's the opposite of Harper.

Trance: It's cyanide.

Dylan: That stuff's not good for you.

Beka: I can't manipulate you like I can manipulate Tyr.

Dylan: Yeah, well, I think Tyr might have something to say about that.

"The Things We Cannot Change"

Home is the sailor, home from the sea

And the hunter home from the hill

- Fragment of Ancient Earth Text, c. CY 6800

Tyr: It's like scanning mud.

Rommie: No, it's not – mud I can see through, gamma radiation I can't.

Tyr: Unfortunately, I don't always share the little professor's unswerving confidence in his own engineering ability.

Beka: [to Tyr] So, all these dangerous, macho things you do – it's to impress the chicks?

Harper: We played hide and go teleport with one of Trance's fish in hydroponics.

Beka: And?

Trance: Tuna tartare.

Beka: If you're doing all this to impress the chicks, Tyr (kisses his faceplate) – I'm impressed!

"Fair Unknown"

To venture in the fair unknown

I must enter as I leave:

A traveller, alone.

-- Anonymous, CY 1917

Harper: These hands have been touched by God – not to mention a few other things.

Beka: Trust you to find the cloud around the silver lining. It's called "faith", Tyr – have some.

Dylan: How long has the Vedran been here?

Maia: Since the fall.

Trance: The Fall of the Commonwealth?

Maia: Since the autumn, nine months ago.

Tyr: You could have told me.

Beka: What, and ruin the surprise?

Tyr: You're picking up some very unamusing habits from Dylan, do you know that?

Beka: We sure stirred up the hornets' nest this time.

Tyr: True, but now there are fewer hornets.

Harper: Look, betting my life savings on a game of Yesheedono is a chance I'm willing to take – except against Trance. However, accidentally setting off a nova bomb … isn't.

"Belly of the Beast"

Beneath knowing, understanding

Beneath understanding, seeing

Beneath seeing, recognizing

Beneath recognizing, knowing

-- Keeper of the Way, Vision of Faith, CY 10003

Dylan: How do we get people to stop believing in a myth they've believed in for centuries?

Trance: By getting them to believe in that other myth.

Dylan: What's that?

Trance: The one about the High Guard captain flying around the universe, making allies, restoring the Commonwealth.

Dylan: Oh, I don't think they'll ever believe in that one.

Dylan: Anyone can have their cake, and then eat it. The real trick is eating your cake, and still having it. It's a common mistake.

Trance: We did. You could even say we had our cake outside of the box and ate it too.

Tyr: I have faith in nothing but this: when the Universe collapses and dies, there will be three survivors. Tyr Anasazi, the cockroaches, and Dylan Hunt - trying to save the cockroaches.

Tyr: I once told Dylan that his mission to restore the Commonwealth is nothing more than an excuse to shape the Universe according to his will. It is. But, in the past two years, for reasons I cannot begin to understand, perhaps I have come to... prefer that shape?

Harper: Right now, your sensors say a lot of things, but they're blinded and confused – like a lot of my dates.

Tyr: We know – Your willingness to defy the universal odds is a disease that, apparently, we have all contracted.

Trance: Are we still outside the box?

Dylan: Trance, we're so far outside the box, we can't even see the box.

"Knight, Death, and the Devil"

"A soldier's first battlefield is always his own mind."
-- Admiral Constanza Stark, CY 9762

Rommie: Well, Tyr, if I ate food, you'd be wearing it right now.

Tyr: Lovely imagery – and they say AIs have no poetry in their souls.

Rommie: No, no poetry, but we're hell on wheels with a dirty limerick. Wanna hear one? "There once was a man from Nan…"

Harper: Like father, like simulacrum. And it's so easy, even a child could do it – a child with an IQ of 187, but a child nonetheless.

Tyr: The AIs are machines – they should do as they're told, or be discarded as defective.

Rommie: They're not machines, Tyr, they're sentient beings, soldiers.

Tyr: Then perhaps Milla has a point. Perhaps the Commonwealth did treat their AIs as slaves. But you would know better than I.

Dylan: You didn't find faith, Ryan. Faith found you.

Dylan: I can't take the risk that you'll fall apart under pressure.

Tyr: That would be a mistake. This fellow has already taken it upon himself to perform a dangerous task – not because he was commanded, but because it needed to be done. And, in the end, that's the only test that matters – the test of will… You're a machine. I can't believe I just said that.

"Immaculate Perception"

The soul of the Nietzscheans is this:

We are arrogant. We are vain.

We are manipulative. We are selfish.

And we love our children.

-- Drago Musevini, "Primary Reflections", CY 8428

Dylan: So, if the Genite attacks are fake, then Tyr is working with the Drago-Kazovs? Nah, I don't buy it.

Beka: But you buy the "warm and fuzzy" Tyr, concerned for his fellow Nietzscheans?

Dylan: No, I didn't say that.

Harper: In a fair fight with them, we'd be fried.

Dylan: Well, then, we'll have to make sure we don't fight fair.

"Tunnel at the End of the Light" (Season Finale)

Welcome twilight

Welcome blackness

Welcome inky night

Only in darkness

Can I see your soul

-- "Lost Verses of Krrendar", CY 9542

Andromeda: Critical systems failure in machine shop 17.

Harper: Thanks, I'm aware of that. How about critical systems repair to machine shop 17?

Harper: I'm diplomacy-challenged! I make fish angry!

Trance: [after hitting an alien ship] Yeah, that's it, baby! Scared money walks, sweet sugar action talks! … I heard that one in a casino once.

Dylan: There's only one way to fight a superior opponent.

Zhukov: Well, that I wouldn't know – I've never fought a superior opponent.

Tyr: Remember my admonition about becoming complacent? About forgetting what it means to test our will against the universe? Well, now we have two!

Third Season

The universe is a dangerous place. But in our future my crew and I fight to make it safe. I am Dylan Hunt, captain of the Andromeda Ascendant and these are our adventures. - Introductory Sequence, narrated by Dylan

"If the Wheel is Fixed" (Season Premiere)

The fearful sit

In a clutch with their worries,

Whilst one man alone

Faces the Furies.

Songs of Loren

CY 4557

Trance: It's an invitation. Whatever it is it wants to play, to fight, or make love with us.

Dylan: RSVP.

Dylan: Anything we can do manually we will do manually.

Harper: Eh, kinda like dating a cyborg.

Harper: Nice move, boss, the old slingshot maneuver. Plus a little luck.

Dylan: Well, sometimes I think luck is just another word for "fate."

Harper: Yeah, well, I'm feeling particularly fatalistic right now.

Dylan: Why is it we look for luck every time we're in danger?

Harper: Because that's when we need it most.

Dylan: Well, the thing about luck is... the balance changes.

Trance: What about fate?

Dylan: Fate is a hunter.

Dylan: It's time for the three V's - visualize, verify, and get very very pissed off.

Harper: It's one thing to do a work of genius. But to reverse it, that... is Harper genius!

"The Shards of Rimni"

The loyal heart

Has hidden treasures.

In secrets kept,

In silence sealed.

Commander Sing Bex,

"The Art of Secrets".

Approx. CY 2575

Rommie: Dylan, you've got mail.

Harper: [test-riding a hoverboard] Wooahooh! I can feel the wind in my hair and the splatter of bugs on my teeth now! Woohoo! Look out sandy chicks, here I come! Oh yeah, baby.

Harper: [still on hoverboard] Hey, for once in my life I'm as tall as Tyr! Hahaha! Hey, shorty! This is beautiful! Hey, Dylan, how's the weather down there?

Harper: Wait a minute, how come I get to go for a change?

Dylan: Because I want you with me.

Harper: This is something shady, isn't it?

Harper: [realizing where they're going] Fellenhoff?! More like, fell in hell and fell in a hand-basket... Still, I see this as opportunity to hone my skills, stay mentally fit, share our similar viewpoints, and achieve something of quality in our time together.

Dylan: Yeah, well, fun. I'd like to leave today.

Harper: [on approach to Fellenhoff] Fellenhoff Drift! What a hole.

Harper: Well, now we can add "escaped cons" to the "Galaxy's Most Wanted Gangs" list.

Dylan: Well, at least we've got people talking about us.

Harper: Yeah, when all is said and done we'll have to go back and thank that jailor. Buy him a beer or somethin'.

Harper: Aww, frigates. Three of 'em!

Harper: Why do shady people always live in shady places?

Abelard Well, take my shard, and my life, if you must. I'd do the same thing. Either way, I was getting bored sitting and waiting. Now, boredom... there's a killer.

Harper: Oh, yeah, the universe is so unkind to scumbags.

Abelard: Does this have to be dressed up in such high drama? No wonder the theatre's dead!

Harper: You haven't met Tyr.

Harper: [repeating a common misquotation of John Milton] They also serve, those who stand and wait.

Rommie: The Commonwealth is still hailing us, and they're mad. They say this is the last warning.

Tyr: That's what they said five "last warnings" ago.

Beka: They're waiting for authorization. God bless bureaucracy!

Abelard: Boredom. There's always boredom. Even if you don't know how to find the end. But, for a while there, I thought I was going to die.

Harper: [speaking of a mythical vase] I mean, when I was little, my mom told me that it was so powerful that nobody could be trusted with it, not even Vedrans. Weren't you at least a little tempted to put it together and see what it did?

Dylan: [wording from Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice] Well, there's something else that my mom taught me. "All that glitters is not gold."

Harper: So, uh, the vase. It doesn't do a thing, does it? It's worthless.

Dylan: It's a symbol. Zeus and Abelard believed that it would bring them power. But to me, it represents the highest confidence in faith that we all put in the Commonwealth.

Harper: Well that's good. Cuz, three people murdered, one in jail collecting dust, and another one on the run with his gun in the sun for all eternity. A lot of time and energy wasted and all for a worthless hunk 'a glass... It is worthless... right?

Dylan: Did I say it was worthless? No. It's priceless. And isn't that the value of all dreams?

"Mad To Be Saved"

The Rabid Dogs of Gallaphron

Can be trained to drool

At the ring of a bell.

Doesn't stop them from biting.

Karlos El Greeta-Stirra,

"Reflections of Rim-Salt", CY 4389

Dylan: [after restoring oxygen levels] Well, it looks like we can all breath easier.

Dylan: [looking at people gobbling food] Your friends seem to be in a bit of a hurry.

Angelika: Freedom tastes good.

Angelika: Once you've lived an extended period of doing without, you never take having for granted. Once you've crawled on your stomach for what seemed like days silting for water, once you've lived with so much pain... You get to close to death, you get focused on what you want. Come on, Dylan. When's the last time you lived without?

Dylan: Well, I uh... I had 303 years once, frozen in a black hole, doing without life or food.

Angelika: You have any other clothes I could wear? Dirty fluorescent jumpsuits are so last year.

Oderic: You know, if you weren't so intensely self-absorbed, you'd realize that all of life is a balance between the emptiness of eternity and the need to make art to remind ourselves we were here.

Tyr: I had an epiphany like that once. Then I mercilessly beat someone until it went away.

Harper: [holding his bleeding nose, while seeing Angelika walk out of Dylan's shower, a possible anime reference] Oh, I'm sorry, my timing's a little off today. You, uh, take a knock in the nose you get a little scrambled eggs, you know I mean?

Dylan: [sarcastically] Oh well you know me with percentages, Rommie. I like to take a big gamble every day because I might be walking around lucky and not even know it.

"Cui Bono"

You're never more alive

than the first time

someone puts a gun

to your favorite head

and asks you to dance.

Major Korgo Korgar,

"Last of the Lancers", AFC 32

Beka: I think that somebody should tell these guys that it is rude to ransom other people's mail for cash… and I think it should be us.

Rommie: Captain, the courier has relayed an official communique addressed to you. It's from CINC High Guard and it's marked priority.

Dylan: [shrugging] It's always priority.

Tyr: Sometimes the situation requires that we hold the hand of our enemy. The difficult part is not letting them see you while you use the other hand to draw the knife.

Dylan: If this is rekindling the light of civilization, I miss the dark ages.

Sid: I guess I should have been shot in the head years ago.

Dylan: That's funny, 'cause that's what Beka says.

Dylan: We're going to be walking into an ambush.

Tyr: That's why I always assume I'm walking into an ambush – prevents unpleasant surprises.

Beka: Dylan, no! Head wounds are so messy – shoot him in the chest.

Dylan: If the Commonwealth we built is worth anything, we have to trust it to do what's right. We have to have faith in somebody other than us.

Beka: And if that faith is misplaced?

Dylan: Well, then we have bigger problems than your Uncle Sid.

"The Lone and Level Sands"

"More than a mere ship of exploration,

the Bellerophon embodied humanity's last,

great effort to take the universe

through our will alone."

Dr. Paul Musevni, father of Drago

Musevni, A Farther Shore, CY 8401

Beka: Okay, so the Maru arrived early, taggled with some unidentified bad guys which begs the question...

Trance: Where's Dylan? Where's our crew?

Beka: ... where's my ship.

Harper: The Bellerophon, huh? Very nice! Her mission was to gather knowledge of life and civilization to go farther and deeper into space than anyone had ever gone before, and bring that cargo back home to Earth, baby!

Captain Metis: Captain Hunt, the next time I order you to stay behind, you tell me to go to hell.

Dylan: Noted.

Kemp: [on the Maru] Your ship is... interesting.

Harper: If that's a polite way of saying she's a heap 'a junk, you're right, she's a heap 'a junk. But! She's a heap 'a junk close to my heart.

Harper: Hell, you might even see Earth someday.

Kemp: Man, we've been out here so long, I've almost forgotten what it looks like.

Harper: Yeah, you can't miss it. It's ah, you know it, big... blue... kinda hits ya. Jersey smells funny.

Captain Metis: It's amazing that you're still sane.

Dylan Well, that's what the voices inside my head keep telling me.

Captain Metis: [to Dylan] You and I are cut from the same silk cloth. Men like you and me have a mission, a purpose, to lead, a chance to be great. Without them we'd be little more than madmen.

Kemp: So you're from Boston, huh?

Harper: Yep! Born and barely raised!

Kemp: Yeah, I was in Boston the night before we set off on this mission... a baseball game at Fenway Park.

Harper: A baseball game, huh? Fenway Park… The last time I was at Fenway Park, I watched the Drago-Kazov crucify a guy in the cheap seats.

Harper: It's not as if we can install the slip drive in the Bellerophon. That'd be like strapping a solid-fuel rocket to a donkey. Pffft! [laughs]

Dylan: Tell you what, Rommie - after we finally finish building our castle, and all the dragons have been slain, why don't we point out the farthest star, and see what's out there? Just you and me.

Rommie: You've got a deal.

Dylan: ... Good.

"Slipfighter the Dogs of War"

The moth wants a star

The night wants tomorrow

The King wants what's far

Outside his sphere of sorrow

Tales of Queen Kysella, CY 5647

Trance: Even a small light dispels the darkness. Shine on, Mezmer. Time has come to say, "hello and goodbye."

Beka: You know, ever since we reestablished the Commonwealth, I've been wondering; is it really necessary that we risk life and limb every time somebody gets in trouble?

Rommie: We're the good guys, Beka. We fight the bad guys.

Harper: Trance, no offense, but I think we all remember what happened the last time you tried to pilot the slipstream. You took us back 300 years in time, into the middle of a humungous space battle where we, uh, fixed the course of history…

Trance: Lucky for us!

Dylan: [to Trance, in combat] Any words of wisdom?

Trance: Um, always be nice to your parents.

Dylan: Sound advice.

"The Leper's Kiss"

Walk without footprints.

Breathe without breath.

Our lives leave no trace.

-- Motto of the Assassins' Guild, CY 3455

Gunyan: [after trapping Dylan] To think you founded a Commonwealth with such a bad sense of direction.

Dylan: Wait, Gunyan – I know a way you can get people to really fear you!

Gunyan: I bet you've got 1001 nights' worth of ideas while you buy time.

Sascha: I know what you're thinking – Blood is thicker than water.

Dylan: It's also a lot tougher to clean up.

"For Whom the Bell Tolls"

To the question of life after death: Not whether such a thing exists, but... What manner of life?

-- "A Wayist Practicum", Reverend Bem, CY 10090

Beka: Good news for you, Harper – it doesn't eat humans.

Harper: Yeah, too bad it doesn't eat Nietzscheans!

Rommie: … We need to catch one if we want to classify it.

Dylan: I don't want to classify it, unless we classify it as dead, and off my ship.

Rommie: Dylan, are you worried that the anti-oxidation containment field around the Maru might be disintegrating?

Dylan: Well, I am now.

Rommie: Good thing, 'cause it is.

"And Your Heart Will Fly Away"

She wounds you as a rose will wound you --

Not with her thorn.

A rose will always wound you with her beauty.

- Harry Martinson, CY 6862

Harper: I only need 20 more minutes.

Dylan: You said that 20 minutes ago.

Harper: Yeah, but that was before I knew I really only needed 20 more minutes.

Bartolome Naz: She was brilliant, she was witty, she was sensuous, she was the love of my life – until she wasn't.

Harper: Hey, she's supposed to be desirable, not deadly… Not that there's necessarily a difference.

Trance: How was your trip to Elba 9?

Beka: Stupid.

Bartolome Naz: You owe me a death!

Tyr: Suppose I let you live, and we call it even?

Tyr: The sky is falling.

"The Unconquerable Man"

"It matters little how we die, so long as we die better men than we imagined we could be -- and no worse than we feared." -- Drago Musevini CY 8451

Dylan: Strange...

Harper: What? Us standing here over a dead Nietzschean on ice? Yeah, it's kinda strange, but it's also kinda nice, isn't it?

Harper: [to Rhade] You give me a corpse from down in deep freeze, and I give you a worthy Go partner, with all the knowledge and memories I could dig up or extrapolate... You're kinda creepy, you know that?

Rhade: Our people were meant to be living gods, warrior-poets who roamed the stars bringing civilization, not cowards and bullies who prey on the weak and kill each other for sport. I never imagined they'd prove themselves so inferior. I didn't betray our people – they betrayed themselves.

Rhade: You can lead a Nightsider to water, but you can't make him spawn.

Rhade: [to Beka] I don't suppose you have any witty, but only marginally helpful, bon-mots to offer?

Beka: No. I wish I did.

Rhade: History will judge me a traitor for what I am about to do, but if he fails, if Dylan fails, imagine how they'll judge him.

Trance: With silence.

Harper: Good intentions… Hell… You draw the map.

"Delenda Est"

What clings to a wall,

But travels all the world?

- Unsolvable riddle of Ski, Patriarch of Jill. CY 1111

Dylan: Dammit, Rommie, why did Harper have to make you so stubborn?

Beka: There should be no obstructions in the way of your route… and if you buy that, I've got a drift to sell you in the Euchre system, where jade grows like weeds.

Dylan: Beka, reverse full!

Beka: Running away – I can live with that.

Harper: In fact, I can't live without that!

"The Dark Backward"

You might say reality is the result of complex negotiations between the observer and the observed. But that is simply a point of view.
-- Michio von Kerr, "The Apotheosis of Reason", CY 11542

Beka: [to Rommie] OK, smarty-chips…

Beka: We're not dead!

Rommie: Don't be so surprised.

Dylan: Beka … I'm about to eject the Exotic Matter Pulser.

Beka: What's that? You say you've gone totally nuts?

"The Risk-All Point"

"The universe is bound in equal parts by arrogance and altruism. Any attempt to alter this would be suicide."
-- Dr. Walter Giles, "The Value of Value", CY 11543

Genghis: Who are you?

Tyr: Very possibly the last face you'll ever see in life. Now tell me who sabotaged that ship.

Beka: Nietzschean first officers have been known to betray Captains.

Errin: Beka Valentine, you are an excellent pilot. If I didn't know any better, I'd mistake you for a Nietzschean.

Beka: Thanks... I think!

Errin: As an officer, I stare into the abyss with pride. I don't jump into it.

"The Right Horse"

"Any fool can be honest,

for it is only what he knows.

A wise man is aware of

when to share the truth."

Vedran Empress Yoweri XXIII

CY 2932

Harper: Love is just a bunch of exaggerating and lies, all dolled up in pseudo-poetic language (uttered preferably while intoxicated) and all for the singular universal purpose of… uh, you know.

Trance: [laughing] Harper, you're a born romantic!

Harper: [hesitantly] Sometimes there are flowers?

Abel Ladron: You should know that the universe is not, by nature, an equitable distributor of good health and good fortune.

Harper: And I suppose it is your duty to give the gift of redistribution?

Abel: You must be the engineer.

Harper: Why? Because I'm the short guy with the sense of humour, the wry wit? Huh? Because I'm so freakin' amiable with the careless demeanor? Is that it?

Abel: Well, that – and the tools.

Harper: It always boils down to genetics for you, huh, Anasazi?

Tyr: My silly child, that's what we all boil down to.

Harper: I guess that's why they call space a vacuum

Rommie: No. They call space a vacuum because-

Rommie and Tyr: -space is a vacuum.

Harper: Lyra? Wow, what a beautiful name. Did you know in Greek, "lyra" means "harp", and nobody plays the harp better... than the Harper.

Harper: Wait a minute, that can't be right… but then that would mean that I, boy genius, am wrong.

Rommie: Harper?

Harper: Yes, O glorious creation of mine with the world's crappiest timing?

Abel: Please tell me that you always looked at me as a friend and not as a father figure, because that would make this wrong on so many levels.

Beka: Father figure? No, more like a sexy older brother… Sexy older brother of a friend, which makes this not wrong at all.

Beka: Whoever said 'it's hard to chart a course for your future when your past and present keep colliding' sure knew what they were talking about.

Tyr: Let the boy do his job...

Harper: If the plan is anything like 'run like hell', I can name that tune in three notes or less.

Dylan: Sometimes intentions are beside the point, especially when the potential for disaster is on a scale of this magnitude.

Beka: Are we talking about the Commonwealth, or my personal life?

Harper: It may seem like a miracle. And it is! The miracle of Seamus Harper, with some 'Abel' assistance.

Abel: More importantly, I'm free to love Beka Valentine.

Beka slaps him:

Harper: Don't take it personally, pal, that's how she loves everybody. Now, usually, at this point, I beg for mercy. But if I were you, I'd run like hell.

Dylan: Mr. Harper, I think maybe you and I should run like hell.

"What Happens to a Rev Deferred?"

Are you a monster?

Are you a freak?

Will you be my friend!

Or have you lost your way.

With trouble to pay,

When you come to your journey's end?

Empyrium Lullaby, CY 8745

Trance: Harper, when has arguing ever helped the situation?

Harper: Arguing? Not very often, but whining… [to Dylan] Please?

Dylan: Count of three?

Tyr: No, let's just shoot them.

Rev: Tyr, have you ever wished that all your yearning for power and empire would just be silent for a moment? Have you ever wished this? A moment of peace?

Tyr: I am at peace. That's what bothers me.

Rommie: Trance, miracles are just extraordinary phenomena with a scientific explanation.

Harper: See?

Trance: Well, for those who don't believe, no explanation is possible. For those who do, no explanation is necessary.

"Point of the Spear"

"I've always found a fully deployed

battle group to be the most

effective negotiator."

Admiral Constanza Stark,

High Guard Chief-of-Staff,

CY 9758

Dylan: It's all about the fight. The light against the dark, good against evil. Some people hide from it. Some run away.

Trance: Some live with it in fear. Some find solace in knowing they've done everything they can.

Dylan: Some stay and fight. I fight to win.

Tyr: Nausea? Trance, you don't have a stomach.

Tyr: The universe is a beautiful place, full of wonders. And it wants to kill you.

"Vault of the Heavens"

"I can no more endure to view;

Wondrous sight of so celestial hue."

- Final diary entry of Capt. Oswald Pierce,

CY 1116

Regarding his only love.

Dylan: [After being woken up by an explosion] Andromeda, what's going on?

Andromeda: Fusion from the core is beginning to spill over into the accelerator tanks. Harper is in Command with Trance.

Dylan: [groaning] Alright, cancel the monthly ship diagnostic and report. [mutters] Harper, it's a simple night shift.

Andromeda: Containing spillover in the accelerator tanks... Harper, what were you thinking, racing me?!

Aggio: What are you trying to pull, child?

Harper: That's stallion to you.

Dylan: It's a voice, a woman's voice.

Harper: She sound hot?

Dylan: Who else is curious about this voice?

Trance: I'm always curious when I hear voices.

Harper: Finally I'm not the only one with voices in my head, heheh. [Dylan gives him a look] Sorry.

Dylan: Alright, we'll vote. All of those against?

[Harper, Beka, Tyr, Trance, and Rommie all raise their hands against. Dylan glares at Rommie, who reluctantly lowers hers.]

Dylan:All of those for?

[Dylan raises his hand, and pointedly looks at Rommie. She slowly raises her hand. The vote is 4:2 against.]

Dylan: [ignoring the vote] I love democracy!

Dylan: You heard it.

Beka: Heard what?

Dylan: The woman's voice, you know, the whisper.

Beka: No...

Dylan: Tyr, you have command. We are going to go and find out what's inside that moon and *who* is inside my head. I know you heard it.

Beka: I don't know if I'm getting the chills 'cause I'm shivering or if I'm shivering because I'm getting the chills.

Dylan: Mythology? It's all Greek to me. [a reference to Kevin Sorbo's role as the title character in Hercules]

Harper: I spy with my little eye something that is-

Trance: White ice?

Beka: Freeze!

Rommie: Don't move!

Trance: Stay right there!

Harper: Oh my God, you're hot! [holsters gun] Harper, Seamus Harper, nice to-

Beka: Seamus!

Harper: [reluctantly pulls gun again] What they said.

Aggio: What are you, crazy? We're all gonna die!

Dylan: Eventually. But not today.

Dylan: Harper, this isn't science. It's a miracle.

"Deep Midnight's Voice"

"The universe is perfect.

You cannot improve it.

If you try to change it,

you will ruin it.

If you try to hold it,

you will lose it."

Notes to Odo Chan,

CY 9191

Gaiton: He who maps it, owns it.

Rommie: It is good to be smart.

Harper: Not to mention hot.

Harper: I wonder if they still think they're alone in the universe.

Dylan: If they do... then they are very, very lucky.

Rommie: If they're such an immature society, why don't we simply reprogram them?

Beka: Reprogram them?

Rommie: Yes, within minutes I could update their technology by at least a thousand years.

Dylan: [alluding to Adam Smith] Yeah, uh huh, I'm afraid that would be a bit overwhelming. It's a little hard to upgrade their hearts or their minds. Unfortunately that takes time and the guidance of an invisible hand.

Beka: Guidance? Dylan, you make them sound like children.

Dylan: Well they are children. [Beka looks at him] For the most part they have no idea how dangerous the universe is.

Beka: Then it's the universe that needs to be reprogrammed.

Dylan: Why chase a myth when there's still so much to learn about our own world?

Tori: Well, look up there. [at the sky] Isn't the best way to learn about our world understanding its place in the universe? We have no idea whether we're alone or part of something too... remarkable and vast to even imagine.

Dylan: Maybe we are alone. We still haven't proven that there's life out there.

Tori: I don't need a mathematician to tell me the universe is designed for life.

Semel: And that's where Tori and I part company. She's a hopeless romantic believing this myth that we "sprang from aliens." I rely on what's known.

Beka: [with affection] That we're alone?

Semel: That we have each other. That's my sense of hopeless romance.

Tyr: [to Gaiton] I am so very sick of you and every Nietzschean like you. I'm sick of your rancid stink of failure and inferiority. I'm sick of your souls that have grown so stale.

Gaiton: It is only a mask to hide a sweeter purpose.

Gaiton: Oh to be all powerful, traveling slipstream in total confidence, no fear of disaster or detection. Remarkable, our people created this. The detail and beauty.. it's science, art, and poetry unified. Our people created this. And yet I can't even recognize myself.

Tyr: There you are. There you are, reflected in the mind of Drago Musevni.

Gaiton: How could I have convinced myself... how could I have let them convince me that he was just some rich old man?

Tyr: He was a poet... a scholar, a magnificent warrior. He was a living god.

Gaiton: What happened to us?

Tyr: Time happened to us. Time changed the universe! But, Gaiton, if the ancestors could do that, you and I... we can change the universe again, if we will it.

[the two characters celebrate and affirm the will to power]

Dylan: There's an old saying. "The universe is perfect. Interfere with it at your peril." I think it's better, if we wait until it reveals itself to us. And after that, adjust accordingly.

Gaiton: Are you Neitzschean?

Tyr: Are you an idiot?

"The Illusion of Majesty"

"We all wear the twin masks of emotion,

Happy or sad, haunted or hunted,

You choose the mask, you choose the risk.

You choose your own poison."

Last words of Plethe the Pirate CY 3902

Tyr: They are a confederacy of idiots awash in a garbage system. They even shoot lethal garbage at each other, that's what hit us, that's all they have.

Tyr: You're searching for water, while you're drowning in the depth of the sea. Your only love is enlightenment. Love, desire, enlightenment, revenge... these are not emotions, simply traps to ensnare your will.

Monk: We have long ago learned to overcome our emotions.

Tyr: But the will to overcome an emotion, is merely the will for some other emotion to triumph.

Monk: What does this mean?!

Tyr: Uh.. enlightenment... is not found in spiritual leaders or in [shrugs] meditation. Take care of your followers. Enlightenment will find you.

Monk: [bows awestruck, and leaves with his brethren]

Tyr: Anything to be rid of these clowns.

Harper: I gotta hand it to ya, boss. Nice performance. You out-conned a con-artist. You played the love-struck captain, the zealous defender of her honor, even the betrayed friend, and still... you completely fooled her.

Dylan: I only tricked her. I didn't fool either one of us.

"Twilight of the Idols"

"Gentlebeings, I bid you welcome.

Welcome to the blood, to the sweat,

to the tears.

Welcome to your places on the wall."

Admiral Constanza Stark,

"Address to War College Graduates,"

CY 9764

Dylan: You're telling me your name is Constantine Stark.

Stark: [nods slightly] My troops refer to me as the Patriarch.

Dylan: Your troops, the Templars, a guerilla army founded after the fall of the Commonwealth.

Stark: Founded by an ancestor of mine, an Admiral Constanza Stark. You knew her, didn't you?

Stark: In short, Captain, [we've been] fighting the battles others can't.

Dylan: It's funny. That's usually my line.

Stark: Yes, great minds, Captain Hunt. Great minds.

Dylan: "The choice is yours."

Rommie: So, is it the man's presumption that bothers you or the fact that he sounds like you?

Dylan: I'll let you in on a little secret. Those aphorisms I like to use? "The choice is yours," for example. I learned them all from Admiral Stark.

Dylan: Admiral Stark always said, "if your mother says she loves you, verify it."

Dylan: You know a lot about Tyr.

Stark: Sun Tzu - "Know thine enemy as completely as you know yourself and you will always be victorious."

Dylan: "That's my girl."

Rommie: "I prefer warship."

Dylan: "I prefer girl."

[Rommie shoots and kills a Genite with a shot to the head before Dylan can react to his presence]

Dylan: "Okay. Warship."

Stark: [to Rommie] You're an android, right? [holds out his hand] Tell me if I'm lying.

[After hesitating, Rommie takes his hand]

Stark: I am Admiral Constanza Stark.

Rommie: Well, you're either telling the truth or you're a sociopath.

Genite Commander: Intruding vessel, stand down and prepare to be boarded. You have 15 seconds to comply [breaks connection]

Tyr: Ship, how many missiles can we fire in 15 seconds?

Andromeda (Monitor): Approximately three-thousand six-hundred.

Tyr: Communicate our desire to comply.

Secretary of War: I wish I knew how to advise you, Captain. But, like I said, the Templars have friends. Invite them to the dance and we could wind up in a major Charlie Foxtrot.

[Although "charlie foxtrot" in this context sounds like a kind of music or dance, the use here is ironic. Its real etymology stems from the NATO phonetic alphabet].

Andomeda (Monitor): We have arrived in Heimdall. I’m detecting several Genite scouts within our combat radius.

Tyr: Still licking their wounds, no doubt.

Beka: No doubt. And I’m more than happy to dump a little salt on them. Andromeda, offensive missiles, all tubes, full load out.

Andomeda (Monitor): Offensive missiles are approaching the Genite formation.

Beka: Have they seen us yet?

Andomeda (Monitor): That is uncertain.

Tyr: The suspense is killing me.

Beka: Oh, it’s not the suspense that’s gunna kill us.

Harper: Yeah, well, the suspense already owes me a fresh pair of shorts.

Andomeda (Monitor): The Genites have detected us. They’re firing.

Beka: Defensive missiles; PDLs on standby!

Andomeda (Monitor): Incoming hail from the Genites.

Genite Commander: You clearly didn’t get the message the last time. I’m afraid you’ve left us no choice but to explain it to you—in excruciating detail.

Andomeda (Monitor): The Genites are still with us, and more of them are inbound.

Beka: You know, you can never have too many Genites inbound. Time to slipstream.

Andomeda (Monitor): Awaiting your order.

Beka: Consider yourself ordered. Let’s get the hell out of here.

"Day of Judgment, Day of Wrath"

"The great blessing

of the AI is that we are

gifted with the power to

touch our Creator.

This is also our Curse."

The Clarion's Call,

"Our of the Abyss,"

CY 11745

Harper: You know what a High Guard avatar is? Well you're about to find out because you're on the same ship as one. You may as well save some time and kick your own asses.

"Shadow Cast by a Final Salute" (Season Finale)

"The Kingdom was called Contrary.

The Castle was called Doubt.

The Twin Giants who lived there

were named Deceit and Despair.

Every change in the weather

brought Rain and Hope."

THE CAIRN OF DARKNESS AND THE LIGHT,

CY 1015

Beka: It takes a minute to find something special in a person, an hour to appreciate them, and a day to love them. But it takes an entire life to forget them.

Harper: You know, I thought I knew you, Tyr. And it turns out all the long you've been waitin' to betray us. What did I ever do to you?

Tyr: You made me laugh.

Harper: No I didn't.

Tyr: Yes, you did. Just not out loud. And I hope you get the chance to do it again.

Harper: Yeah, well, we'll double-cross that bridge when we get to it.

Tyr: [to Dylan] If you attempt to take the Andromeda to slipstream yes, you will destroy that planet. But you, you will be free. Alive to fight another day. It would be a very Neitzschean choice.

"Answers Given to Questions Never Asked" (Season Premiere)

"Down where it was tangled and dark.

Down where the spirits feasted on carrion.

Down. Down. Down.

It was there, yes, the High Hatted ones

forever screamed, 'Eureka.'"

-Youn's Narrows of Decline,

CY 1015

Paroo: The Commonwealth is history.

Dylan: "Luck was tortured." There's irony for you.

Trance: [echoing Franklin D. Roosevelt and Lyndon B. Johnson] Those to whom much is given, much is asked.

Dylan: If only I knew the question.

Harper: [to the Andromeda hologram] Alright, I know you can see right through me, but don't think I can't see right through you too.

Andromeda: Hesitation is often the flaw of great intellect.

Harper: What? I'm not hesit... thank you.

Beka: If I didn't miss all this, I swear I would.

Trance: The fate of the universe is in your hands, Captain.

Dylan: Thank you for... surgar-coating that, Trance.

"Pieces of Eight"

"The tyrant and the rebel hold the

same creed:

to act is to live."

War Heretics of Auden, CY 9015

Tri-Jema: Citizens can lose faith more quickly than anything else, especially when their belief is manipulated; when their opinions are shaped through fear; fear for their future. Then they listen to men with quick fixes.

Dylan: Not much reason goes into some people's reasons, eh? Except that they just want what they want.

Andromeda: Harper, why don't you find yourself a nice girlfriend.

Harper: I tried building one but she doesn't want me. And because, yes, the universe is big, but finding one Mrs. Harper, let alone two...

Andromeda: Accessing Harper quote archive..."If you're a bad hunter, the woods are always empty."

Harper: That archive is private!

Andromeda: Not so much.

"Waking the Tyrant's Device"

"Fear drives the universe.

You will find dread among the galaxies.

You will find horror in the heart of a star.

You will find your fate in a heap of dust."

The Diktat of Septa Parisis,

CY 9015

Dylan: Bad intelligence kills good soldiers.

Harper: If there is treasure, it logically follows that I deserve it.

Harper: Like a hot knife through protein paste.

Harper: Just my luck - a woman with her higher brain functions on hold.

Rommie: Thank you, Harper. It feels like you care.

Harper: Only in the worst way.

"Double or Nothingness"

"When they are dying tell them a riddle.

And when they laugh,

Let the Gods of Nature

finish what we have started.

Segma Te: Director, Cultural Archives;

University Library-

CY 760

Beka: If they're so good at business, why would the Nietzscheans attack? That's not good slave management.

Dylan: That's not a solar wind, it's a solar hurricane.

Game Sprite: Are you okay? Are you awake?

Dylan: I certainly hope so, or else this would be one sucky dream.

Dylan: Let's bring it.

Trance: It's good to have you back, Captain.

Dylan: Anything is possible when you keep it real.

Lipsett: High Guard my heart.

"Harper/Delete"

"And the Prides shall stand as one,

powerful in the light

and supreme among beings."

The Nietzschean Prophecy

Drago Museveni, CY 8424

[Trance and Rommie sitting in a prison as decoys]

Guard: Sit up, boy. Time to eat!

Rommie: [to Guard, in previous prisoner's voice] I said, I do not wish to be disturbed, you damn mechanized bolt module!

Guard: Fine, starve then!

Trance: [to Rommie] I love when you do your impressions.

Rommie: [in Trance's voice] We should spend more time together.

Harper: It's so unimpressively simple and inconspicuous, it's a work of art.

Harper: Sheesh! He's graduated from bluffing with our lives. He's moved on to roulette!

Dylan: Well I had to switch games! You're the one who said I was lousy at playing cards.

"Soon the Nearing Vortex"

"Once you give in to the void,

space itself becomes time.

Once you give in to the void,

many are the mouths of reality."

New Century Manifesto,

CY 4001

Harper: [about Tyr] Those bones must be going to his head.

Harper: Wow. Except for waking up next to a certain satisfied android, now I've seen everything.

Aurelia: Unmapped... unwelcomed... it is good to fear it.

Rhade: You're an embarrassment to all Nietzschean prides.

Tyr: I am the reincarnation of Drago Museveni.

Rhade: The progenitor would not shoot a blind prophet. You are what's wrong with the Nietzschean race... selfish, self-absorbed, unaware of your own limitations... your career will end here. I will end it.

Beka: Hmm. King of the Nietzscheans, and you still want more.

Tyr: Not more, Beka. Everything.

Trion: This is a Commonwealth vessel. You are treading dangerous ground.

Dylan: That's how I get my excerise.

Rommie: You are having entirely too much fun, Captain.

Dylan: Breaking on to a Commonwealth ship without detection? Disabling without killing? I feel like I'm back at the Academy.

Rommie: Well you're not.

Dylan: [pauses] We need to get out more.

"The World Turns All Around Her"

"Beneath the web-thin simulacrum,

inundating and fecund

live myth and manifold truths.

Not one point of view

can embrace them at a glance."

Council of One,

CY 2333

Dylan: So... you enjoy the show?

Harper: I've seen it before.

Harper: Tyr Ana-sleazy. Livin' large in the lap dance of luxury, huh?

Harper: I love the look. It's so, uh... Earth. [Although the scene is set on an alien planet, it was ostensibly filmed on Earth].

Tyr: I didn't allow you here to insult me.

Harper: That's what you think. Last time I saw you, you shot a defenseless blind woman- awfully brave of ya.

Tyr: I could have you shot as well. And I just might if you don't mind your manners.

Harper: If this conversation goes on any longer, then I'll demand it.

Tyr: [pause] You'd be a waste of ammunition.

Harper: Now you care.

Tyr: [laughs]

Rhade: A change of habitats isn't conducive to growth.

Trance: [holding a plant] Look, it's almost ready to bloom. Change is the only constant; fear, its companion. Overcoming fear is to key to unlocking its gifts.

Rhade: Wherever there is danger, opportunity lurks as well.

Trance: No matter how you twist and turn, always keep your destination fixed in your mind.

Trance: Trust not knowing. You are safe.

Tyr: You can't kill me here! I've made a deal with the abyss.

Dylan: Then you're already dead.

"Conduit to Destiny"

"Destiny is the promise I give to you.

Hope, the part you play,

is trusting me to keep this promise."

The Prophetic Tetraglyphs

CY 9537

Rhade: You were a purse snatcher.

Beka: Well, actually, the term we preferred was "active second-hand salvage removers."

"Machinery of the Mind"

"Regarding the cerebellum,

there is a culture and a presentation.

Both hold power and sway."

Cuisine of the Lost Empire,

CY 9905

"Exalted Reason, Resplendent Daughter"

"Around, around and underneath,

the Trickster flies.

Catch him, catch him --

If he doesn't lose you,

lose you when he flies!"

Perseid Child's Game,

CY 3040

"The Torment, the Release"

"All Military, rank and file,

are subject to the word and intent

of the Commonwealth Triumvirs.

There is no exception.

There is punishment accordingly."

Commonwealth Charter, 0957

Pish: Don't get scared, and run away.

Dylan: Oh I'm not running, until I take care of you.

Dylan: Well then, stop the universe, 'cause I want to get off.

Pish: Small-time scuffle on a big-time perpetrator.

Beka: [laughs] I bet you say that to all the girls.

Rhade: So, what's our first move?

Trance: We travel into the future.

Dylan: Exactly. Because it belongs to us.

"The Spider's Stratagem"

"Verify distant secrets

Be careful not to perish

A question as your guide.

What becomes the face of truth."

Enigma 03 of the Murti,

CY 8567

Telemachus Rhade: The past is gone, the future yet to be, the present just that—a gift, wrapped for us to enjoy.

Rox: Oh, well this truth thing isn't so bad after all, is it.

Dylan: Yeah, but don't get too comfortable with it just yet because now I'm going to need you to lie.

Rox: To whom?

Dylan: Moldar.

Rox: Forget it.

Dylan: Oh no, no, don't worry, you won't have to lie to him by yourself.

Rox: Really? And who would be psychotic enough to accompany me on such a doomed mission?

Dylan: Your new smuggling partner.

Rox: Any thoughts?

Dylan: Well, several, none of which should be said aloud in the presence of a lady.

Rox: So what's stopping you?

Dylan: Just my inner female, of course.

Rox: Contrary to what most men think, there are certain situations in which even the most majestic of force lances, is useless.

Dylan: There is nothing useless about my force lance.

Rox: My turn to be impressed.

Dylan: I'll show you its other uses later.

"The Warmth of an Invisible Light"

The brightest light is invisible.

It shines through your deeds

and warms the universe.

- Chronicles of Courage and Conviction

by Captain Dylan Hunt, Ret., CY 9817

Dylan: Great, first monuments, and now bombs that walk, talk and act like me.

"The Others"

"Her beauty shimmers with the

light of a new star.

But she is the other.

Touch her, and you will know death. "

Poet Temlar

CY 2101

Dylan: Beka, bring us in.

Harper: Wait a minute. How come we always have to be the ones who rescue people?

Dylan: Because I love to see you squirm.

Beka: Just once, I'd like to rescue an ugly woman.

Harper: And ruin my chances of being smitten by or... smoting... a beautiful woman, leave me alone, I can't love straight when I'm in think.

Dylan: Whatever that means.

Dylan: Set a course for the Trillan system.

Harper: Boss, we already have.

Beka: Dylan, I thought they knocked you out of commission.

Dylan: Well, not today, just set a course.

Rhade: Captain, should you be on command?

Dylan: Rhade--

Rommie: Dylan.

Dylan: Unhh.

Rommie: You're too weak to be here.

Dylan: Rommie, you are no longer my friend.

Dylan: Alright, p-prepare for... the library, my-my father's... no, the Magog Worldship is coming.

Rommie: Captain, I'm afraid I'm going to have to relieve you of command.

Dylan: Well that's no relief at all. See, my power is now absolute... no one can move me.

[Rommie pushes Dylan backward with one finger]

Harper: [looks at Beka and Rhade, between whom Dylan just fell] What are you two? Idiots?

Beka: Why didn't you catch him?

Rhade: I thought you had him.

"Fear Burns Down to Ashes"

"Confine that which you fear to the mirror.

Start with who is standing there.

Then smile."

Bogdo Geghen Seer of Agharta,

CY 1890

Rev: Dylan, the doors!

Dylan: Open says me. [fires guns]

Dylan: Now there Rev, that's the way.

Harper: Whew! All in a day's work, piece of cake. Chocolate cake, with a Harper on top.

Dylan: Victory comes from accepting the unacceptable, the darkness in all of us.

Rev: Trance, I have a confession to make. I've always known who you are, but I did not understand, I could not grasp it. I was blind.

Trance: No, I hid my light until it was time. I, too, had much to learn.

Rev: A confession? From you?

Trance: An affirmation. My journey has been as long as yours. I had to learn to hold a light, lest its brilliance destroy me.

Trance: Dylan, this time, were you afraid that you would lose?

Dylan: I fear losing you. And the rest of the crew.

Trance: A moment of vulnerability from our captain.

Dylan: Let's keep that our little secret.

"Lost in a Space that Isn't There"

"Cast your Eye upon the Changeling,

then look for the origin of change.

Perhaps it is in the Eye."

Luna, "Catalog of Companions"

CY 302

Beka: Have I ever lied to any one of you?

Harper: We--

Beka: Don't answer that.

"Abridging the Devil's Divide"

"...Knock, knock, knock on the devil's door.

Don not invite him to dinner; his beasts will

come for more.."

High Priestess Misabo Ahm in Triumvirate

War Council

CY 10091

"Trusting the Gordian Maze"

"Our vanguard is the point of the lance.

Then came design and crimson flame.

There, they still wait somehow."

Disciples of Qhatch

CY 0417

"A Symmetry of Imperfection"

"Within the perfect architecture u
f thought,

logic may often provide the structure

--but from emotion come the inspiration."

Contemplations on Perception, Anaiis Milan

CY 8012

"Time Out of Mind"

"On the plains of Galiolith,

Crystalline chimes herald a new beginning

For all who wish to hear them."

Ghillie Clethrad, Flumerian Hymns

CY 6104

"The Dissonant Interval, Part 1"

"What is fate? Why do you ask?

The answer lies in the composing of

Light and Influence.

Nothing will fall to you early or late."

Rhyme of the Primeval Paradine

AFC 54

Harper: Great vehicle they call the world ship? I think you'd better stop smoking your peace pipe.

"The Dissonant Interval, Part 2" (Season Finale)

"Man is his own star.

His acts are his angels, good or ill,

While his fatal shadows walk

silently beside him."

Rhyme of the Primeval Paradine

AFC 54

Rhade: [Right after Louisa died in his arms] On this soul cast a cold eye on night and day. All thou living passed by. Louisa.

"The Weight, Part 1" (Season Premiere)

"Life Is A Carnival,

But the tents are folded before dawn"

Beano Tavalis,

The Armendago Caper,

CY 727

Rhade: A day, a lifetime. What does it matter in a world we are all lost in.

Rhade: So, it has come to this. [Hits Dylan]

Dylan: Rhade, you seem a bit confused lately. [Rhade hits him again] Check that: Angry and confused.

Rhade: I want payment for the pain you caused. I want to kill your eternal hope. The hope that has led me to this damnation. [Hits him again]

Dylan: Careful, Rhade. It just might be that I am out of hope as well.

Rhade: Tell me why. [Hits him again] Why. [Hits him again] Why was hope so important?

Dylan: Hope is everything, Rhade. Without it there's no reason to live.

Rhade: Then today is your lucky day. [Gets him in a headlock] I hate the hope that you brought me.

Dylan: You give me too much credit.

Rhade: It's always been about you. [Throws him into a table]

Dylan: Okay, let's play. [Hits Rhade] You can't hate hope. [Hits him again] You can hate me. [Hits him again] But you hate yourself [hits him again] more. You know why? Because you failed. [Hits him again] We all did. Failed. [Hits him again] Four years. Four [hit] years [hit] of my [hit] life. [Rhade falls to the floor]

"The Weight, Part 2"

"Inanimate objects and sentient beings,

obey the laws of nature.

Without discrimination.

Enviroment is their only conscience."

Vedran Inscription,

Departure Slates

005-AT9

"Phear Phactor Phenom"

"Throw them all away,

but don't predict where your foot will fall.

The first and the last steps are the same"

Seefra 6 Inscription

228-AT9

"Decay of the Angel"

"What is faith then but persistent hope

in the face of relentless doubt."

Brother Carmen Jane

A case for consciousness

CY 10087

"The Eschatology of Our Present"

"Official secrets keep good lies

turning in every mouth."

High Senator Bonn,

Fifteenth Congress of Tal

CY 3343

"When Goes Around..."

"Contrast is wellspring of desire.

A double-loop matrix

within the eternal continuum."

Metaphysical Conclusions of Jacob,

All Systems University, Special Collections

CY 9030

"Attempting Screed"

"In the absence of doubt,

there is no change."

The Memories

175-AT9

"So Burn the Untamed Lands"

"Marshall your forces

O great Generals.

The cost of victory

exceeds the cost of defeat."

Joheean Koll

Wars of the Ramayin Frontier

CY 459

"What Will Be Was Not"

"Hold.

Herein a vast journey lies

in the span of an instant.

Seefra-1 Chamber Inscription

Vedran

005-AT9

"The Test"

"If the race goes too swiftly,

the victory goes to those

who are willing to fail."

Lambert Krill

Executed

CY 689

"Through a Glass, Darkly"

"The mirror is a window

through which we see ourselves--

Reversed and without form.

Our deepest lies reborn, true."

Wayfinder Hasturi

A.K.A. "The Mad Persied"

AFC 217

"Pride Before the Fall"

"In the middle of the fight we knew:

They had come at us like legends.

One hundred up and one hundred down."

Vedran Fabel

"Amidst the Tribune and the Fireworks"

CY 512

"Moonlight Becomes You"

"Celestial digressions make great

first impressions.

I drown in your halo.

You orbit my soul"

Lyrics from

Solar Flares Through My Heart

CY 2891

"Past Is Prolix"

"The following statement is false:

The previous statement is true.

Welcome to our corner of the Universe."

Anonymous

Seefra Denizen

CY 10210

"The Opposites of Attraction"

"The hero may find an interval of rest

on the island of the Nymph.

Forgetting commrades and ship and home.

Until, recalled to his great quest

he puts again to sea."

Aimelin Zol

"Tropes of the Ancients"

CY 9857

"Saving Light from a Black Sun"

"Conceal nothing,

and watch the fools search forever."

Psalms of Koscs

Vedran Archives

LOT 0049

"Totaled Recall"

"The door opens.

The edges meet.

Step through and you find yourself lost.

Stay where you are and you go nowhere."

Wayfinder Hasturi

A.K.A. "The Mad Persied"

AFC 217

"Quantum Tractate Delirium"

"Title is not who he is,

the manifestor of what the cannot dream;

He takes no name where none fits."

Original Progenitor Diatribes

CY 8434

"One More Day's Light"

"Hubris made the angels of heaven into devils...

And their obstinacy keeps them in hell."

From the Kuruvian Texts

CY 319

"Chaos and the Stillness of It"

"When events test men, angels then appear."

Wayist Verse

CY 1015

"The Heart of the Journey, Part 1"

"I see through you,

now that the cycle of possibilities is infinate,

headed toward nothing."

Seefran Love Song

341-AT9

Beka: Planet Earth, here we come.

"The Heart of the Journey, Part 2"

"The cycle of possibilities if fleeting.

The lash of an eye in a hurricane."

Seefran Love Song

341-AT9

Trance: The Abyss.

Doyle: In league with the Neitzscheans.

Beka: And they're waiting for us.

Harper: We're about to be neck deep in a big pile of ships.

Rhade: This is my home. My fate. It ends here.

Repeated Quotes

Dylan: It's never easy.

[in outtakes]

Kevin Sorbo: Have you seen my force lance?

Various: It's Showtime.

Various: Let's bring it.

Dylan: Thanks Rommie.

Rommie: M-Hmm.

Harper: Trust in the Harper. The Harper is good.