| Frontier planet, ruled by Zukan. Betafarl was said by Zukan to have perpetual day (perhaps one hemisphere always faced the sun). Zukan claimed that a plant growing wild there could provide an antitoxin to pylene-50, though this claim was never seen to be substantiated. The planet was visited by Avon and Tarrant, and it was then that Tarrant first met Zeeona. Scorpio made a later visit, carrying Avon and Soolin. Flight time from Xenon was noted as thirty hours, suggesting that the two worlds were not very far apart. Scorpio made a surface landing on Betafarl. | |
Coser was described as a Beta class technician, though he referred to himself as Beta grade. This may reflect either the overall social grading system implied by comments from Vila in Shadow, or an internal grade within the technical services. See GRADE.
Area of space where Asteroid P-K118 was abandoned once urite ore mining ceased.
| The largest casino in Freedom City, making Krantor a profit of four million credits a week. It was fixed by a computer at 5% in favour of the House, something which Avon and Vila exploited through Orac's abilities to read computers. After seven wins in a row Vila was half a million credits up, and Krantor was forced to close the Wheel when Vila's winnings reached five million credits. Vila was seen to place bets on 15 black and 14 red. |  |
An optical instrument used with both eyes, comprising two small telescopes joined together. While the optical instruments used in the series were not referred to by name, that used by a Space Rat in Stardrive appeared to resemble, both in use and appearance, a flat pair of binoculars.
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A different type of optical instrument was used by Reval and Toron in
Terminal and by Avon in Rescue, (the one used by the latter being called a
'magni-viewer' by Trevor Hoyle in his novelisation). While this type bore no
outward resemblance to late twentieth century Earth binoculars, it was also used
with both eyes. As well as having a zoom function, some form of image
stabilisation seemed probable as the view at a long distance was remarkably
stable. There was a cross-hair in the centre of the image.
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Egrorian's residence on Malodar, also called a survival station by Vila. It was fitted with two landing pads, as were most installations of this type. The biodome on Malodar may well have been built long before Egrorian arrived, or its construction may have been funded with the money he stole on leaving the Space Research Institute.
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Birds are seen in five episodes, but intentionally in just three. In
Bounty a stuffed thrush was one of the items in Sarkoff's collection.
In Gambit Servalan and Jarriere hold a white dove. Another white dove is seen in
Sarcophagus, when the alien gave Tarrant a vision of herself
surrounded by her servants. Accidental inclusion of gulls appeared in
Countdown, where one can be seen flying across the polar icecap of
Albian, and in Aftermath where one was seen walking on the beach
during a shot of the sunset.
|  Jarriere with a dove in Gambit |
The only birdsong to appear deliberately was in Orac, where Ensor had a recording of a Northern Cardinal (a North American species) singing in his underground retreat.
| The gold exported from Zerok was, as a security measure, treated by an unspecified process that turned it black and rendered it valueless. The process involved a high level of radiation, and induced a submutonic overlap shift, rendering it too fragile to be moved by teleport. The process was also computer-coded, the code being changed on a daily basis, and took about two minutes. Servalan used Keiller to acquire a shipment of black gold, knowing that Zerok was due to cede to the Federation. See also GOLD. |  |