Thrylce
Most ships measured speed on a Time Distort scale. The London left Earth at TD-5. Keera in Duel estimated Liberator's arrival speed at the unnamed planet as TD-6. The ship in which Servalan travelled to Exbar had a safety maximum of TD-9, but an emergency maximum of TD-10. Servalan ordered her cruiser to depart from Obsidian at TD-10.
The Liberator used a different scale, of multiples of an unspecified standard. Blake instructed Zen to plot a course to Cygnus Alpha at "standard speed" and the journey was completed in what appeared to be a very short space of time. Later journeys were made at SB-2, SB-3 etc but later SB-6 became the norm for long distance travel. SB-10 was frequently used to escape from places on departure, and Blake's attack run on Servalan's HQ in Trial was made at this speed. Maximum speed appeared to be SB-12: Zen identified the landing module from Kairos fitted with the Sopron analogue as capable of SB-12.203, presumably marginally faster than Liberator. Blake completed the journey to Star One at SB-12. The sister ship despatched by the System in Redemption was stated by Zen to be approaching at SB-14.
In Duel the Liberator tried to ram Travis at an implied speed of SB-2, and Keera stated this to be TD-3. This suggests a SB:TD ratio of 1.5:1. In Hostage the Liberator accelerated to SB-10 and then SB-12 when first attacked. On the second attack speed was again increased to SB-10 on Blake's order. The command ship's mutoid pilot determined Liberator's speed as TD-20 soon after. This suggests a 2:1 ratio, unless Blake accelerated again to SB-12, a ratio of 1.7:1 and closer to the value suggested in Duel.
In Breakdown Blake states that Standard by 20 will cause the crew to lose control of the Liberator.
In Project Avalon Terloc told Travis that the Liberator had entered the planet's system and was expected to rendezvous with Avalon within 50 hours. This is rather a long time for a ship that could easily travel between stars and might refer to intra-system travel at sublight speeds (as a basic comparison, to travel the distance from Pluto's mean orbital distance from the Sun to Earth's mean orbit - about 5.7 billion kilometres - in 50 hours would require travelling at a speed of about 0.1c).
Some confusion over speed arises in Stardrive: Scorpio approaches an asteroid at a converging speed of SB-1, and the photonic drive-fitted space chopper seen near the Altern system was said by Orac to have a speed of SB-12.6, but further references by Atlan were to TD-12 and, in the case of the Mark II drive, TD-15. Fitted with the photonic drive, Scorpio fled from Bucol-2 at a speed estimated at TD-12. This is somewhere between SB-6 and SB-8, making Scorpio at least as fast as Liberator's standard cruising speed.
Speeds were usually given as whole integers, but some fractional speed values include speed increasing to SB-8.65 in The Web, and Jenna pulling away from XK-72 at SB-0.01.
TD and SB speeds appear to refer to faster-than-light velocities, but were also cited to when manoeuvring around planets, something that might conceivably be better done at sublight speeds.
See also HYPERDRIVE, PHOTONIC DRIVE, TIME DISTORT, INTERGALACTIC DRIVE.
|
Described by the croupier as "the only game in town", a win or draw against
the Klute at speed chess offered a prize of one million credits. The
challenger was offered the white pieces and the advantage of the first move -
all moves had to be made within five seconds or the player lost a pawn by
default. Those who lost were fixed in their chair and electrocuted to death,
a process described by Krantor as "the Klute's only reward".
| Thrylce |
 |
Two games of speed chess were witnessed in the episode. A challenger,
described as "a trekker", called Thrylce was defeated in 28 moves. Vila was
persuaded to play to double his 5 million credit win on the Big Wheel, and
aided by Orac forced a draw after 21 moves.
See also Chess
|
Spiders or spider-like creatures were referred to in one and seen in two episodes in the series. They were referred to in The Web by Jenna and Vila. The former compared the strands of the Lost's web to a spider's web; the latter prophetically pointed out that spiders' webs were used for 'trapping food'.
In Shadow, the Chairman of the Terra Nostra kept a large spider or spider-like creature as a pet; in The Harvest of Kairos, a species of spider-like creature inhabited Kairos. Like spiders, the latter were silk-producing creatures who, once they hatched out, needed Kairopan to produce their silk webs.
 |
As a result, they had a highly-developed sense of smell, being able to
detect if other creatures had even touched Kairopan, killing all who had in
order to obtain that crystal. They ensured that, with the exception of the
seven days following the vernal equinox, Kairos' environment was 'hostile
to human life'; because all humans on the planet could not resist the
temptation to pocket some Kairopan, due to its great value.
|
See also KAIROPAN, KAIROS, BRIAN THE SPIDER (FAN LORE).
Name given by Servalan to Clinician Franton's cloning process.
Possible rank within the Federation. The squad leader despatched by Grenlee to investigate a surveillance fault around Residence-1 was one of five troopers, but Federation troops were more normally seen in groups of six, suggesting that this might be the typical strength of a squad.
| Orac's reply to Avon's query about the theory of molecular reduction. Avon (untruthfully) told Orac that it was impossible, prompting Orac to give a demonstration. The computer reduced its size to one eighth of normal for two hours and six minutes, allowing it to be taken down to Freedom City and assist Vila on the Big Wheel and later at Speed Chess. The duration of such miniaturisation was inversely related to the degree of atomic implosion - smaller size, less time. |  |
Technical component in relay systems, probably named after its inventor. The launch doors of the rocket silo on Albian contained a Stadler link in their control circuitry.
Requested by Travis when first assigned to hunt Blake. Servalan told him that only three had so far been built and they had all been assigned to the Galactic 8th Fleet. They were described as "high range" pursuit ships, which suggests they were not necessarily built for more speed or firepower than conventional pursuit ships.
| The ship Servalan used when President was a Mark II Star Cruiser, and was named as such in Moloch. In Volcano she gave an order to leave Obsidian at Time Distort 10, indicating the speed at which it could travel. Although large and ungainly-looking, it could make surface landings, and did so on Auron and Sardos. It was fitted with a scoop facility for picking up smaller ships, such as Pilot 4-0"s C-Type Patroller from Auron. |  |
 |
Referred to by Orac as another name for the photonic drive developed by Dr Plaxton.