The announcer
The pathogen with which Travis intended to wipe out the crew of Liberator in Project Avalon was a virus identified by Zen as Delta 706 classification subset 205, incorrectly known as the Phobon Plague.
In Killer an alien virus was introduced to the Q-base on Fosforon. It killed in 12-15 minutes, multiplying, as Bellfriar said, a thousand times faster than any known viral agent (he had obviously not heard of the modified Phobon Plague). It attacked neural cells altered by the Terran Ague, causing them to burst, thus affecting only those humans who had undergone deep space travel. It could be cultured in human tissue or nucleic acid culture. Orac identified it as having affinities with paratype 926 in Bellfriar's virus catalogue.
The alien pathogen released by Servalan on Auron, wiping out all but two of the population, was described as non-bacterial and non-viral. It was reported by Ginka as having been used by the aliens in the Intergalactic War.
The Phobon Plague variation was designed for a top secret project., it would not be widely published. After the project failed the Federation kept it secret so that insurgent organizations would not expect its deployment during revolts.
In Warlord Xenon Base was contaminated by a radioactive airborne virus planted in a neutron bombarder by Zukan. The virus spread through the air supply, and swiftly killed the eleven Betafarlian technicians in the freight bay. Zeeona remarked that such a virus had been developed on Betafarl, and quickly deduced that her father was responsible. She later fell victim to the virus herself, and since she was stripped to the bone in what could not have been much more than a matter of minutes, the virus was a singularly potent one.
| Karla told Deeta Tarrant she had seen him on viscasts. Darvid was a viscast announcer and Orac was used (very begrudgingly) as a viscast relay. | The announcer |
Blake told Richie and Ravella that he received vistapes from his brother and sister on Ziegler-5 "a couple of times a year". Bran Foster later told him that those tapes were forgeries. Since his brother and sister had left for the Outer Worlds four years earlier, being executed on arrival, Blake had probably received about seven or eight such tapes.
Fitted to Liberator and Federation pursuit ships, and probably most if not all other vessels as well. The visual detectors on Liberator had a long-range intensifier, and something similar would doubtless be a standard fitting on other ships. Scorpio's visual detectors were fitted with a recorder sensor that filmed at 10,000 frames per second. A similar facility was available on the Liberator, as shown in Moloch.
The apparatus used by Servalan on Terminal to convince Avon that he had met Blake. Recognised by Tarrant. It was used on that occasion in combination with a voice synthesizer and vocabulary bank.
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Part of a flight console on Liberator. In Terminal, Avon instructs Zen to give
him a direct visual readout of an incoming message instead of putting it on
audio. Amazingly, Avon appears to understand the message in spite of it looking
like a lot of little green boxes.
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Dayna and Lauren used vitashock weapons to drive the Sarrans away from the entry hatch to Hal Mellanby's underwater hideout. The weapons were probably built by Hal and/or Dayna on Sarran and quite possibly invented there. They could be set to fire at a number of shock intensity levels. Chel referred to "the light that brings pain", suggesting something of the visual nature of a vitashock blast.
Drink asked for by Travis in Chenie's bar. He had earlier made a reference to needing to keep sober (unlike Docholli), and so vitazade was probably non-alcoholic. It may have been a trade name, or a generic name for a number of drinks similar to Vitazade, just as "coke" or "cola" can be used today.
Fitted to the door to Scorpio's silo, it was described by Vila as "foolproof". He seemed to have encountered such things before.
Both Zen and Slave could be programmed to accept commands only from recognised voice codes, and no doubt many other computers shared this security measure.
The Amagons on the Star Queen used a voice synthesizer to send a reassuring message supposedly from Gan to the rest of the crew. Moloch could alter his voice, imitating Tarrant to be brought aboard the Liberator. It is noteworthy that Zen detected the Amagon transmission as not being Gan, but failed to recognise Moloch's transmission as bogus.
A voice synthesizer was also used on Terminal, along with a visual image structuraliser.