A slave buyer who put in bids for Avon, represented on Domo by Tok. She made the first bid of 100 vems, but soon dropped out as the price rose.
[1] Mutoids, as they were called by opponents of mutoid modification with reference to a mutoid's use of blood serum. Mentioned by Keera.
[2] Of the various people seen in fancy dress in Freedom City, one was dressed as a vampire.
[3] The Sand on Virn was described as 'vampiric'.
One of the two systems tied to the Teal-Vandor Convention, and like the United Planets of Teal it bordered on Federation territory. Total population was, also like Teal, about 20 million.
See also UNITED PLANETS OF TEAL, VINNI.
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Ruler of Cygnus Alpha, though he admitted that he had never had more than
five hundred subjects. His great-great-grandfather was among the first
prisoners sent to the planet, and had founded the religion of which Vargas
was the high priest. This position may thus have been an inherited one. He
wanted the Liberator to spread the word to the galaxy at large and so,
although aware that his power was built on lies about the Curse of Cygnus, he
appeared to have absolute faith in the god he worshipped. He had Blake
tortured, ordered the sacrifice of Gan, and was eventually brought aboard the
Liberator, where Blake teleported him into deep space.
| |
 | Vargas was the first person seen to fire a Liberator handgun. He wore a blue robe when officiating at rituals. |
 Vargus exploding in space |
| Worked for the Justice Department on Earth, and was assigned to defend Blake for his second trial. It was not until Blake was awaiting deportation that Varon finally acknowledged that a deliberate miscarriage of justice had taken place, through a remark by Ven Glynd about the tunnels in which the massacre took place despite Varon not having mentioned these. |  |
Varon told Maja that he had once been outside the city, but hadn't much cared for the experience.
Ground vehicles rarely appeared, but some notable cases are: The Way Back: Federation troopers arrived at the site of Foster's illegal meeting on the back of a small, apparently electrically powered, buggy. As well as the driver it carried six troopers.
 | Sarkoff had an "automobile" amongst his collection of 20th Century artefacts, registration number RT 277. |
 | Stardrive: reference was made to the Federation banning all leisure transport. The space rats rode on a fast, compact tricycle, several of which were destroyed by bombs planted by Avon and detonated by remote control. A small 8-wheeled buggy was used by the crew of Scorpio and Dr Plaxton (who did the driving) to escape from the space rats" hide-out to where Scorpio was waiting. Dayna "reminded" Dr Plaxton of the time her ground car had been reported stolen, suggesting that ground cars were in regular use on the more civilised worlds, and possibly also that they were worth distinguishing from "air cars". |
| Gold: Servalan arrived to collect the stolen gold on Beta-5 in an 8-wheeled buggy (a different model to that seen in Stardrive). |  |
 |
Blake: the only aircraft (as opposed to space craft) seen in the
series were the fliers used by bounty hunters on Gauda Prime. They were
short, stubby and wingless, and could carry at least four people. Blake
carried Tarrant back to his base in one after shooting down another, unseen,
flying vehicle, and two bounty hunters detected Vila's fire from one. The
bounty hunter's vehicle was then appropriated by Avon, Vila, Dayna and Soolin
to take them to Blake's base.
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Unit of currency, cited by the proxy bidders at the slave market on Domo. Servalan purchased Avon for 2,000 vems.
| Described by Tarrant as "Muller's lady", and probably his wife though this was not explicitly stated. She came to Xenon Base ahead of Muller and looked forward to his coming, but was crushed to death by the android soon after it teleported onto the base. |  |
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Arbiter General of the Federation's Justice Department on Earth, and a key
figure in organising the false evidence which led to Blake's deportation to
Cygnus Alpha.
|  |
It should be noted that Ven is a first name (cf Ven JARVIK), and so his name might have been simply Glynd.
Woman in charge of the slave auctions on Domo, who regarded herself as a "public servant" for her actions. She allowed Servalan to privately buy an entertainer for Cancer, in contravention of normal procedure, and later bent the rules again to let Servalan bid for Avon.
Her first name is generally held to be Ohnj, but this was not mentioned in the episode.
A painter (1632-1675 AD), one of whose later works, Young Woman Seated at a Virginal (c. 1670), was seen reproduced on one side of a small, flat, circular object in Avon's hands in this episode. Vermeer was born and lived all his life in Delft, the Netherlands, Earth. A combination of being a meticulous worker, having to work part time as a picture dealer to support a large family of 11 children, and a short life, led him to produce only a small body of work.
After his death, his work was forgotten until the late nineteenth century; then his reputation rose in the following century, resulting in him being considered one of the greatest artists of the Dutch 'Golden Age'. Most of his paintings are of indoor scenes of domestic life, with extraordinary fidelity paid to the use of light and colour, which add a special weight to what appear to be everyday, trivial moments.
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Kasabi's daughter, captured by Servalan and forced to betray Blake, Avon,
Vila and Gan in the hope of her mother's life being spared. Meeting them at
the pre-arranged rendezvous, she rendered them unconscious with sona gas,
stole their teleport bracelets (but not their weapons) and locked them in the
cellar. She then returned to Servalan, only to find that Kasabi had been
dead for an hour. Travis suggested she might get a Civilian Citation for
what she had done. When Jenna appeared Veron went with her and Servalan to
the bunker where Control was supposedly housed, and then joined Blake and the
others in their escape. She opted to remain on Earth when Blake teleported
back to Liberator.
|  |
| One of the rebels under Cauder on Albian, who attempted to disarm the solium radiation device by cutting through the cables to the rotornoid link. The countdown stopped for a few seconds as a result, then resumed. Vetnor cited lack of proper tools as one of the reasons for his inability to do more. |  |
Avon showed the warlords invited to his alliance a videocast of recent events on Zondawl. Quite why it was called a videocast is unclear, as it was hardly likely to be aired over a public channel.
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In Countdown Vila said "I've been a wanted man all my life" and the
snippets of information about his early years suggest this may well be true.
In Shadow he mentioned his time in the juvenile detention wards. In
Stardrive he recalled how he was first sent to a penal colony at the
age of 14, and in Power he told Pella that he attended the "academy"
of CF-1 as a boy, then revealed that he was chosen as "technical advisor for
the escape". CF-1 may be the penal colony he was sent to, though this is
never clarified. In Shadow he said that he grew up in the Delta
service grades, whereas in Volcano he told Avon that he "could have
been an Alpha" and bought his "Grade-4 Ignorant status" to avoid becoming a
Space Captain. Vila was, if nothing else, an unreliable source of
information about himself.
|  In the Way Back |
 In The Web |
He told Blake in The Way Back that he was a compulsive thief whose
head refused to remain adjusted, and told Kerril "A thief isn't what I am,
it's who I am", adding "you wouldn't like what was left of me". Sentenced to
be deported to Cygnus Alpha, he assisted Blake in his take-over bid by
distracting the guards with conjuring tricks. He was the last of the
prisoners to set foot on Cygnus Alpha, and had established a reputation for
cowardice even at this early stage. Nevertheless he opted to join Blake in
his escape bid from the planet, and teleported aboard the Liberator
with Gan and Vargas. He remained with the Liberator until its
destruction, and then stayed with Avon and the crew of Scorpio until
his apparent death on Gauda Prime.
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Bodycount: Vila's relationship with weapons was, uniquely among the crew, a
distinctly uneasy one. He stabbed and killed one of Vargas" followers on
Cygnus Alpha, and this might have been an accident. He tried to force
Kayn to operate on Gan at gunpoint, but might well have failed if Avon hadn't
arrived. He shot a gun out of Bayban's hand, and this too may have been the
accidental slip of a trigger finger. In fact, he only ever shot one person
dead, a Federation trooper on Mecron II. In Star One he also freely
admitted to not liking explosives. Surprisingly, he manned the portable
neutron blaster in Dawn of the Gods, though never got the chance to
fire it. He also admitted looking forward to firing the ship's neutron
blasters in The Web, but this was not at a "live" target.
|  In Mission to Destiny |
 In Breakdown |
Significant brawls: Not that Vila couldn't take care of himself when the need
arose, but whether by chance or design such times were rare. He knocked out
a Federation trooper on Centero, but not before the alarm was sounded. He
also managed to disable Arlen on Gauda Prime after she had shot Dayna, but
was then promptly shot himself.
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Captured by: Tarvin (along with everyone else) in Bounty, by the Altas (again with everyone else) in Redemption, by Travis and Servalan in Weapon, by the natives of Horizon, where he was set to work in the mines (apparently the first real work he had ever done in his life), by Veron along with Blake, Avon and Gan in Pressure Point, by Ushton in Hostage, imprisoned by Gola in The Keeper, brought in by Zee and Bar in Powerplay, held prisoner by Mori in Volcano, and by the Caliph in Dawn of the Gods. He was sent down to Kairos, along with the rest of the crew, in The Harvest of Kairos, and was stranded on Terminal when the Liberator was destroyed. Later captured by Gunn-Sar on Xenon, by space rats on Caspar, stranded on Scorpio with Tarrant in Headhunter, and trapped on Xenon base with Tarrant and Dayna in Warlord.
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Rescues: Occasionally Vila managed to rescue people, if only because he tried
not to get too involved in the action and remained the only member of the
crew still free. He saved Blake's life on Cygnus Alpha; released
himself and then Avon, Jenna, Cally and Gan on Space World; used limericks
and riddles to confuse the Core of Ultraworld, allowing Orac to
destabilise it; saved Orac from the disintegrating Liberator,
telling Servalan's aide it was a sculpture he'd made himself; pulled an
unconscious Tarrant from the underground base on Terminal (and nearly went
back to rescue Cally) and supplied Avon with the gun to kill Dorian's
creature in Rescue; and released Dayna and Tarrant from Belkov's trap
in Games.
|  In Shadow |
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Places visited: Vila set foot on the following: Cygnus Alpha, Saurian
Major, Centero, UP-Project Avalon, Cephlon, Aristo, Space World, Space
City, Horizon, Earth, Fosforon, Exbar, Albian, Atlay,
UP-Gambit, Goth, Chenga, UP-Sopron, Crandor, Kairos, Keezarn, Sardos,
Terminal, Xenon, Caspar, Domo, Mecron II, Malodar and Gauda Prime - a
total of 29 planets/space stations.
|  With the control panel of a rocket silo in Countdown |
 In Weapon |
Vila could create more trouble than he solved. In Shadow he hid
Orac, who had been taken over by the Darkness, then went to Space City
and came back too drunk to remember where he'd put Orac. In
Rumours of Death he teleported the others up from Earth without
checking the input co-ordinates, leaving Avon stranded on the surface with
Servalan. The idea of using an asteroid's radar shadow to sneak into the
Altern system seemed to be his, but he said it wouldn't work and was proved
spectacularly right.
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He had a reputation for drinking, and returned from Space City in an
insensible state. He expressed a fondness for adrenalin and soma in
Horizon, enjoyed a glass of the same in Volcano, was seen to
down the best part of a hidden bottle in one gulp in Dawn of the Gods,
drank whilst on teleport duty in Rumours of Death, broke into Dorian's
wine locker in Rescue, was drastically affected by alcohol and sand in
Sand, and sought solace in a bottle when trapped in Xenon Base with
Tarrant, Dayna and Zeeona in Warlord. He turned this reputation to
his advantage in Stardrive, feigning drunkenness as he explained a
possible way of repairing the ship whilst making himself out to be unfit for
the job himself. Soolin noted in Animals that he had already drunk
most of Dorian's wine.
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He was also not unskilled in sleight-of-hand, and this came in useful twice.
On the London he distracted the guards, allowing Blake and others to
enter the ship's service channels unseen, and in The Keeper his
talents earned him the favour of Gola, Charl of the Goths. He was later seen
to perform similar tricks in Sarcophagus, to an audience of shadows
aboard the flight deck. He also managed to palm the tracer given to him by
Avon in City at the Edge of the World. His general technical ability
was probably not inconsiderable, and in Gold he was twice left to
handle Scorpio by himself.
|  In Moloch |
 | Whilst hardly as cold-hearted as Avon, his first interest was always himself. Of the rebels on Saurian Major he said, "I mean, I feel for them, but...". In Trial he was quite prepared to abandon Blake and leave with Avon, and in Gold he seemed happy enough to send Keiller to his death. His fondness for Kerril seemed sincere, and showed a rare tender side, but he never once told her that he loved her. The passes he made at Dayna and Cally were distinctly lacking in subtlety, and probably none too serious. His prattlings were found by everyone to be distinctly irritating, and he was frequently told to "shut up", but only Tarrant and Dayna seemed to take genuine exception to his presence. |
In Voice From the Past he was appointed to the role (or at least title) of Blake's deputy leader, and in The Keeper was temporarily instated as Gola's fool.
| Vila seemed born to be one of life's losers. His teleport landings were frequently awkward and clumsy, landing in a puddle on Aristo, clinging to a tree on Exbar, flat on his back in Sarcophagus and wedged in a sand bank on Caspar. He was "volunteered" by the the rest of the crew to venture outside the Liberator after it entered a black hole in Dawn of the Gods, and to repair the fault in the Scorpio"s glycolene ballast tanks in Animals. The newly-installed teleport on Xenon Base failed to take him to Scorpio when he first used it. As he said in Horizon: "I never had a chance, did I? I chose the wrong parents". |  In Trial |
One of the names suggested by Kerril for the planet to which she and Vila were transported after breaking into the vault on Keezarn. The atmosphere was breathable, there was vegetation present, and the ground was littered with rare and valuable crystals of a kind needed for Liberator's weaponry systems.
The ship that landed there had left Keezarn some 3,000 years previously, apparently travelling at about the speed of light. The people of Keezarn had been conditioned to find someone to open the vault to the matter transmission terminal once every 35 generations, about 750 years, and so four such attempts would have been made. Vila and Kerril found two corpses aboard the ship, remains of previous visitors who had arrived whilst the ship was still in flight. These two may have arrived together. The ship had thus come to rest at least 750 years after leaving home, but not much more than 3,000 years afterwards, putting Vilaworld some 750-3,000 light years from Keezarn.
Frontier planet on which climate control broke down when Star One began to malfunction. Durkim told Servalan that Vilker had had non-stop rain for 60 days. Other planets mentioned were Palmero, Sooni, Heeron and Carthenis.
| Champion of the Vandor Confederacy, responsible for the deaths of Racov, Racov's son, and later Deeta Tarrant. Max said that Vinni did not seem to have a history, simply appearing apparently from nowhere, and he was in fact an android, probably built by a local arms manufacturing cartel of which a (Vandor?) high councillor was a director. Servalan intended to exploit Vinni's android status as a violation of the Teal-Vandor Convention. When Vinni was revealed for what 'he' was, Teal and Vandor would go to war and Servalan could annexe both systems afterwards. Dayna used the sensornet to "tune in" to Vinni, and sensed a lack of natural fighting instinct: from that Avon deduced what Vinni was. Dayna interrupted a medical examination called by Servalan whilst Tarrant lobbied to challenge Vinni by right of blood-feud. He destroyed Vinni with a weapon developed by Dayna, destroying all the evidence of Servalan's plans. Avon recommended to Max that both champions be medically examined prior to future combats to prevent similar violations taking place. |  |
Planet to which the Federation had sent an expedition five years prior to Servalan's second expedition, led by Don Keller. The expedition disappeared without trace, but reported finding something unspecified but unique. Servalan, along with Investigator Reeve, led a second expedition, and Servalan was stranded on the planet with Tarrant. The unique property of the planet was the preservative ability of the sand, which was alive and parasitic on other life. The sand was destroyed on contact with water, a fact discovered independently by Tarrant (through observing the action of Servalan's tears) and Avon (noticing the effect of a glass dropped by Vila). Following a suggestion by Soolin, Avon then aggravated the atmosphere with Scorpio to the point where it began to rain, allowing Servalan and Tarrant to escape.
The sun never came to Virn, and there were no moons, although it did appear to have some day/night cycle. There was no wind, although the sound of it could be heard all the time, and it never rained.
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.
| The only active volcano seen and identified in the series was a large one in the middle of the planet Obsidian in 'Volcano'. According to Zen, it was the only active one on the planet, having been active for 20 years. To Avon's query as to when its next major eruption would take place, the computer quoted a Federation report that predicted no heavy volcanic activity for 'some years', a phrase the former correctly called 'meaningless'. |  |
Used by Blake to examine Gan when his limiter malfunctioned. No further details given, except that it could be linked to a radio sensor.