| The Widening Gyre | |
|---|---|
| |
| Production | |
| Episode |
2.01 |
| Production # |
201 |
| Original air date |
October 1, 2001 |
| Written by | |
| Directed by | |
| Developed by | |
| Producer | |
| Executive Producer |
Allan Eastman |
| Production Designer | |
| Cast | |
| Guest stars | |
| Chronology | |
| Preceded by | |
| Followed by | |
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
The Widening Gyre is episode 1 of Andromeda: Season 2.
The Regular Cast of Andromeda Season 2
Synopsis
Continued from "Its Hour Come ‘Round at Last".
Beka Valentine slowly gets to her feet, and tries to revive Dylan Hunt. Using CPR, she manages to do so, but he is in bad shape. Andromeda Ascendant, working on damage control, notes that Trance Gemini has no life signs. Beka yanks on Trance's tail, which revives her, but then Beka collapses.
Rommie, on emergency power, calls to Trance on the ship communications system. She tells Trance that the Magog have mostly left the ship, taking Seamus Harper and Tyr Anasazi, and Rev Bem has followed. She is going to the machine shop to make repairs, and tells Trance to look after Beka and Dylan. She then pulls the pole out of herself.
On the Magog World Ship, Rev is acting a lot like the other Magog. Elsewhere, Harper and Tyr are bound to a wall, unconscious.
Trance is worried she cannot see a good future. Andromeda insists that they still have to try. The internal defenses are still down, but Trance asks about external ones. Andromeda dispatches her planetary warfare bots, Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum, on the outer hull. They destroy many of the Magog Swarm Ships on the hull.
Trance, with the help of two of Rommie's androids, takes Dylan and Beka to medical. On the way, a lone Magog attacks them. Trance declares that she is more dangerous than she looks, then, as the Magog lunges for her, she dodges, and it electrocutes itself on some exposed wiring. A second Magog tries to attack them as Rommie comes around a corner, and throws the pipe with which she was impaled, killing the Magog. She fights to hold off any others, while Trance continues to Medical.
On the Worldship, Rev Bem kills another Magog, who is wearing armor as a sign of rank. Rev takes the amour for himself.
In medical, Trance has patched up Dylan, and they, Beka, and Rommie fight their way back to Command. Dylan plans to take Rommie in the Maru down to the Worldship to find Harper, Tyr, and Rev. He leaves Beka in charge of the Andromeda, with instructions that, if he is not back in three hours, Beka is to launch the Nova bomb (which he kept from High Guard Station GS-92196) at the Worldship. Beka is shocked to learn that Dylan has a nova bomb on board.
Harper regains consciousness, and finds that he is infested with Magog eggs.
Andromeda's internal defenses come back online.
Rev Bem is looking for Harper and Tyr, and other Magog are referring to him as "great one", because of the armor he is wearing. A group of Magog that are feeding on a recently killed Magog from another tribe, offer him a share of their kill. Rev declines the offering, stating that it is their prize. This makes them suspicious. They attack him.
Tyr revives. He insists that there is always hope, despite Seamus Harper's despair.
Dylan and Rommie land in the Maru. Rommie is able to detect Harper and Tyr approximately four kilometers straight down. They lay plasma mines around the ship, but there is too much interference for them to contact the Andromeda.
Rev is killing other Magog as he searches for Harper and Tyr, but he is clearly suffering a crisis of conscience. Bloodmist calls to him, saying he is proud of him, and that Rev is serving The Abyss.
Dylan and Rommie are fighting their way towards Harper and Tyr's position. Rommie notes that there is an hour and ten minutes left before Dylan's deadline. They feel a tremor the Point Singularity Projector is firing again.
Beka, on the Andromeda, manages to avoid the Point Singularity bullets by staying at a distance, but she knows she will need to get closer for her attack run.
Beka taps into Andromeda's Virtual Reality matrix, and asks Andromeda to show her what happened on the previous mission. Andromeda explains that she was following the path of a Slipscout, and found large and well traveled slipstream routes all the way to the galaxy M86. When she got there, she found that all of the stars in the galaxy had been destroyed the only thing she found moving was the Worldship. The Magog attacked, and killed all of her crew. She managed to get to Slipstream, but with no organic pilot, she wandered blind for 13 months before she found a friendly ship. She was relieved when the High Guard decided to seal the memories of the mission.
Andromeda asks Beka to promise her that, this time, she will go home with her crew, or not at all.
Bloodmist finds Rev. He asks Rev: If the Magog are primitive savages, could they build the Worldship and destroy a galaxy? Bloodmist claims this is all in the cause of peace, and takes Rev to meet their god. He promises that he will release Rev's friends to him afterwards.
Tyr relates a story to Harper, as an example of his ability to survive. When he was 16, he escaped slavery in a mine on Xochital by digging out of a cave-in, then returned to take revenge on his captors. While he is telling the story, Harper manages to work his hand free.
With 20 minutes left on the clock, Dylan and Rommie are close to Tyr and Harper, but cannot locate them. Dylan calls to Harper on his communications implant, and tells him to start making noise. They hear them, and move towards them.
With 10 minutes left, Andromeda will need 9 minutes for the attack run. Beka does not want to give up on Dylan, but realizes she may not have a choice. She arms the Nova bomb and begins the attack run. Five minutes remain.
Bloodmist takes Rev to meet the shadowy figure, whom he calls the "Spirit of the Abyss". Rev says that he can feel its hatred, but "under the hatred is love". The Spirit of the Abyss tells him that life is suffering and chaos, and death is transcendence. He asks Bloodmist to allow him to offer his friends "transcendence."
A couple of Magog come for Harper and Tyr, but Tyr has his legs free, and kills both of them with just his legs.
Dylan and Rommie are shot at by a group of Magog. Dylan is surprised that Magog are carrying guns.
Beka wants to get as close to the Worldship as she can, so the nova bomb cannot be intercepted. She feels that she is in over her head, but Trance tells her that sometimes you just have to do the best you can. Andromeda reminds Beka that Dylan trusts her, and Trance says that she believes that Beka is the right person in the right place for this situation.
Beka orders Andromeda to dump all her missiles, cargo, atmosphere; etc. as a distraction, then launches the nova bomb.
Harper has managed to get himself free just as Bloodmist and Rev Bem show up. Rev looks as if he is about to attack Harper, when the nova bomb hits. The Worldship's sun explodes, and fire races through the tunnels. The Spirit of the Abyss seems to absorb the energy, and when the explosion dies down, the sun is dead, but the Worldship is still intact.
Dylan has a broken leg. He realizes that the nova bomb has hit, and he does not know why they are still alive.
Rev turns on Bloodmist, and kills him while quoting Dante.
The Spirit of the Abyss is still absorbing energy.
A group of Magog find Harper, Tyr, and Rev, but Dylan shows up and shoots them.
Beka tells Andromeda that she is not going to fail her she promised she would come back with her crew.
Dylan and the others get back to the Maru, and the Spirit of the Abyss appears. He throws a few fireballs at them, but they duck back into the caves, that the Abyss disappears.
Beka is about to start a suicide run on the Worldship, when the Maru appears. The Maru docks, and the Andromeda escapes to Slipstream.
Trance manages to get the Magog eggs out of Tyr, but only because of his Nietzschean physiology. She was unable to get them out of Harper. Rev has developed a medication that will keep the larvae dormant for a time, while they try to figure out how to remove them, but eventually the medication will be ineffective, and Harper will die. Harper thinks it might be better to die now, but Tyr reminds him that there is always hope.
Dylan praises Beka for her performance.
The Worldship was crippled, but not destroyed. When they left, it was already starting to rebuild its sun. They expect that it will be rebuilt in 2 to 3 years, and about a month after that, it will be able to attack Known Space.
Dylan realizes that the only way to fight the Worldship is to rebuild the Commonwealth. His mission is even more urgent now.
Trivia
- Along with the preceding episode, and the fourth of this season, the title is taken from The Second Coming.
- Rev's quote is from Dante.
- "Behold the fiery beast with razor tail that cuts through mountains, trampling castles down. Inhale the stench that makes the whole world wail."
- http://www.streamerarchives.org/GeneralDiscussion/2002_03/222.htm
- http://www.chakoteya.net/Andromeda/201.htm
- http://actorsorbo.narod.ru/sorbo_eng/Andromeda_eng/Androm2s_eng/Androm2s_comm_eng.htm
- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3NXMY2ouOPw
- Andromeda -- Rev Bem quotes Dante
Memorable Quotes
Rev Bem: Behold the fiery beast with razor tail that cuts through mountains, trampling castles down. Inhale the stench that makes the whole world wail.
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: Well, on the bright side, the Worldship was heading towards the known worlds anyway, before you just didn't know about it. This way, you can face it head-on.
Beka: That was such a warship thing to say.
Harper: You want them to 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, right, we did that already! We've got them right where we want them!
Andromeda: Twenty worlds, joined in a single structure, manipulated by artificial gravity and powered by an Artificial 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.
Beka: That's impossible. Tell me that's impossible.
Andromeda: I don't know.
Trance: It's not impossible, it's just really unfair.
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've got a ship to catch.
Eureka Maru: Condition critical! Condition critical!
Rommie: No, really? (The Andromeda appears.) Oh, Andromeda, am I glad to see me!
Dylan Hunt: We can't do it alone (about the Magog World-ship), there is only one way to defeat something like that. A unified front, the entire known worlds working together.
Rev Bem: A Renewed Commonwealth?
Dylan Hunt: A Renewed Commonwealth, before it was a dream. Now it is a necessity.
Gallery
Perrin's Era