Andromeda (TV series)

Television series
German title	Gene Roddenberry’s Andromeda
Original title	Gene Roddenberry’s Andromeda
Country of production	USA , Canada
original language	English
Year (s)	2000-2005
length	40 minutes
Episodes	110 in 5 seasons ( list )
genre	Sci Fi
idea	Gene Roddenberry ; Robert Hewitt Wolfe
production	Majel Barrett , Jay Firestone
music	Alex Lifeson , Matthew McCauley
First broadcast	October 7, 2000 (USA) on SciFi-Channel , USA ; Global, Canada
German-language ; first broadcast	September 5, 2001 on RTL II
occupation

Gene Roddenberry's Andromeda is a US-American - Canadian science fiction - television series , which from 2000 to 2005 in Vancouver , Canada was produced. The series is based on a concept that Robert Hewitt Wolfe (* 1964) created on behalf of Gene Roddenberry's widow , Majel Barrett Roddenberry , from old concepts of the Star Trek creator for a series called Genesis II , which was discontinued due to lack of success .

In addition to the well-known name Roddenberrys, the actor Kevin Sorbo , known from the series Hercules , was hired as another draft horse .

On May 25, 2004 the shooting of the fifth and final season started.

In Germany Andromeda was of RTL II , Tele 5 , ProSieben Maxx and the Pay TV transmitter Syfy , in Austria by ATV broadcast. In Switzerland, the series runs on Rouge TV .

action

Framework story

The framework story originally comes from the pilot film " The Osiris Chronicles " which appeared in German under the name " Starship Osiris ". However, since the series for this pilot film was never released, the concept was adopted almost identically from the Andromeda series.

The known universe has apparently been peacefully united in the intergalactic Commonwealth for centuries, protected by its space fleet, the honor guard. Then Dylan Hunt, the captain of the flagship Andromeda Ascendant, is called to an emergency, which turns out to be a trap. In the vicinity of a black hole , Hunt's ship is faced with an overwhelming number of enemy ships. The Andromeda Ascendant gets caught in an escape maneuver too close to the event horizon of the black hole, making them due to the time dilation freezes in time and watch as the next 300 years at Hunt and his ship. During this time the known universe is covered by two wars and falls into chaos.

When the civilian salvage ship Eureka Maru, under the command of Captain Rebecca "Beka" Valentine, salvages the Andromeda on behalf of the villain Gerentex in order to sell it, and especially its superior weapon systems, Hunt reacts understandably hostile at first, but soon closes with Beka and hers A pact from the ingenious engineer Seamus Harper, the mysterious Trance Gemini and the clergyman Magog Rev Bem as well as the Nietzschean Tyr Anasazi, originally hired as a mercenary, to rebuild the Commonwealth.

The Eureka Maru practically becomes a dinghy for the Andromeda during the course of the action. Hunt commands the Maru in individual missions and hands over command of the Andromeda to Valentine (in individual episodes also to Harper). In later episodes, slip fighters also appear as dinghies for the Andromeda .

The first season tells in individual episodes how the crew tries to make peace and win members for the New Commonwealth. In the second season it is clear that when the project is urgent: a superior opponent, who descended from the Magog - "Abyss" ( English "Abyss") - makes its appearance, the seemingly embodies the absolute evil. The original concept for the Abyss was dropped after Robert Hewitt Wolfe left the series. The Abyss remained an opponent of the team, but is not examined in more detail. Despite all the adversities, the crew of the Andromeda Ascendant succeed in founding the New Commonwealth.

Further course

In the further course of the work, it turns out to be in vain. In the following seasons, not only does the Abyss threaten to plunge space into chaos with its gigantic "ship of the world", the Commonwealth is also severely weakened by its opponents and torn apart by internal power games. In addition, Hunt and his crew are branded as criminals and must flee.

But even within Dylan's crew there is a rift that has long been suggested: Tyr leaves the Andromeda Ascendant in order to unite the tribes of the Nietzscheans as the genetic reincarnation of the first Nietzschenan Drago Museveni . The crew member thus becomes an antagonist . Later, however, he is stopped by his old friends and dies.

Chased by bounty hunters, Dylan encounters the Abyss and its agents several times. In the final episodes of the fourth season, the crew of the Andromeda Ascendant tries to protect the Arkology space station from the Magog world ship, but fails in this endeavor . Apparently only Hunt can escape through the mysterious "Route of the Ages" (into the secluded Seefra system, as revealed in the final season).

In the fifth and final season, the badly damaged Andromeda stranded in the Seefra system. Everyone who apparently died in the previous season finale ended up here and Dylan has to mobilize everything to get back into space threatened by the Magog. In the course of the last few episodes it becomes increasingly clear that the mysterious crew member Trance Gemini is the avatar of a real sun (the Tarn Vedra / Seefra sun). With a trance, Dylan sets off to the Lambent Kith Nebulae , the council of the sun avatars, who don't seem to care about the fate of the rest of the galaxy. Dylan now finally places himself between the Abyss and the Avatars of the Suns under the guidance of the traitorous Maura . Because now he has recognized the truth that both sides ultimately want to destroy the universe.

occupation

main actor

actor	role	Season					German voice
actor	role	1	2	3	4th	5	German voice
Kevin Sorbo	Dylan Hunt	MR	MR	MR	MR	MR	Torsten Michaelis
Lexa Doig	Andromeda / Rommie	MR	MR	MR	MR	MR	Silvia Missbach
Lisa Ryder	Rebecca "Beka" Valentine	MR	MR	MR	MR	MR	Arianne Borbach
Gordon Michael Woolvett	Seamus Zelazny Harper	MR	MR	MR	MR	MR	Dennis Schmidt-Foss
Laura Bertram	Trance Gemini	MR	MR	MR	MR	MR	Julia digit
Keith Hamilton Cobb	Tyr Anasazi	MR	MR	MR	GA		Jörg Hengstler
Brent Stait	Reverend Behemiel (Rev Bem)	MR	MR	GA	GA		Hans Teuscher
Steve Bacic	Gaheris / Telemachus Rhade	GA	GA	GA	MR	MR	Charles Rettinghaus
Brandy Ledford	Doyle					MR	Ranja Bonalana

HR = main role GA = guest appearance

Technological background

The ship

The Andromeda Ascendant is both a relic that is over 300 years old and one of the most technically advanced spaceships known to the known universe. As the “pride of the honor guard” , the ship is one of the heavy cruisers of the Glorious Heritage class (in the course of the series, German partly incorrectly translated as “glorious cruiser of the Heritage class”) and, according to the information provided by the artificial intelligence, is a rummy of the ship pure warship that can destroy entire planets just by using conventional weapons. However, it will also be used for non-military purposes in the course of the rebuilding of the Commonwealth. The ship is 1,301 meters long.

The Andromeda has 40 rocket launchers that can fire 8 rounds per second. This allows the ship to fire 19,200 rockets per minute. The rockets can be reproduced on board. The numerous weapons also include so-called nova bombs, which can wipe out entire planetary systems by canceling the force of gravity in the central star and causing it to explode under its own pressure. A ship like the Andromeda usually has 40 on board.

Artificial Intelligences

Every spaceship in the honor guard is equipped with artificial intelligence - AI for short - which has full control over the ship's systems and fully automates them for the crew. No two AIs are the same: each of the artificial intelligences has its own personality.

Although the AIs are part of the ship and have their own will, they are always subordinate to a commanding officer whose orders they must obey. It is not uncommon for friendships to develop between the AI and members of the crew (such as between Dylan Hunt and Rommie (the AI of Andromeda)).

drive

Little is known about propulsion below the speed of light. The Slipstream , in which the spaceship threads itself into hyperdimensional threads of strings, allows for faster than light (and apparently also taking place on the time axis of a> 4-dimensional universe) . Time travel with a time paradox is thus possible and has also been implemented in some episodes of the series.

To be able to dive into the slipstream, a slipstream portal is required. An organic awareness is required to navigate during the slipstream. This means that the targeted goal can be achieved with 99% probability .

Important planets

Tarn Vedra was the central world of the Commonwealth and is the homeworld of the Vedrans.
Tarazed is a democracy with a functioning society modeled on the Commonwealth. After Captain Hunt establishes the second Commonwealth, Tarazed, which was initially reluctant to join the Commonwealth, becomes the new central world.

production

Episode list

→ Main article: Andromeda (TV series) / Episode list

backgrounds

The producers of the series, which was originally designed by Robert Hewitt Wolfe based on old scripts by Gene Roddenberry , feared that the series content would become too complex and intellectual, and finally released Wolfe in the middle of the second season. The episode "Grenzgänger" is the last for which Wolfe was responsible. In it, Wolfe conceded some of the requested changes that should make the series simpler and easier to understand.

Then Wolfe wrote a one-act play, the so-called " Coda " (Italian tail , mainly used in music), his alternative continuation of the plot, and published it on his website. The coda answers many of the questions left open in the series.

Races and groups

People

Humans are the most common species in the Commonwealth of Nations.

Magog

Magog are a primitive-looking aggressive humanoid species that dominate intergalactic travel and invade other species. Their faces are bat-like grimaces, the rest of their bodies are covered with long fur, they also have sharp claws as hands and have a paralyzing poison. They reproduce by laying eggs in the bellies of the species that invade them; mostly these are people who inevitably die when the larvae have reached a certain stage of development. Removing the eggs and larvae is almost impossible without dying the host. The Abyss constructed the world ship for them , a huge structure of 20 planets and with a sun inside. These planets are called hollow worlds . They are home to billions of Magog and are the starting point for a large-scale invasion.

The name of the Magog is probably derived from the Gog and Magog from the Revelation of John , two peoples who, according to this, liberate Satan and fight for him out of gratitude against the army of God.

Nietzscheans

Nietzscheans ( Homo sapiens invictus - that is, “invincible rational human being”) were created from normal people by genetic engineering and are bigger, stronger and faster, immune to most poisons and diseases and much more resistant to all environmental conditions. They should be living gods, pre-eminent spirits in science, art and poetry. They were created by the human geneticist Paul Museveni , who created the first Nietzschenaner, Drago Museveni , at the Ayn Rand Station he founded on the planet . The Nietzscheans follow the teachings of the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche .

After the fall of the Commonwealth, the Nietzschean tribes began fighting each other, which continues into the present of the series. These wars led to the extermination of many smaller tribes (such as the Atreus , Kodiak , Al-Sharif , Three Rivers and Banyamulenge ) and captivated the more powerful such as the Drago-Kazov or the Sabra-Jaguar in perpetual border conflicts. However, the legend persists that one day the progenitor Drago Museveni will be reborn through genetic reincarnation in order to unite the tribes and to gather them together. The Nietzschean striving for physical and genetic perfection leads Nietzschean women to choose their partners according to genetic criteria and sometimes disabled children are killed after birth.

Nietzscheans look like normal people, but they are all tall and muscular and have flawless skin. The main characteristic of the Nietzscheans are three bone blades similar to the tentacles of a praying mantis, which grow out of the forearm and serve as a weapon. They represent the Nietzschean's affiliation to his tribe.

As “genetic supermen”, the Nietzscheans are very similar to the Morthans ( more than humans ) from David Gerrold's novels , but also to the “Augments” from Roddenberry's best-known work Star Trek .

Vedraner

The Vedrans from the planet Tarn Vedra are the founders of the intergalactic Commonwealth . Vedran society is organized in a matriarchal way. Since the number of male Vedrans is five times higher than that of women, a woman usually keeps several men, with the dominant male having the right to mate. Because of this, the head of the Commonwealth was the Empress of Tarn Vedra , even though power was in the hands of a popularly elected government.

With their human torso and four legs, the Vedrans are similar to the centaurs of Greek mythology. The skin and blood of the Vedrans are blue in color. They have no fur, instead their head and lower body are covered with feather down. Male representatives have a pronounced crest on the head and back, which is decorated with colorful feathers. They are considered to be the discoverers of the slipstream, which offers the possibility of bridging gigantic distances in a relatively short time, and thus built a huge empire that formed the basis for the later Commonwealth. Tarn Vedra is thought to be lost in later episodes.

Than-Thre-Kull (Than)

The thanes are humanoid insectoids; That is, they only have one pair of arms and legs, but an exoskeleton, compound eyes, mandibles and a vaguely ant-like physique. You are a little smaller than the average person. They are hermaphrodites who live together in large breeding groups.

Five different genetic variants, which are revealed in the color of the exoskeletons, form the basis for the thane caste system: yellow are the workers, green are the warriors, red are technicians and engineers, blue are teachers and scientists, diamond leaders and priests.

The Than are a proud people who are an important pillar of both the old and the new Commonwealth. They are considered robust, highly intelligent and civilized. The Than were one of the few peoples who discovered the slipstream without the support of the Vedrans.

characters

Captain Dylan Hunt

Dylan Hunt (played by Kevin Sorbo ) is the commanding officer on the Andromeda and, from a date of birth, a little over 300 years old when he was discovered by the crew of the Eureka Maru in his ship in the event horizon of a black hole. Dylan confronts the predatory crew of the Eureka Maru , who want to salvage the Andromeda and claim it for themselves. Dylan is shocked to learn that the Commonwealth has been destroyed by a long and bloody war. Since then there has been chaos in the galaxy. With his new crew, Dylan takes on his biggest mission to date: he wants to rebuild the Commonwealth. Dylan later learns that he is the last survivor of the "Paradyne" (a "world walker") from a paradisiacal place. He therefore also has the ability to travel and navigate through time.

Rebecca "Beka" Valentine

Beka was born as the daughter of the wealthy Senator Talia Waterkurk, but grew up in very poor circumstances under the care of her drug addict father Ignatius Valentine and his business partner and friend Sid Barry. As a child she went hungry so often that her “ uncle by choice ” Sid sometimes had to inject vitamins into her food. After a long and drug-dependent teenage years, Beka was finally able to recover, but was depressed for a long time. She and her team salvage Captain Dylan Hunt and join his team in rebuilding the Commonwealth. She can change her hair color as desired through nano cells in her hair. In season 5, she becomes the matriarch of all Nietzscheans.

In Robert Hewitt Wolfes Coda Rebecca “Beka” Valentine finds all parts of the engine of creation. Wolfe planned for the character to become the new Abyss at the end of the series in order to maintain balance in the universe.

Seamus Zelazny Harper

Little is known of Seamus Harper's past; including the fact that he was born and raised on earth in Boston . He's the Andromeda's new flight engineer . He and Beka have been good friends for a long time, and they often spent time together in their youth. According to Beka's testimony, it was he who pulled her off the drugs . However, no further details are known. Harper is considered very loyal to Captain Dylan Hunt and the Andromeda crew. A data port on his neck enables him to penetrate computer systems and, in some cases, other people's brain structures. It was he who created the Avatar Rommie for the Andromeda. His love for the things he had created himself was most evident in her.

In Robert Hewitt Wolfes Coda, Harper becomes part of the “consensus of components”, a kind of amalgamation of intelligent machine components that can be put together as desired depending on their function. The team meets the consensus of the components in episode 16 of the first season.

Tyr Anasazi

He was once a mercenary. He tries to take control of the Drago-Khazov, which he later succeeds in doing. He changes his genetic structure in such a way that it looks as if he was the genetic reincarnation of the first Nietzschean, Drago Museveni. In the fight against Dylan Hunt, Tyr eventually falls into the Abyss.

In Robert Hewitt Wolfes Coda, Tyr Anasazi establishes a new empire of the Nietzscheans.

Andromeda / Rommie

Rummy is played by Lexa Doig . In the series, Rommie is the artificial intelligence of the Andromeda Ascendant, a spaceship. The engineer Seamus Harper created a humanoid avatar for her , which he seems to be a little infatuated with.

Rommie has complete power and control over her ship. In addition to being an avatar, she communicates with the crew via hologram or video screen. She is very loyal to the crew, especially to her Captain Dylan Hunt. The avatar has abilities that would be equivalent to superpowers in humans, for example it can move extremely quickly and develop extreme powers if necessary. In addition, it is hardly prone to injury. She can use the sensors in her hands to diagnose internal injuries in people, but also to act as a kind of lie detector . Despite being an android , she has human feelings such as B. in the episode "Star Crossed" can be seen in which she falls in love with Gabriel (played by Lexa Doig's later husband Michael Shanks ), the avatar of another ship, while working with him.

The two rommies (hologram and avatar) interact perfectly with each other, but are independent. Since the avatar was created, it seems to have evolved independently of the ship's AI. Sometimes you can even see them chatting, in rare cases they even argue with each other. Their biggest difference is that the Avatar created by Harper tries to be human and sentimental, while the ship itself remains more in its "role" as a warship.

At the end of the fourth season, Rommie is destroyed. All that was left was her partially destroyed head and the core of the AI. Harper's first attempt to restore it failed, and Rommie tried to kill him before it self-destructed. So Harper passed her on and stopped her AI. Instead, he uses some of their parts to create a new android, Doyle. When Rommie is needed to use the slipstream drive, Harper refuses to fix her. Doyle takes over Rommie's repairs at Dylan's request. But the damage to the AI is so extreme that Rommie tries to kill her old crew. By uploading her own personality patterns, which Harper had taken from Rommie's old core memory, Doyle manages to bring the "old" Rommie back.

Rev Bem

Rev Bem is played by actor Brent Stait . However, Brent Stait had to give up the role due to an allergy to his mask. However, he can be seen in guest appearances a few times later. After a transformation, Rev is no longer a Magog and Stait gets a new mask.

Rev Bem, Andromeda's science officer, is a Magog and a member of The Way. To do this, however, he has to suppress his instincts to kill and devour other living beings. Rev Bems full name is " Reverend Behemiel the Far-Traveled". His Magog name is "Rotpest".

Rev Bem founds the empire of the Fatalfi in Robert Hewitt Wolfes Coda.

Trance Gemini

Trance Gemini, played by the Canadian actress Laura Bertram , belongs to a race of "sun avatars" and, as the avatar of the sun of Tarn Vedra, is the oldest of her people, although she initially appears simply as a strange alien. She has several mysterious abilities. It can act in multiple universes. For example, she is always very lucky in making random decisions, which is due to the fact that she exists in several realities and has the ability to simulate and vary real events. She is also recovering from a fatal gunshot wound, which is explained by the fact that as a sun avatar she is not a biological living being. She can apparently vary her body temperature at will and thus melt shackles and chains, as in the episode "The Tunnel Guardian". It can also explode as a supernova , releasing enormous energies in the process. She offers this possibility to free the crew trapped in the Seefra system by turning them into a supernova to recharge the Andromeda's almost exhausted energy store. She works as a medic on board the Andromeda and takes care of the plants in the hydroponic garden.

In the coda, Trance Gemini Harper explains that she belongs to the race of the Lucifers or Lightbringer (original: "Lightbringer", see also Lucifer ). These are the opponents of the Abyss, which in the coda stands for harmony and perfection, in which energy and mass are held together. She is thus comparable to Si Kitu in the Perry-Rhodan Universe as the guardian of creation. With the engine of creation (original: "Engine Of Creation") the Lucifer let the universe arise again and again, while the Abyss used the black holes to shape the universe again into a unit. In this version, trance is not a person in the actual sense, but a star in the star constellation Gemini (English " Gemini constellation ", Latin Gemini = twins). She still behaves like a human. The Lucifer created their own bodies into which they projected their consciousness via the slipstream. This connection can also be seen in episode 21 of the first season (The Odyssey), as the team there travels for many hours through difficult-to-pass slipstream routes and Trance's health deteriorates dramatically. The assumption that the connection to their star became weaker is obvious. Also, due to the fact that her body was just her instrument, she couldn't die when she was shot in the pilot episode. The concept was dropped after Robert Hewitt Wolfe had to leave the series.

The changes in Trance's backstory left many questions unanswered, while at the same time creating inconsistencies that fans of the series are still debating. Many fans see the coda as the "real" Andromeda.

Telemachus Rhade

A Nietzschean played by Steve Bacic who embodies the genetic reincarnation of Gaheris Rhade, Dylan's former first officer who betrayed him at the Battle of Hephaestus. He takes the place of Tyr Anasazi in the course of the fourth season after he leaves Andromeda, apparently influenced by his own plans and the Abyss.

Trivia

At the beginning of each episode, a well-known or invented philosophical wisdom is faded in. According to the number of episodes there are 110 of these quotes. The time specification n. C. "means n oh establishment of the C ommonwealth".
In the pilot episode, the old role of Sorbos as "Hercules" was alluded to when they said about him "The guy looks like a Greek god".
In the goofs and outtakes of the series, including the 100th episode in the credits, Kevin Sorbo can be seen walking through the picture with boulders. He comments on the whole thing with "Oops, that was probably a Hercules Flashback!"
In season 5, episode 4, Dylan opens a door in his quarters and takes out the sword and Hercules' blonde wig.
Captain Hunt's fiancée on the show is actually married to him.
Lexa Doig's husband Michael Shanks has made a few guest appearances on the series.
The title track of the first season "March Of The High Guard" was composed by Alex Lifeson, the guitarist of the Canadian rock band Rush .
In Season 5, Episode 20, there is a reference to Star Wars Episode IV. Rommie and Doyle encounter a couple of intruders, whereupon Rommie says, "We are not the droids you are looking for," making the typical hand gesture of the Jedi spirit trick.
A pilot for Roddenberry's Genesis II with Alex Cord in the role of Dylan Hunt was produced as early as 1973 ; However, due to the lack of success, the television series did not go into production at the time.
In season 1, episode 11 and season 3, episode 4 John de Lancie appears. This is u. a. known from various Star Trek episodes in which he embodies Q.
In various episodes actors from the series Stargate - Command SG-1 appear, Michael Shanks ( Daniel Jackson ) and Christopher Judge ( Teal'c ) as ship avatars and in the 5th season Don S. Davis (General George Hammond ) as Beka's father, and Brandy Ledford as Doyle (undercover Tok'Ra * Lord Sarin *) and in Stargate Atlantis (human science officer on Taranis)
The Commonwealth, the peaceful union of planets, is reminiscent of the United Federation of Planets known from the Star Trek universe .

Awards

2002: Gemini Award for Ryan Nicholson and Francesca von Zimmerman ( best make-up )
2002: 17th Annual Gemini Award for Gordon Michael Woolvett ( Hottest Star )

Web links

Andromeda in the Internet Movie Database (English)
German Andromeda website
Androwiki - Andromeda reference work (German and English)
“Coda” by Robert Hewitt Wolfe (PDF; 33 kB), alternative continuation of the plot from the middle of the second season

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