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Farscape can’t teach you everything, but it does have a lot of wisdom to share. Amidst the worse pandemic our planet has seen in a century, we Earthlings would do well to consider what kind of society we want to live in. We humans tend to stick to what we know, thinking things are okay because its all we’ve known. Crichton had his horizons expanded, more than a little bit.
Crichton: there are viruses galore out here in the galaxy. (She nods, thinking about it.) I mean hell, wh-what are our chances that we’re gonna catch the Carubian plague or something? Sebaceans, for example. Do you have inoculations? I mean, how do you guys deal with all the stuff floating around out here? So you guys just zip around the galaxy, hoping you don’t pick up some STD? Space Transmitted Disease?
Aeryn: No, we’re issued a standard number of, ‘inoculations,’ as you call them, against all known destructive bacterial and viral matter.
Crichton: Do we have any of that on board?
Aeryn: And if some new malicious organism is discovered, our scientists engineer an anti-substrate, a growth blocker, to stop it from affecting our systems.
Crichton: (Contemplating the implications.) So, basically, you… you have no disease.
Aeryn: Basically, yes. (She looks a bit smug as she takes another sip.)
Crichton: Aeryn, you were born… to this. I mean, this science, you-you’ve had it your whole life. You have no idea how advanced it all is to me.
Aeryn: (She grins broadly and chuckles–of course she does.) I think I do.
Crichton: (Sobered.) No. I don’t think so. Disease and death are rampant on my world. Bacteria and viruses destroy crops… animals, people at… at… incalculable rates.
Aeryn: Well, each ecosystem has its own logic, so maybe yours is a simpler way of keeping populations under control.
Crichton: (Quite unsatisfied with that suggestion.) No. No, no, no. This is a better way. The suffering that you’ve managed to avoid with your science is immeasurable.
Aeryn: Creatures still die out here. And we find new ways to suffer. And to make others suffer.
Crichton: Well, I never said Earth had a monopoly on that.
No, Earth has no monopoly on it, but diseases and death are rampant on our planet. And every other species in the galaxy would wonder what the frell we are doing. But do we have the courage to do what we need to do to change? To fundamentally alter out expectations to bring about a new society? Or will humans continue to be an ignorant, selfish, weak species.
We won’t be destroyed by Scarrans, Peacekeepers, Kkore, lions, tigers, or bears, But we can destroy ourselves. The choice is ours.