MovieChat Forums > Farscape (1999) Discussion > The message of Peacekeeper Wars might be...

The message of Peacekeeper Wars might be a bit frelled up, honestly...

posted 10 years ago by RockinRickyRialto
13 replies | jump to latest

*OBVIOUS SPOILERS*

Yeah, I know there's a board for PK Wars, but this one is much more active.

I watched the miniseries with my Dad, who enjoyed it as much as I did, but at the very end he said something like "so, the moral of the story is that you have to use a weapon of mass destruction to show how bad it is." And I started thinking a bit about that.

In Farscape's third and fourth seasons, when the plot of the search for wormhole weapons became center stage, it felt like the writers were trying to show how futile and destructive the idea of an arms race is. By the end of season 4, there are some major references to Dr. Strangelove, a movie that treats nuclear war like a ridiculous farce, such as John writing "hi there" on the Katrazi atom bomb. This seems to suggest that the writers wanted us to think of the quest for WMDs as violent lunacy, and that the right thing to do is to look for alternative options and ways to stop it (even if it involves destruction itself, like the Command Carrier disaster in Into the Lion's Den.).

And Peacekeeper Wars seems to at first support this sort of doggedly anti-war philosophy, with the Moya gang rounding up the Eidelons for their peace-inducing powers...but then things go haywire and John has to deploy the wormhole weapon in the battle as a last resort, much to others' protests. Yes, you could argue the crew is backed in a corner and has to either take a crazy risk or die (sort of like crossing the streams in Ghostbusters or activating the Omega 13 in Galaxy Quest), but this is a bit different, as this is a terrible weapon and we see it doing its job by destroying many ships and the planet below (hope they evacuated all those surviving Eidelons!). Then John says that weapons don't make peace, but people make peace...but in this case, the threat of the weapon played a pretty big part in it! The triumph of peace becomes a bit less poignant when the two sides are forced into it by a crazy man with a weapon.

You could compare it with the atomic bombings used to force Japan's surrender in WWII, but in that case, the introduction of a heinous new weapon led to countries around the world buying nuclear arsenals, while in the miniseries...the Ancients swoop in and wipe all of John's wormhole knowledge so no one can ever make one of those big nasty weapons again. How convenient!

Now, I really love Peacekeeper Wars, and I don't think this message is really a political screed from any of the writers so much as it's just implicit in the narrative. But still...I'm sure other people have had the same thoughts on it I've had, yes?

What I think of your post: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=VC4YjOp4Cto#t=10s

[–] execproducer22 10 years ago

I agree with what you said that the message is kinda muddled.

Although what your dad said about the only way to bring peace being using WMD's is more of symptom of the narative rather than the message itself.

I think the miniseries was more about Chrichton coming to terms with this great power he wields and taking responsibility for it instead of running away from it.

Throughout the whole show and even in the miniseries he has denounced this gift and ran away from using it at every turn. I think this is ultimately Johns character arc in that instead of running away from his destiny he finally decides to do what he must to save the galaxy from itself.

"What color is the boathouse at Hereford!?" 

-Sam

[–] Bernnard_Black 10 years ago

My only gripe with the message was that after he demonstrates the weapon, suddenly everyone is not only convinced that it's too dangerous to use, but that Chriton is no longer worth chasing and they should have peace. Very nice in theory, but in reality, I think a couple of things would happen.

1: They'd be after him more than ever, because now they KNOW he can create wormhole weapons. If nothing else, each side would try to kill him to prevent the other from ever using him. Besides, both sides really hated the guy; they'd want him dead just for spite.

2: I think that both sides might promise peace but then immediately go back to fighting, especially the Scarens. The were winning, and they knew it. Once the threat of that first wormhole was gone, they had no real reason not to continue the fight. Oh, I guess we could argue that Chriton could make another one to punish them, but they know he wouldn't do it.

3: Someone on either side would almost certainly still want to know how to find and stabilize wormholes, even if not make weapons. In fact, the original point of Scorpius' research was just that; to be able to land troops or ships anywhere they wanted at any time. The weapon thing was never really mentioned before. So I could definitely see the Scarans and Peacekeepers continuing to want to know what Chriton knows, even if they don't want to build planet-eating weapons.

Whores will have their trinkets.

[–] execproducer22 10 years ago

Only a new season or a movie could answer those questions....

"What color is the boathouse at Hereford!?" 

-Sam

[–] chuggliams 9 years ago

'Bernard Black'..."whores will have their trinkets."
Just had to say that I love your UN and sig: add to the fact that you're on a 'Farscape' message board and you have a permanent defender of your taste in telly from me!
I realise that this is completely off-topic but anyone who likes both 'Farscape' and 'Black Books' is a man/woman after my own heart.

Apologies for the intermission- as you were...

[–] mpadpy 10 years ago

Operation unthinkable tells us using nuclear weapons on Japan was to show the soviets its power. It had actually made the world far more dangerous since the soviets were only an year or two behind the US and had put its development on hold. After it was used all resources were poured into it including kidnapping German scientists to create their own weapon. Once they got it working they became on par with nuclear tech development as the hydrogen bomb and other weapons showed. Instead of using the UN at the time to put brakes on nuclear weapon development, it accelerated to create weapons tens of thousands of time more destructive. The 2 Christian cities bombed played no part in Japan's surrender. Japan had asked the soviets to get a surrender agreement not much different than the one they agreed to in the end. At the time Japan and the USSR had an armistice after japans defeat before WW2. If the allies plan was not about supremacy and just to stop the war they could have finished it around the same time as Germany surrendered.

Just saying, developing a WMD to intimate another only caused development of far more destructive weapons. Once you use that weapon, there is no way to put the breaks on more development no matter what. No one will agree to not develop such things when the other side has them. The time to put the cap on the bottle would be when you realize such things are possible and put in place safe guards. It worked with the soviets who were called all kinds of names.. but the crazy mind washed soviets never used such weapons. And I bet knowing that developing such weapons would lead to such destructive war would have prevented any side from moving to create one.

Everything points to the fact that only one crazy needs to have a wmd before everyone runs after it. So having it does not create peace. It creates fear. Why does the world need nuclear weapons now? We have weapons close to the power of nuclear weapons. You only need them to cause fear in others. Even though other weapons can do just as much damage, like the moab or foab's.. You cant really use huge nuclear weapons since their destructive power gets wasted into space creating a useful size limit.

C I Am Not a 'Chicken shiet'

[–] jgkight 9 years ago

He was deperate, plain and simple. Just as in Japan, we were desperate. FDR and the allies were looking at an invason that would have led to the deaths of over million Japanese, plus 2 million dead and wounded on the Allied side. Also, showing the power we weilded put the Russians on noticed and stopped their advanced into Japan. I'm not going to argue whether it was moral, that's another argument, I just saying that I can see why they did it. Also, yes it did start an arms race, but it also brought peace because all sides that had nukes knew it's power and didn't use them. Seeing a weapon in action is a whole lot different than seeing the test. Same as Crichton. He saw a galaxy eaten up by war, a galaxy where his family was constantly in danger, so he ended the war. He weilded the ultimate power to demostrate what can happen if they pursued him or wormhole weapons. They don't know the ancients took it away from him. They just know that in the end, both saides lose when it comes to WMDs.

[–] The_Real_Celsus 9 years ago

I think as the OP stated there could be an arms race, but the fact it was a bomb on crack smoking a nuke that was loaded with neutron bombs. One could argue that since the weapon destroyed all of everything around and would have possibly grown large enough to destroy everything else the two parties were put to a lucid wake up, like the knowledge of how close we got to WW3. It would have been more like Canada had dropped Nukes in every country forcing every leader to stand down. Then add in the peace race and you may have a stronger peace than post WW2. Eitherway the Nabari are still out there with the mind control...

[–] mpadpy 9 years ago

Is that why the US made over 50 nukes by 1950 and had a plan to nuke every major soviet city? Only the fact that even nuking every major city would not have stopped the soviets conquering the entire European country stopped them from actually doing it. And the soviets were only an year or so behind in developing their own city nukes. So the soviets were stronger even without nukes at the time. The first thing the soviets then do was develop a ballistic missile that could reach the US and an year later the bombs that go with it. We know a lot more of the whys now.. Unlike the pretenses given in history books. Instead of 100 mil dead we would have billions dead just because the US wanted to rule the world and intimidate others. Nothing more. The US could have just waited, the naval embargo made sure no food or oil ever got to japan and they would have starved in another 3 months just like how Germany surrendered in WW1 not because they lost. They actually had to give back all the areas that were still under their control and Russia was out of the war by then due to the soviets taking over the country.

[–] The_Real_Celsus 9 years ago

Is that why the US made over 50 nukes by 1950 and had a plan to nuke every major soviet city? Only the fact that even nuking every major city would not have stopped the soviets conquering the entire European country stopped them from actually doing it. And the soviets were only an year or so behind in developing their own city nukes. So the soviets were stronger even without nukes at the time. The first thing the soviets then do was develop a ballistic missile that could reach the US and an year later the bombs that go with it. We know a lot more of the whys now.. Unlike the pretenses given in history books. Instead of 100 mil dead we would have billions dead just because the US wanted to rule the world and intimidate others. Nothing more. The US could have just waited, the naval embargo made sure no food or oil ever got to japan and they would have starved in another 3 months just like how Germany surrendered in WW1 not because they lost. They actually had to give back all the areas that were still under their control and Russia was out of the war by then due to the soviets taking over the country.

TCDR

[–] 9 years ago

[deleted]

[–] The_Real_Celsus 9 years ago

That may have been a result of the three eyed lady having the reaction to the make-up and them having to change her character's story line. That could have had a ripple effect on the rest of the planet's story. I just hope they do the new series they are talking about, and they make sure everyone is not allergic to the make-up ahead of time.

[–] eisphoenix-655-672150 9 years ago

Actually, I wouldn't compare it to the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of WW2 (or the conventional bombing of Dresden by allied forces, for that matter), because these were one side bombing the other one to show how strong they were and forcing the enemy to surrender. It's more like Reagan watching The Day After and then going softer on the Soviets in 1983. The NATO pact stopped their "Able Archer" manouvre, because they had realized that the Soviets were extremely nervous. The situation was maybe the closest the world ever got to total nuclear war, worse than the Cuba crysis in 1962. There is a rumor going on that Reagan accepted the British suggestion to stop the manouvre after he watched The Day After and realized how devastating a nuclear war would really be.
The Moya crew did not really use the wormhole weapon as a means to defend themselves, otherwise they could have totally destroyed both fleets, but to show both sides how bad a galaxy-wide war would be, if one or even both sides would have wormhole weapons at their hands.
Both sides were hell-bent to start a war, not realizing how bad that war really would be, a situation comparable to that one at the beginning of World War 1 in Europe, and it was only after John used the weapon that both sides came to their minds. Also, do you really think that for the billions of people who did not die in this war it matters how this peace was archieved?

[–] lexyladyjax 8 years ago

The thing about the Cold War.is that no one who was born after it can possibly know how frightening it was. We all lived very aware that we were on the brink at the moment every day of our lives. It was more.terrifying for those of us who live close to military bases and were married to spouses in the military. My husband always said 'I'll get mine about 15 minutes before you get yours.' He flew the plane that carried the nuke, you see.

Japan was given the choice to surrender but they refused. That's why they got the Bomb. We wanted the war to stop and we had this new nuclear weapon. We were going to use it to stop the fighting. Japan wasn't going to quit. They were battle crazy. Pamphlets were dropped, warning that it was coming. Because WWII history was taught in school, we knew it could happen again with Bombs exploding all over the world.

The Cold War was World War III. It lasted more than 40 years. It was terrifying but we survived it with few lives lost thanks to good leaders who kept us safe. They knew the horrors of all-out war. The same ones did, anyway.

The demonstration was what happened to Japan in August. There must always be a demonstration of WMDs. After the war the U.S. government blew up many atomic weapons in the west. They were observed by scientists and science fiction writers like Bradbury, Heinlein, Asimov from Las Vegas and many others. We had our best minds working hard on how to avoid future wars. That's what we needed to do at the time. Now it's the future and we still have to keep nukes out of the hands of idiots. Nothing changes but nothing changes.

Bored now.