- "Peacekeeper Wars" redirects here. You may be looking for the mini-series Farscape: The Peacekeeper Wars.
The Peacekeeper/Scarran War was the culmination of long simmering tensions between the Peacekeepers and the Scarran Empire. The war followed of several years of rising tensions in the cold war between the two groups, as the Empire began harboring doubts about the Peacekeepers having any viable superweapons, particularly wormhole-based superweapons, that could prevent them from vanquishing the Peacekeepers in the event of an attack. The pursuit of John Crichton by both powers, who was believed by both sides to possess the knowledge of wormhole weapons, was another factor that cooled relations.
Prelude[]
Rivals for decades, the Peacekeepers feared all out war with the Scarrans due to the Empire's vast numerical advantage in fleet and personnel. Peacekeeper commander Scorpius had commented that the Scarran's main foot soldiers the Charrids outnumbered Peacekeeper soldiers 10 to 1. He opined that without a wormhole weapon, the Empire would win any war between the two powers.
For cycles, though, Scorpius and the Peacekeepers' efforts to develop wormhole-based weaponry were frustrated, as were their attempts to use John Crichton's implanted wormhole knowledge in said development. After Scorpius had returned to Peacekeeper service following a partially self-imposed exile, having once again failed to either retrieve Crichton's wormhole knowledge or convince the human to work with him, he was assigned a command carrier group. Shortly thereafter, Scorpius lost contact with the neural clone implanted in Crichton's head, possibly leading Scorpius to believe the human had perished in one of his many hazardous adventures he often found himself. At the same time, the Empire's forces were massing, indicating a coming attack.
With the war appearing to be inevitable, Peacekeeper Strategic Command assigned Scorpius to gather intelligence on Scarran fleet movement. Scorpius, though, saw that this put them at the vanguard were war to break out. Determined to set the conflict off on the his terms rather than the Empire's or his own scheming commanders', and knowing that the only chance for either victory or to force a stalemate was a swift strike before the Scarrans were ready for it, Scorpius set his trap and located a target to spring it on: a convoy of Scarran dreadnoughts.
Opening Move[]
Scorpius positioned his fleet of carriers in the rings of a planet and waited for the dreadnought convoy to arrive. When the dreadnoughts did appear, the carriers and their support ships were already in attack position, with Prowlers and Marauders deployed. A dreadnought was immediately destroyed in the opening salvos as they tried to bring their guns to bear. Using a feint to draw the remaining dreadnoughts in, the Prowlers personally led by Captain Braca engaged the dreadnoughts at point blank range. The Peacekeepers' superior pilots and gunners were able to inflict massive damage on the Scarran fleet.
Though victory was in reach for the Peacekeeper force, Scorpius either detected or received a transmission from the neural clone he had planted years ago in John Crichton's head, indicating that the human was alive and emerged. He immediately ordered the withdrawal of his carrier from the battle over the objections of Braca and ranking officer Sikozu. Without Scorpius' carrier playing its vital roll in the battle, the Peacekeepers could not maintain their strategy and the Scarrans rallied to victory. It would not be their last.
Empire Ascendant[]
Immediately, the Empire made its advantage clear as they used their sheer numbers to overwhelm Peacekeeper forces, winning every battle engaged in. Included in these conflicts was the water planet Qujaga, where Scorpius' commander carrier had arrived to make contact with the recently reassembled Crichton. Unbeknownst to them, the Scarrans had a spy embedded in Scorpius' command, his right hand Sikozu, and Emperor Staleek himself began his own pursuit of Crichton. As the emperor pursued the Leviathan Moya, the rest of his battle fleet made straight for Qujaga to overwhelm the commander carrier and subdue the planet.
The Empire's preparation for the war was obvious early on as their forces quickly pushed the Peacekeepers back from their forward positions and into retreat. The Scarrans were able to quickly take areas such as the Alentro Quadrant and force Peacekeeper fleets into defensive postures.
The war did not remain confined to Scarran or Peacekeeper-aligned space and protectorates. The Hynerian Empire, for example, suffered heavy losses from Scarran attacks with millions dying. The crisis was dire enough that Dominar Bishan reached out to the cousin he had deposed, Rygel XVI, in hopes that the former Dominar would be a figure the Hynerians could rally around in resistance to Scarran incursions.
Opportunities[]
Seeing little hope in defeating or even slowing the Scarrans, Peacekeeper Chancellor Maryk openly talked of surrender to his lover Commandant Grayza. Even upon learning that Emperor Staleek had tracked Crichton down to the planet Arnessk and had him captive aboard his flagship the Decimator, Maryk wanted to contact Staleek to sue for peace. Grayza, however, believed that the only course was to attempt to kill the emperor and cause enough chaos to allow the Peacekeepers a chance to defeat the Scarrans. She poisoned Maryk and quickly assumed command of the fleet at Strategic Command. After receiving a distress call from a beleaguered Captain Braca at Qujaga, reporting that Staleek's vanguard had arrived to cripple the command carrier and were assaulting the planet surface, Grayza had the fleet set a course to assist, hoping to take Staleek out and give the Peacekeepers a fighting chance in the war
Showdown at Qujaga[]
Grayza's Peacekeeper fleet engaged the Scarran forces at Qujaga, hoping to inflict as much damage as possible while they still had the element of surprise. Soon, Staleek's Decimator also arrived, joining the fray and, believing Maryk to be alive and commanding the Peacekeeper flagship, targeting the command carrier in kind.
On the planet's surface, Scarran and Charrid forces battle surviving Peacekeeper and Eidelon forces holding out in the hidden city. The crew of Moya arrived to rescue as many surviving Eidelons as possible and led a fighting retreat to the extraction point, suffering losses along the way.
Back aboard Moya, Crichton activated a wormhole weapon and used it to force an end to the fighting. Initially, both the Peacekeeper and Scarran fleets ignored Crichton's transmission, continuing battle, but soon the gravitational pull of the wormhole became too powerful to ignore. The wormhole ripped Qujaga apart and consumed most of the Peacekeeper and Imperial fleets until only Moya, the Decimator, and Grayza's command carrier remained. Faced with the horror of the all-consuming wormhole not only destroying them and their civilizations but also the entire galaxy, both Grayza and Staleek agreed to end the war.
Peace[]
After getting the assurances from both sides, Crichton destroyed the wormhole weapon, nearly losing his life in the process.
The treaty ending the war was staged in a ceremony overseen by the peace-inspiring Eidelons and signed by delegations led by Commandant Grayza representing the Peacekeepers and Emperor Staleek representing the Scarran Empire. At last the guns were silent and peace in the galaxy reigned again.