Moya is the living
ship which the main
protagonists on
The Sci-Fi Channel's
show Farscape reside on. Most of the show happens onboard Moya. Moya really should be considered another character on the show, because she definitely has moods, wants, needs, and often voices concerns through
Pilot, an entity symbiotically intertwined with Moya.
Moya is a Leviathan. While Moya doesn't look organic in the way typical Sci-Fi ships do, (blobby with an orifice or two) Moya is far more natural-looking than most ships on the series, and has a warm coloring (mostly bronze) throughout. Underneath the hull, bulkheads, and such, are lots of pipes, veins, arteries and nerve channels. Pilot is intertwined with Moya at this level, and Pilot's tentacles extend throughout the ship.
Leviathans are capable of FTL (faster-than-light) travel and generating the necessary environment for crew members. This includes an atmosphere, food, water, light, gravity, waste processing, etc. However, normal Leviathans are totally free of any exterior weaponry, and naturally lack shielding, though it can be added.
Moya's story is intertwined with that of the Peacekeepers, one of the erroneously named militaristic races of Farscape. Leviathans are used by Peacekeepers for random, non-battle tasks. When Moya picked up John Crichton in the pilot, it had been stolen by some prisoners which had been interred there. (Some for many cycles(years)) Moya has a large docking bay, and apparently space for all kinds of things. Moya has a lot of odd crawl-spaces and such which the crew can get lost in sometimes. Once Ka D'Argo accidentally slid down a crawlway into outer space. In (IIRC) the second season, Moya had an unusual baby named Talyn. Because Moya was going to be used in a Peacekeeper project to make armed Leviathans, a little canister of Peacekeeper gene-altering-thingies got dumped into embryonic Talyn. Talyn came out all cool, red, full of guns and ready to kick ass.
The Peacekeepers developed all kinds of weird technology to be applied to
Leviathans,
including gigantic 'control collars.'
Leviathans can fly themselves, but require a Pilot to navigate interstellar space, and properly control systems. As luck would have it, there is a race of beings that are exactly suited for this and are happy to be 'chosen' to be surgically implanted in a Leviathan.
Pilot and Moya are definitely sentient and individual. Pilot cares deeply for Moya, and above all his loyalties lie with the ship.
The starburst is Moya's method of FTL movement. It's a very draining event that propels the ship for short bursts. Moya needs to spend several hours recharging its power supplies before another starburst can take place. Essentially, starburst is almost instantaneous, and usually lands the ship somewhere random.
Moya has a couple of transport pods used for ferrying people and supplies in and out, a docking net used like a tractor beam and a dozens of small yellow bots called DRDs. The DRDs are fun little guys who have tiny lasers, spotlight eyes on stalks, and often act and sound like small unique characters. (much like R2-D2) They flee from angry D'Argo or bravely approach an unknown vessel in the docking bay, or look quizzically at characters. Supposedly DRD stands for Diagnostic Repair Drone.
Your sources for today:
http://www.geocities.com/peacekeeper_jason/pandmbio.html
http://www.sadgeezer.com/farscape/moya.htm
http://www.scifi.com/farscape