Legion (idea)

2002.10.08@01:24
Segnbora-t says You might want to add to My name is legion that it's a biblical quote from Mark 5; Jesus asks a possessed man his name and the demon answers "My name is Legion, for we are many."

***SPOILAGE WARNING***

Synopsis: Lister, Rimmer, Kryten and The Cat stumble uppon a region of space with "reality bubbles" - pockets of space where strange effects afftect the crew of the battered Starbug. After realising that they cannot be affected by the bubbles, they reach a research station floating (apparently) lifeless in space.

Upon docking, they scan for life and detect nothing. Soon, however, get the uneasy feeling that they are being followed and watched. A strange being then descends in a lift - a "man" clad in tight green spandex and sporting a strange silver mask. This being introduces himself as "Legion", and bids them welcome. Legion explains that he was the construct of the most brilliant men in history, and states he is hopefully as useful and brilliant as them, hence the security for the station of the reality bubbles. He proceeds to demonstrate this superior intellect by commenting that Rimmer was an "old" hologram, using soft light. He then reaches in to grab Rimmer's lightbug, amusingly pulls a whole bunch of wires and string and circuitry out of it, and makes a few adjustments with his fingers. Throwing the lightbug back in to the air, Rimmer reappears, apparently unharmed. However, one important difference is that he is now SOLID - he has a tiactile body, and can touch, interact and feel - something Rimmer so desparately wanted after his death and rebirth as a hologram from Holly.

Legion then welcomes them to the station and proceeds to treat them like royalty, showing them rooms which were already made up - perfect in every detail for each crewmember. Legion then engages them in a huge feast, from the planet Mimosia. This hilarious scene involves telekinetic chopsticks, where Rimmer gets some quite repulsive looking food dumped on him, mental wine where the glasses are fixed to the table and wine is "willed" in to the mouth (and Rimmer, trying too hard for his own good, gets wine dumped all over him). All this sumptuous food makes the crew happy, but Lister suspicious. When they request to return to Starbug, Legion simply states that they should rest, and that everything that they need is here, not on some desolate ship. Returning to his filthy hovel with his out-of-tune guitars and beer (the PERFECT place for Lister), he contemplates all he has seen...

In the morning, the crew meet up and describe their rooms - all of them are perfect in every detail. Lister then announces his thoughts - Legion is trapping them on the station, using the "gift" of fantastic surroundings to lure them in to a false sense of happiness. To prove this, he confronts Legion, who forces him to sit and prepare for breakfast. In the struggle, Legion's mask is knocked off, revealing a grotesque composite face, made up elements of all the crew.

With suspicions confirmed and his cover blown, Legion then explains his situation. He is a construct, a "legion" experiment of collective minds - he is formed from the very conscious of the beings around him. His previous "hosts", the brilliant scientists, gave him great knowledge and intellect, but soon turned to old age and then death, leaving Legion to float, empty, waiting for new hosts, hence trapping the crew.

The crew are appalled, and declare their intentions to leave. Legions recommends they not bother, since he is composed of all their emotions - including malice, rage and cruelty, and more importantly his pain is shared by all. In another hilarious scene, he threatens them with a nasty syringe type device, aimed directly at his crotch. Manhood threatened, Rimmer, The Cat and Lister scream "No!", with Kryten looking puzzled at the apparent threat. Legion, satisfied at the crews subjugation, leaves to get dinner.

Lister however does confront Legion, concocting an elaborate plan to ambush Legion when he returns. He manages to get knocked out in the ensuing scuffle, and we see Legion's composite face change from four faces to three. Realising a weakness, Kryten then proceeds to render The Cat unconscious. Another amusing sceme involves Kryten trying to remove the last "living" member of the crew, Rimmer, however he is unable to penetrate or affect the hard light hologram, despite clobbering him with steel, catching him unawares, and repeated beatings ;-). Rimmer then says that the only way of disappearing would be to switch HIMSELF off - and makes the ultimate sacrifice by reaching in to himself and turning off his lightbug.

With the last human consciousness gone, Legion then is composed entirely of Kryten's consciousness, morphing in to a facsimile of him. Despite Legion's protests that the situation is a stalemate, Kryten objects, saying that mechanoids MUST serve humans, and thus Legion, entirely made up of a mechanoid, must help them. Problem soved!

Dragging the crew back, Legion then pouts the funniest line of the episode. Along the lines of "I was made up of brilliant men. When they died, I longed for ANYTHING to come along, simply to exist. However, being made up of their (Lister, Rimmer, Cat) neuroses, personalities, paranoia, oblivion (from not having any hosts) seems like almost, almost a PROMOTION!" Funny. As a last parting shot, Kryten then asks if, in all the time as a brilliant composite, Legion created something to help them get back to Red Dwarf...

Fast forward a little, the crew is back up and running, with Rimmer whole and solid. They are gathered in the engine room of Starbug, with Kryten hooking up a futuristic looking "drive", which Kryten explains should speed them to Red Dwarf in a matter of minutes, not months. With only one way to test it, they switch it on - only to have the drive burst out of its mountings and fly out in to space, rocketting faster than they imagined. The hole in the ship leads to very funny "wind tunnel" effects, and the comment from Kryten - "Well sir, it looks like the drive does indeed work!"