Ancients

The **Ancients** were a powerful, insectoid race from another dimension -- possibly fluidic space. They are thin, bipedal insectoids with four arms -- two small arms which end in lobster-like claws, and longer arms below them which end in three-fingered hands. They have several short tentacless which hang from the area around their head.

The Ancients are capable of altering their appearance, though these false forms are quite fragile. They are capable of limited telepathy. The Ancients possessed both the knowledge and technology to harness the power of wormholes, both for transport and as weaponry. It was through wormholes that they first came to access the Materium.

## History

After detecting lifeforms in this newly discovered dimension, the Ancients modified several members of their species to explore it. These Ancients settled on a world where they could observe and catalog the various species they encountered -- taking particular note of the level of aggression many of these species proved to have.

Many cycles after colonizing a world in the Milky Way, the chosen planet began to die. The Ancients prioritized finding a suitable world -- however, a delicate biology made it impossible for the Ancients to settle just anywhere. Any planet available to them would likely already be inhabited, and so the Ancients began to seek out new races with fervor, to discover if any of them would be able and willing to share their resources. Unfortunately, the Ancients had only enough power to transport their race on final time.

It was these efforts that led to the creation of a false Earth, constructed out of the memories of John Crichton. The Ancients hoped to glean from Crichton whether or not the human homeworld would accept them. When Crichton uncovered the deception, and confronted the Ancient responsible, the emissary explained to the human their predicament and -- in return for helping them answer their question, even if he hadn't known they were asking -- placed knowledge of wormhole technology in Crichton's brain. This way, if Crichton proved worthy by unlocking the knowledge himself, Crichton would be able to find his way back to Earth.

After this, the Ancients eventually did find a planet that fit their needs and were able to relocate. While traveling to this new planet, the Ancients detected Crichton's *Farscape-1* module in a wormhole with a charrid inside. Fearing they had underestimated the human, they sent their emissary to him once more. Discovering that Furlow sought to sell wormhole knowledge to the Scarrans, "Jack" and Crichton worked together to prevent this. "Jack" died in the effort, but not before unlocking Crichton's knowledge and constructing a displacement engine.

Sometime after this, the Ancient vanished from the Materium -- or, perhaps, lost contact with their home dimension. One Ancient, unmodified and unable to manifest in the Materium, discovered Crichton's vast wormhole knowledge had been given to him by the others of his species. He sought to protect the dangerous knowledge and -- after Crichton used wormhole technology to force a truce and an end to the Peacekeeper/Scarran War -- "Einstein" removed the knowledge from the human's brain in order to complete that mission.

The Ancients largely kept to themselves after these events. As they have not been encountered since these events, it is believed that whatever planet they have colonized has been cloaked using advanced technology.

## Notable Members

* "Jack" the Ancient
* "Einstein"

## Source

The Ancients are seen in a number of installments of the series *Farscape*.