John Crichton

**John Robert Crichton Jr.** was a human astronaut and scientist from Earth at the end of the 20th century.

## History

### Early Life

Crichton was born in the late 1960's in Memphis, Tennessee to John Robert Crichton Sr. and Leslie Crichton. He had an older sister named Susan and a younger sister named Olivia.

John was very close to his father, but resented how frequently his father's work for NASA took him away from home. However, he still had many happy memories with his father -- including his tenth birthday. His father missed the actual birthday, but woke John at four in the morning the next day to take him fishing.

His first girlfriend was a girl named Julie, who loved mirror mazes.

As a teenager, John attended John F Kennedy high school, where he helped his friend Douglas "D.K." Knox cheat on his SATs. During these years he dated a girl named Kim Kupperstein. He also lost his virginity to a girl named Karen Shaw who -- in actuality -- was Chiana traveling through time.

John graduated from high school and enrolled at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He found himself following his father's footsteps, studying astrophysics and cosmology, and ultimately earning a Ph.D. Around this time, he was dating a woman named Alexandra O'Connor, who he planned to propose to. Instead, she left him to pursue a medical degree at Stanford University while he went to Florida in order to pursue his career as an astronaut.

### IASA Career

After joining the International Aeronautics and Space Administration, John flew a couple of missions as a science officer and earned the rank of Commander. During this period, his mother died -- John held regrets he was not there when she passed away for the rest of his life. Two years after that, he began to date a woman named Caroline Wallace, who he dated for the next two years.

Finally, IASA approved a pet project for Crichton -- one that would test a propulsion theory he had developed with D.K. This project, named the Farscape Project, involved creating a special module to fly in space. This vehicle, the Farscape-1 module, was a one man pod that Crichton would pilot after launching from Cape Canaveral.

### Fugitive Career

During the flight, a wormhole opened and the Farscape-1 module was flung through it to another part of the Milky Way. His sudden exit from the wormhole caused John's ship to collide with another vessel -- a Peacekeeper Prowler piloted by Tauvo Crais. The Prowler spun out of control and collided with an asteroid. Crichton found his ship being pulled aboard a spaceship, which turned out to be the Leviathan biomechanoid *Moya*.

After he was injected with translator microbes, John learned the ship had been a prisoner transport ship and the prisoners -- Ka D'Argo, Rygel XVI, and Zotoh Zhaan -- had taken it over and were escaping. They believed, from his sudden appearance, that John possessed technology that would facilitate their escape. Though he was unable to help them, they managed to escape anyways. Unbeknownst to them, however, in their escape they brought along an unexpected guest: the Peacekeeper Aeryn Sun. Bialar Crais, obsessed with hunting down his brother's killer, pursued the prisoners and John Crichton deep into the Uncharted Territories.

Over the course of the subsequent adventures, Crichton encountered a race known as the Ancients. After his experience with them, they left knowledge of wormholes embedded in Crichton's subconscious mind. This was discovered by Scorpius, who was obsessed with learning to navigate wormholes and to use them as a weapon. He began pursuing Crichton in order to obtain this knowledge, even as Crais gave up his pursuit and even became an ally to the human.

Scorpius had managed to place a neural clone of himself into Crichton's brain. This clone -- nicknamed "Harvey" -- gradually caused Crichton to become more erratic. Harvey exhibited more and more control over Crichton, even influencing him to try to kill Aeryn. Crichton attempted to have the chip removed by a Diagnosan, who was able to remove some -- though not all -- of the chip. Despite these efforts, Harvey remained.

### Two Crichtons

A short time after this, Crichton encountered Kaarvok -- who "twinned" Crichton in the same process that had been used to create the Xarai. Both of these Crichtons were equally original, and the same in every respect. However, unfortunate circumstances soon saw the two Crichtons separated -- one aboard *Moya* and one aboard *Moya*'s offspring *Talyn.*

Aboard *Talyn*, Crichton developed a romantic relationship with Aeryn. But this romance would prove to be doomed. When it became apparent that the Scarran Empire was near to obtaining wormhole technology for itself, both "Jack" the Ancient and Crichton gave up their lives to prevent this from happening.

When the crews were reunited, the remaining Crichton received a message from his deceased counterpart that urged him to do everything possible to prevent Scorpius from obtaining wormhole technology. Crichton fulfilled this mission, but afterwards the crew of *Moya* went their separate ways. Crichton realized that Aeryn was pregnant, and went to pursue *Moya* and return to Aeryn -- but the Leviathan was swallowed by a wormhole. This left Crichton alone, floating in space, with limited air.

Fortunately, he was rescued by the Leviathan *Elack* and was soon reunited with his crew mates aboard *Moya*, as well as a few additional faces -- including Scorpius, who was seeking refuge as he had fallen from favor with Peacekeeper High Command and who agreed to remove Harvey from Crichton's brain. Despite this, the Peacekeeper interest in Crichton had not waned and Commandant Mele-on Grayza continued to pursue the Leviathan and its crew.

### Return to Earth

Crichton finally managed to return to Earth, for a few months, bringing his alien comrades with him. It soon became clear, however, that his presence on Earth put the entire planet in danger from the forces in the Uncharted Territories. Reluctantly, he returned to that region of space in order to protect the planet.

Aeryn was taken captive by the Scarrans shortly thereafter. Desperate to save her, Crichton forged an alliance with Scorpius. During the rescue, however, Scorpius was captured. In this moment, it appeared Scorpius had lied about removing Harvey. Harvey had only been dormant, and reawoke as soon as it became clear Crichton intended to betray Scorpius. Harvey convinced Crichton to rescue Scorpius, and so *Moya* and her crew sought out the Scarran stronghold of Katratzi.

Scorpius agreed to waive Crichton's debt of wormhole technology if, in their escape from the Scarrans, they destroyed the precious Crystherium Utilia flower that was vitally important to the Scarrans. John agreed -- but learned this vital flower also grew on Earth. Realizing this put his planet at risk, John permanently destroyed the wormhole linking the Uncharted Territories to Earth and gave up the hope of ever returning to his homeworld.

## Source

John Crichton is derived from *Farscape*. For canon information, please visit:

* Farscape Encyclopedia Project