More Farcape Wibblings (WARNING: Big Honkin' Spoilers for the 4th Season up to and Including "A Contellation of Doubt")

OK, I admit it, I'm going crazy waiting for the next episode. I'm also going crazy trying to figure out exactly what's going on... The current question that's chasing round and round in my head is the matter of whether Scorpius did set them up or not. My first thought was not, and the logic seemed pretty clear: 1. There was no way that Scorpius could have predicted how things were going to go down. Too many unknown variables, too much depending on how Aeryn and company chose to handle the situation. 2. It's hard to imagine that Scorpius would be willing to let the Scarrans capture Aeryn, even if it is the one thing that would motivate John to move against them or to make a deal with Scorpy. She's got too much information that he simply would not want to risk the Scarrans getting. 3. If Scorpy was behind it, Sikozu was almost certainly in on it, and yet she seemed genuinely distraught over what happened.

But the more I think about it, and the more reasons I try to come up with for why he couldn't or wouldn't have done it, the more I start to believe that he could have, would have, and quite possibly did. Consider: 4. He knew about the secret meeting. How big of a coincidence is it that it just happened to be taking place where and when Aeryn and friends decided to go shopping? And how likely is it that he didn't know the details of the meeting's time and place, given how much other info he seems to have gotten from Braca? 5. He had an agent in Grayza's party (Braca), and one in the Moya party (Sikozu). Between the two of them, it may not have been at all unreasonable for him to believe that they could steer the situation to his desired outcome. 6. He was the one who engineered the whole situation with splitting up the crew and sending the guys to the training camp and the girls on the shopping trip.

OK, it's all circumstantial evidence, but you gotta admit, it adds up. It seems the guy did, indeed, have means, motive, and opportunity. But how, then, to reconcile points 2 and 3 above? All I can figure -- and I admit this isn't entirely original, as I've read some other speculations along more or less these lines -- is that Aeryn being captured was not the outcome he'd foreseen or intended. So, what outcome was he hoping for? Two possibilities come to mind. Possibility Number One: Aeryn kills Grayza. Well, that'd be a good outcome for Scorpy, but why arrange such an elaborate scenario to achieve it? Couldn't he just get Braca to shoot her? Well, maybe not. Braca could almost certainly take her out, but it's unlikely that he could get away with it. He'd be captured, interrogated and executed, and Scorpy'd be exposed and minus one spy. Besides, Braca may be loyal, but I doubt he'd be willing to martyr himself in that fashion. On the other hand, if Aeryn kills Grayza, perhaps Braca can arrange to be the sole survivor to make it back to PK territory, with a lovely little story about how the Scarrans betrayed them... Which would quite possibly cause them to rethink the current appeasement policy, especially with that policy's #1 cheerleader out of the picture. Good outcome for Scorpius. Possibility Number Two: The Scarrans kill Aeryn. Bingo, John's got a motive for going after them. And we know that Scorpius is extremely big on revenge motive, and that he seems to have some trouble understanding that not everybody feels quite the same way about it as he does. Besides, in this case, he might very well be right. So, Mr. Wormhole Tech himself goes gunning for the Scarrans... Better outcome for Scorpius. There may, of course, also be a Possibility Three: The Peacekeepers kill Aeryn, but Scorpy may have been counting on Braca to keep that from happening. Given the high likelihood of Possibilities One and Two, and the fact that it's a win for Scorpy either way, the whole thing may well have seemed like a good risk.

If that line of reasoning is correct, it seems that Scorpius overlooked Possibility Four, the one that actually happened: The Scarrans capture Aeryn (and possibly Grayza, although I'm still unclear on whether the real Grayza escaped or not). Even Scorpius is capable of miscalculation, but where is it he went wrong? Possibly he thought it unlikely that Aeryn would allow herself to be taken alive, and even more unlikely that the Scarrans would abduct Grazya, given that Grayza's presence would most certainly be missed.... Reckoning, of course, without the possibility of bioloid replacement. That does seem something of an oversight for someone as shrewd as Scorpy, but given that he had never seen this particular technology in use (even though he knew of its existence), perhaps it's not too difficult to believe. In which case, it is most definitely Scorpius' turn to say "whoops."

Of course, that still leaves the question of Sikozu, her apparent sincere concern over Aeryn, and the fact that she appears to be attempting to dissuade Aeryn from acting against Grazya, rather than encouraging her. Is it possible that Sikozu's emotion is actually guilt at her own complicity? Is it even possible that she was in on the plan but had second thoughts about going through with it and was hoping to be able to go back to Scorpius and say, "No, sorry, Aeryn wouldn't take the bait"? I'm not at all sure that that's how I'd read her reactions, but it's not impossible.

What can I say? I love chewing over stuff like this. It's more fun that doing a real jigsaw puzzle. Mind you, I could be completely barking up the wrong alley here (to use an unforgivably mixed metaphor), and what's really going on is something else entirely, something that will take me completely by surprise. That would be cool, too.

Hmm, I wonder if those lucky bastards in the UK have the answers yet?