Speculation on Boron-7, Insect technology, and the scientists who engineered the political lockdown through religion

I mean, what else could the title even be, lol.

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I prodigiously use the Lexxicon throughout my blogging as point of reference info. It is Lexxcellent for tiny canon details when one is doing research, and very useful to anyone wondering anything about the show.

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I have brought up that I think Boron 7 was likely a lab planet used by His Shadow's scientists to experiment on manipulating DNA in every way possible. The only things we know about the Boron system are that Giggerota came from Boron 7 and that the Luvliner was near Boron 13, a big moon.

One of the bigger picture conundrums with the Lexx series is that one Insect managed to subjugate a League of 20,000 Planets and further terrorized an extensive part of the Light Universe. We see at the beginning of season two how Rockhound became the first His Divine Shadow, and I have briefly speculated on both motive and method. I have thought quite a lot on how the subjugation actually happened, and I'm about to point some fingers.

Using what we know about Bio-Viziers and especially Grand Bio-Vizier Mantrid and Supreme Bio-Vizier Brizon, it seems obvious that scientists were the key to His Shadow's rule across a universe. These scientists not only knew everything about Insects and His Shadow's ultimate goal to bring a race of Insects back to life, but helped him do it in such heinous ways that one must necessarily wonder why.

We find out in season two that both Mantrid and Brizon were far older than Kai, who was over 2000 years old as an undead assassin. They were both experts on Divine Assassin creation and maintenance. In the very first movie I Worship His Shadow, we see humans were obviously repurposed in a variety of ways even before they were dead as part of their judicial sentencing. The scientists behind this were geniuses, able to manipulate human body parts like toys, and quite able to make them function in any capacity. This observation lends to the conclusion that His Shadow chose a unique quality in his scientists that enabled them to not only stomach what they were doing, but delight in it. They were carefully chosen psychotic geniuses given promises of eternal life, and naturally they excelled at reestablishing a new Divine Order so that they could play without hindrance.

Among their genetic manipulations were bioships using lost Insect technology, human species reorientation, robotic humans, and reusable dead humans. We know by season one's fourth movie Giga Shadow that the last Insect had been kept alive and growing, and that its Essence, protoblood, and probably tissues were used to integrate technology and humans into a new strictly governed society.

The Cluster was the seat of judgement for His Shadow, a small planetoid that deceptively housed a hugely growing Insect that eventually broke free. Think about how many 'big bugs' must have been attempted, and where the Megashadow and Foreshadow were grown, along with the Lexx's DNA being perfected. The massive experimentation had to have happened on another planet, and I can imagine huge hangars, warehouses, labs, and clinics filled with coding tech specialists and equipment, bio coding specialists and equipment, and likely extensive 'housing' for potential subjects. Using Giggerota as an example, evidently inter- and extra- species manipulation and breeding programs were under way in attempts to design a new Divine Assassin, hungry for meat, alive and programmed to reproduce. We don't know if Giggy was a prototype gone wrong or one of many, but she was a problem. It's possible Brizon designed her, or that competitive Mantrid ventured out on his own and designed her, but we never find out. We do know Mantrid was banished at some point and that Giggy was taken to the Cluster for execution, so it's possible these two characters have everything to do with one another (indirectly), and that these particular experimentations might be part of the big personal problem between Mantrid and Brizon. The only problem with this line of thought is the time jag, since Mantrid has apparently been banished for quite some time by the beginning of season two, and Brizon seems to have been semi-retired later in season two. Mantrid and Brizon could have had their own factions of loyal followers in the psychotic science arena that carried on their work. Sorry, this paragraph is turning into its own muse, I need to refocus. Lexx is like that, so much going on that backstory could go on for years.

Back to Boron 7 and government over the League.

Robotic drones in any other type of government on our own earth would be a huge industry of wealth, either for capital venturists or socialist agendas. In the League it had nothing to do with wealth, and the only power allowed at all was Divine Order. In this light, it would seem that top scientists were allowed more freedoms than any other humans in any other capacities. They were free to dream, invent, argue, and corrupt as long as they did it in the name of Order. As long as they helped keep Order rigidly established, they were granted long life, authoritative positions, and all the access to service and equipment that their psychotic hearts desired. So, they became experts at replacing human heads with robot heads, integrating software into scraped out human bodies, growing city sized spaceships that fed on human flesh, you name it, they could find a way to do it. And the more they did it, the more society became clamped down into obedience in lieu of a stunning variety of punishments.

Imagine not knowing if the robotic drone walking by you had been a friend of yours, a coworker, or a family member. That might be their living body, but their head has been replaced with a robot head. Imagine raising your children in a society where you'd never know at any moment whether your future is secure, and that all it would take to lose your life would be to refuse the simplest expectation. Without those psychotic scientists enabling the last Insect, this level of Order could never have been established. Watching both Mantrid and Brizon, they clearly had free will, they clearly didn't feel any regret or shame, and they clearly knew they helped bring all this about. There was no waste on guilt, only on winning at any cost. They were coworkers turned rivals and hellbent on beating the other, no matter how many lives were lost, no matter how horrific their crimes. And surely they were not the only two psychotic scientists in the League of 20,000.

One of the weird fallouts they created was a small planet full of former Divine Shadow host bodies, which would never die but remain zombies forever without a brain or Essence to guide them, since the brain was removed from every host as a Divine Predecessor and the Essence passed on to each new Divine Shadow. We find out in season four that His Shadow had the Time Prophet killed and reconstructed (by scientists, undoubtedly) into the first of many vampires, more deadly than Divine Assassins since they were created specifically to hunt and destroy them, thanks to Kai fulfilling the prophecy. Seasons one and two were rife with convoluted corruption serving Order, including a fully condoned and thriving sex slave business stretching across the Light Universe, along with mercenaries and cabals, often working together for Order as we see in season two's "Stan's Trial".

The sex slave business relied on an amazing machine called a lusticon that could scan and reconstruct entire bodies in one visit without invasive surgeries and recovery time. That machine alone is so over the top that it's too much to think about and easily dismissed. Genetic manipulation theories and applications must have been shared from the Insect to the scientists, because the technology is so advanced and the idea so extreme that I don't think normal psychotic humans could have thought up and conquered that level of planning and execution. Remember, Insects could pass along a sort of programming software via Essence which would allow them to travel dormant over great sweeps of time across swaths of space and pass on information to others or to offspring without having to teach first. Essence would allow for an endless accumulation of knowledge across the universe. We know very little about the Insect Wars, but we do know some Insect technology was adopted by the Brunnen-G after they finally defeated the Insects long before Kai was born.

Lusticons allowed Order to use humans as still-living sex slaves stripped of their wills without transforming them into robotic drones. These slaves were used to manipulate and elicit others' behaviors per temple brothel conduits throughout the League and beyond, and likely part of the vast mercenary trade Order used to hunt and capture enemies of Order. Included in the DNA manipulation were expiry dates, which necessarily created a demand for more.

Robotic drones were everywhere throughout the Light Universe. On the Cluster we see security drones, and across the Light Universe we see other types of robotic drones that look like they came off assembly lines. 790 was one model, 791 and 792 models were briefly shown in a couple of episodes, and 790 created a 769 in season four. The 700 series were all designed to be attached to still living human bodies, as was the security model. Robotic drones were so common that they were simply part of everything, nothing to turn a head and elicit response. Humans grew up surrounded by and interacting with integrated tech for thousands of years. We don't have a timeline between Rockhound becoming the first His Shadow and Brunnis-2 being destroyed, so we don't know how much time as passed as the League of 20,000 planets was being established. This leaves us to wonder how very long ago Kai's people migrated from Brunnis-1, and how in the world they defeated Insects to begin with, after arriving in the Light Universe, and then how quickly after that defeat the last Insect drifted and then burrowed into what would become the Cluster. If you think about it, the Brunnen-G were indirectly responsible for the League being created, because that last surviving Insect wanted revenge. And if you think even more about that, you can imagine the Brunnen-G being the flag of vitriol behind everything His Shadow did, and that might be why they were so famous that Thodin recognized Kai even after he'd been converted into a Divine Assassin.

Aaaaaand this just turned into a think piece. Moving on.

Thanks to protoblood, His Shadow's collection of psychotic scientists were able to resculpt dead human flesh into interactive programmable machinery used as Divine Assassins. Kai is a very good example, as we see in season three. What was left of his body was so integrated with hardware that he obviously couldn't survive long if he were somehow able to come back to life. The protoblood forced his tissues into a sort of unalive living state, an undead state, if you will. His dead body was coopted into an ironic repurposed usefulness, and even after he got his memories back, he could not initiate his own will upon his own body because his will had been severed for vast software storage upgrade. His programming and the will of others was all Kai had as motivation to do anything. A fun example of this is season three's "Tunnels". He simply engaged his programming in order to facilitate being able to accomplish other actions the Lexx crew expected of him. One of his overriding commands in any capacity was to protect the key to the Lexx, along with its crew. (Kai means "Keeper of the Keys" in Scandinavian, for unaware fans. Cool, huh? See more meanings at Behind the Name. This is completely unrelated to Lexx canon, but I searched it since Kai and key are such similar words.)

I've seen and read loads of science fiction over several decades, and I have never seen anything that comes close to the technological horrors in the Lexx series. The Borg are a problem, yes, but they are barely investigated compared to the technological grip over humans in Lexx. The Borg are simply a runaway program, and with time travel introduced, the solution might be simple enough- go to the origin (non-canon but written by Shatner himself) and change history. There is no time travel in Lexx. The Sith are a problem in Star Wars, and the tech somewhat rivals Lexx, but it's missing the more horrific level of what they call the Dark Side. I know, I dare to impugn. I've had a running list of other scifi atrocities compared to Lexx in my mind for years, and I have yet to see another show cross the lines Lexx crosses into true despair, which feels so much more honest to me. I think painting the bigger picture of humans vs technology reaches a superior intellectual level in Lexx that is too easily dismissed, and the crucial point behind it all is innocent humans being so strapped into a locked position in government that there is no wiggle room with rights and wrongs, no way to survive but to obey, no way to fight and win. The root of the science fiction premise shines in Lexx. There is no prime directive, no Asimov's laws of robotics, only horrors and death and the sheer human will to survive. I think the closest an author has come that I've read is Greg Bear. His visuals are fantastic, and he dares to step into despair. I have compared Lexx material to Tim Burton, George Orwell, Dante, and Satre style storytelling. Edward Scissorhands could easily fit into the Light Universe.

And what else do psychotic scientists do when they get bored? They twist the human brain into even more toys. Shreds of brains were used to interface programming, brains were fed to Cluster lizards in a stadium filled with screaming fans loyal to His Shadow, brains were nonchalantly wiped and reprogrammed over minor misdeeds. Any brain lesser than a psychotic genius was subjugated, point blank. It didn't matter the perceived freedom or rank, all brains must serve Order or suffer the consequences. The question of human souls and wills, rights and dignities never even came up. Brains were usable and expendable, like any other human part, and that was all. A sense of self was allowed only in relation to obedience to Order.

Ultimately, the brains of His Shadow's former hosts, the Divine Predecessors, were enshrined, but both Brizon and Mantrid realized that at some point, their own brains would become useless, as well. Mantrid came up with a plan to evacuate his own brain as software into better hardware, and Brizon intended to simply outlast everyone in his own brain. The fate of the Light Universe boiled down to two human brains duking it out, long after His Shadow was destroyed. Well, actually, part of the perversion of Mantrid's transference was being incorporated via Essence, so a copy of His Shadow continued in a corrupted form through him. (One must wonder if Kai were ever purged completely after season two. Also, Vlad lived on into season four.)

This has gotten terribly long, but you can see how much I've thought about this TV show. I know others have spent considerable time writing up backstory, prequels, sequels, spinoff ideas, character synopses, etc. One of the latest to come out is Sanguinessa's fanfic Tales from a Parallel Universe series going deeper behind the scenes with more characters humanizing the extreme conditions we see in the Lexx TV series (click to purchase from Amazon, I receive no compensation for that). I know of other fans who have constructed entire histories around the brief blurbs we see in the show, so they probably think about all this at least as much as I do, if not more.

Lexx is currently owned and distributed by Echo Bridge Acquisition Corp LLC.

Syfy channel's connection to Echo Bridge Home Entertainment can be made through Asylum. Echo Bridge acquired Alliance Atlantis in 2008. Alliance Atlantis purchased Salter Street Films in 2001.

My blog is protected under Copyright Disclaimer Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for "fair use" for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing. Non-profit, educational or personal use tips the balance in favor of fair use."

I repeat my DISCLAIMER- This Lexx blog is a fan blog. I make no money here, and I have nothing to do with potential Lexx projects that spring up in rumors every little bit. I am not staff to anyone, nor an employer. I do not represent anyone who has ever been involved in the making of Lexx or merchandise associated with the Lexx property. I am not currently selling merchandise or receiving compensation for link swapping and sharing. I will never ask for or accept donations for anything I do online. If you find a site asking for money in my name, that is NOT me. I will continue to be a Lexx fan and keep building this fan blog, all cost here coming straight out of my pocket. Lexx is a hobby I enjoy, and like many fans I hope to see more Lexx one day.

I'd like to add that my stats are going crazy this year. A lot of fans out there seem to be in a tizzy over Lexx, many of the hits coming from new searches and then methodically reading this entire blog. Since I'm not seeing this level of activity in the older fandom groups and forums, I conclude this is a new generation of fans, possibly who grew up with their parents watching Lexx, possibly running into more accessible film merch now, possibly wondering what that weird sex in space show is all about.

The Lexx cult continues. Hats off to Paul Donovan and the Supreme Beans.

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Oh, yeah, meant to bring up the mothbreeders. Maybe another time.

His Divine Shadow- Prelude to a Kiss

Before I actually get to Mantrid, we need to do a quick review of who exactly is/was/will have been in charge here. In cosmic terms, power changes hands/jointed appendages/drone arms in the blink of an eye, but in our POV, thousands of years drag by with all this horrible stuff happening in between.

I've sort of intro'd His Shadow in I Worship His Shadow- part 4- His Divine Shadow, but we find out in season 2's "Mantrid" how His Shadow came to be a big deal. It's important to know this info so we can piece together what is happening several thousand years later when we meet Mantrid.

Quick note- I have new tech, so my screen caps will be bigger (mobile probably won't see a difference), so looking at costuming, sets, and CGI might be a smidge more detailed. I'll repeat here before we go on that this fan blog is a film study for a sometimes difficult to obtain and rarely streamed 20 year old sci-fi genre TV series, and that being as such, screen caps fall under this disclaimer- "Copyright Disclaimer Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for "fair use" for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing. Non-profit, educational or personal use tips the balance in favor of fair use." Pictures will click over to nearly full capture size on a non profit personally paid for host service at Lexx Pix for film study appreciation and fan sharing (hotlinking, downloading, copy/paste all welcome, please use wisely). Other wonderful fans have provided excellent screen captures in the past, but perhaps newer tech will allow us an even closer look at the craftsmanship that went into this show from everyone involved with it. All my captures are from the original Salter Street print. Thanks to Echo Bridge Entertainment (also on twitter and facebook), you can still purchase Lexx.

The film narration (by Walter Borden, who also shows up in s2 Woz and throughout s4) relates the backstory perfectly, so I'm going to use that. We hear the story being told in the voice of His Shadow-

"Many thousands of years ago, we were defeated by humans in the great Insect Wars. Our human enemies thought they destroyed all Insects, but I escaped to live on. I hid myself by burrowing deep into a small planetoid, and there I wait."

You can see running along the underside are rows of brood pouches. This Insect looks a bit like a roly poly, so I'm going to refer to this particular race of Insects as roly polies, even though roly polies on earth are not true insects. Please don't conclude that this is a copy of a roly poly- remember that this Insect developed in a different universe and we barely get a glimpse at its entomology. There might be similarities, and there might be differences. The most important imagery we get from this picture is the segmented circle, which later becomes symbolic of the Divine Order.

Since we know very little about the Insect races excepting through various exoskeleton designs and bioengineered space worthy vehicles, I'm going to assume that the Insect Wars didn't necessarily mean the Insects themselves were united as one against humans, although presumably humans and Insects (of this size, imagine that!) were definitely pitted against each other, regardless. We have no further backstory regarding racial developments and how they first came to bump into each other, although obviously, at least some of the Insects could drift through space and spread from one planetary system to another over a long period of time. But staying on subject, we get a very nice view of this monstrous roly poly that is big enough to sustain active life in outer space in between planet environments, and then strong enough to burrow down into any rocky object moving along in orbit in a planetary system.

After an unknown amount of time, a small mining exploration team of humans makes a stop on this particular planetoid for samples. This is Rockhound. He's complaining of boredom and wishing something interesting would happen for once. Rockhound is played by John Davie, and the other crew are played by Chris Duffy (Captain), and Burgandy Code (navigator).

"I think I might've found myself something interesting here, not typically geological. Could be a sign of life. I'm curious to find out more."

Actually, we may have seen something like that before. Remember the very first movie when His Shadow picked up a shattered piece of Kai's biomechanoid attack bug and thought it interesting that it was Insect tech? This pic clicks back to that first post.

Rockhound had run into something from an Insect, perhaps a sloughed piece of shed exoskeleton, perhaps a bit of draining goo that had hardened into an amberlike piece of stone. The crew encouraged Rockhound to return to the ship so they could use a piece of equipment instead that they had nicknamed the 'finger probe' (lol, so typical in Lexx), reminding him that, "We sometimes follow the rules, remember?" Rockhound replied, "Sorry, it's been too long since my brain was put to use."

Let us stop here for a sec and let that line sink in. Let me know when you get it. You know, because brain put to use. Ok, I'll assume you're all over appreciating that one and now let's get back to the story.

"I'm getting a very weird feeling..." Let's play by play this bit, it goes a little fast. First we get a shot of what he's been standing in. We see glowy blue stuff like this in our own oceans, an indicator of life, caused by "a special channel in the dinoflagellate cell membrane that responds to electrical signals".

As Rockhound does sensory sweeps with what little equipment he's brought with him, he starts feeling electrical shocks, and quickly decides "There's too much electrical action, I'm outa here!"

But poor Rockhound can't move fast enough, becoming terrified as electrical currents engulf him, rendering him unconscious.

And then we see that familiar wispy smoky essence search for a way into his suit and right up his nostrils, just as we saw in the first movie when His Shadow performed the Kiss moving to a new host body.

His Shadow- "I passed my essence, my soul, my intelligence, my everything into a human host."

And there we go, His Shadow's first host. Lucky Rockhound! Just think, his bored brain will become the oldest Divine Predecessor, so it will be put to use for a very, very, very long time.

A few seconds later, Rockhound gets right back up saying he fell asleep, and he's coming back now.

After this part of the story we don't get any more backstory filling in the gap up to the time we meet His Shadow in the first movie. We know this planetoid houses the Insect, and we know the other Insects are wiped out, so presumably this is the very beginning of the Cluster, the judicial seat for Order. Imagine the patience and single minded focus it would take to not only survive as the last of your kind for thousands of years, but to build up enough force and resources to subjugate the human race across a League of 20,000 Planets.

"As the last surviving Insect, I knew I would never be able to defeat the humans, but if I possessed a human body, I thought perhaps I could use humans to defeat themselves. I became His Divine Shadow, the most powerful ruler in the Two Universes." His Shadow in robes was played by Lex Gigeroff.

"My power over humanity grew as I passed my essence down through generation after generation of human hosts." The senior cleric in this scene is played by David Renton, Walter Borden played the dying Shadow, and Lex Gigeroff also played the bound man here.

"My Insect body also grew in strength, fed by human flesh gathered from 20,000 unsuspecting planets, all unknowingly enslaved to their enemy." 

"But my Order was destroyed by Kai, the last of the Brunnen-G." 

"My prematurely born body was killed by the Lexx, the most powerful weapon of destruction ever built." Imagine the irony- it took a biomechanically engineered and organically grown space bug fed for years on human flesh to defeat the last of the Insects. Chew on that ironic backfire for awhile. All those people slaughtered and fed to the Lexx wound up getting their revenge after all.

First let's look at that Insect again now that it's been forced out of the planetoid while the Lexx blew the Cluster up. (I love the word Cluster, it's so Insecty, like a place full of egg clusters.)

And now let's watch the Lexx slide by in zoom. Niiiiice. It's like the Lamborgini of the space bug world. It's really modeled after a dragonfly. Imagine a dragonfly the size of Manhattan. Yeah, that. Tom Gallant did the Lexx's voice through this series, at least in English. I tried the French version for kicks and about died laughing. Americans tend to think of French as a sexy language, and the Lexx is supposed to sound simple, so that seemed pretty incongruent to me.

And here is the Lexx blowing it all up. You can see that massive roly poly clearing out before the blast gets there. If you haven't seen Lexx's energy ribbon blast in action, there's a great paragraph about the ocular parabolae amplifying black pack tech and the Giga Shadow (that gigantic roly poly) being impervious to the initial blast.

I've not yet worked on how this energy organizes and collects into a ribbon and rips through space slicing through everything in its path, whether it eventually dissipates, and other basics that Star Trek fans would have torn into like rabid slavering cosmology wolves. (I used to haunt the old ST forums years ago, if you've seen YabloVH fussing with anyone over physics, that was me.) Anyway, in this next shot, the energy is collecting around the front of the Lexx's face, temporarily out of sight before that final push off, giving the Giga Shadow a few extra seconds to wriggle out a little more before the blast shreds the Cluster.

Awww, those poor brood pouches, looks a bit hot there. Wonder how many there really are. By the way, I'm not racist against the Insect races, and I don't believe in genocide of a species. I know of a couple fans on two different continents who've privately worked out some cool backstories for the Insect Wars, would love to see those come out for the Lexxversary. If you've already done it, tag me somewhere so I can run over and read what you've got so far. Some of us are interested in #alltheLexx, not just the bits and pieces.

Let's all cheer with Captain Stan, yay! This is the guy who told the Lexx to blow up the Cluster. He used to work on the Cluster as a prisoner. Gotta love irony. Stanley Tweedle is played by Brian Downey.

"Kai crushed the brain of my last human host, but he did not kill me, as I still live on. But he does not know that I live- through him." Again, imagine the irony of your survival depending on the dead guy who you killed and then killed you back. It's complicated.

His Shadow didn't mention Kai getting all those memories during that crushing thing, but I'm sure he knows that. You might not if you're new to Lexx. It's sorta like gaming up, although Kai is the only one I've seen crush a brain and get added memories. Might have to look into that sometime, because Zev and Stan have smashed a couple of brains, and Giggerota ate part of one, and we didn't see that happen with them. By the way, Kai was played by Michael McManus. But back to His Shadow's story!

Wait, gratuitous closeup of Zev. Zev was played by Eva Habermann.

Ok, what was that living on through Kai stuff??? O_O Wo. Let's think about this. Between Kai being dead, gutted out and rebuilt (which we find out in season three) and animated with protoblood, he's an ideal storage unit for His Shadow's essence. I will go into a lot more depth about essence and protoblood in the next section about Mantrid and the portent of His Shadow being the originator of all Insect essence left in the Two Universes. In the meantime, he just reminded us that we got a hint at Dark Kai at the tail end of the fourth movie Giga Shadow in season one. Key words here are Kai doesn't know. And it's not like he's unconscious of it, he has no unconsciousness. For all intents and purposes, Kai is His Shadow in hiding. We're not supposed to know that yet, but I'm really not going to call spoiler alert on a show that's two decades old. Anyway, here is the hint we're seeing again. Watch his eyes.

But that Shadow is a sly old fox, he backs off again so no one will notice.

Quick thought before I break this part off here. When we talk about passing essence along, and His Shadow is here and there, we kind of have to look at it like copies of himself. The Giga Shadow is his original body, right? He spoke of it as if it were flourishing. He also has previous copies of himself stored in the Divine Predecessors. I make a joke in Part 5 of the I Worship His Shadow breakdown about all the copies of his one essence arguing amongst themselves. It would be like copies of your own self perpetuated to infinity until someone or something stops it, so what really is inside of Kai is a copy of the actual mind of the Giga Shadow, plus all the memories of all the hosts that have housed that essence before Kai absorbed the latest copy. I'm not sure a living human could have survived that (Yottskry was able to fight against the Giga Shadow essence consuming his mind), but Kai, being that dead, gutted out, reanimated storage unit can apparently handle the overload just fine. He was rebuilt for programming as a Divine Assassin, and he's already stocked up on protoblood, which would seem a much better host than a regular human, actually.

Remember this when we get to Mantrid.

Heresy in the First Degree- Thodin of the Ostral-B Pair

That omg moment when you wake up at 5 a.m. nearly 13 years after the show is over and realize that they probably added Thodin to the Divine Assassin collection (you can own them all!) and used him to help with the culling and cleansing in s1ep4's Giga Shadow. Disclaimer- I don't read fanfic. Ever. Unless a friend shoves one in my face and that hasn't happened in years. If a Lexx fan out there has actually written about this happening to Thodin, kudos to you. I'm sure there is at least one Russian fan out there who was brilliant enough to run with this idea.

Thodin, proclaimed Arch-Heretic by His Divine Shadow, is the leader of a small gang of Ostral-B rebels, or "heretics" opposed to the Divine Order when we see him. He was likely much more than that, since leading a strike force into the heart of enemy territory to steal the biggest weapon of mass destruction ever created would take the sort of precision and team loyalty that any black ops team knows means do or die.

We have some idea of how long this had been in the planning stages. In the first movie I Worship His Shadow, we learn that Stanley Tweedle is still carrying one or more secret codes embedded in his teeth. We further learn in the fourth movie Giga Shadow that Stanley was originally caught by Sub-Nebulae mercenaries (Sub-Ns for short) and turned over to His Shadow, who then named him Arch-Traitor and kept him alive for years in the ironic position of processing prisoners as a security guard, which sent strong messages to outlying planets not yet incorporated into the League of 20,000 Planets. Thodin not only knew Stanley Tweedle and mocked his title of Arch-Traitor, but was probably his commanding officer when Stanley was assistant deputy backup courier in charge of getting the codes across enemy territory.

Not turning this into a Stanley bio, but Stanley is crucial to understanding more about Thodin, since he is the last living person to have spoken to him (unless you count the Zev kiss and then the heretic who was immediately eaten by a Cluster Lizard), and their last conversation revealed so much in so little time about their relationship before Thodin was killed.

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Thodin was beyond angry at the sight of Stanley, to the point of distraction from his mission. One might think that if Thodin had been able to set his emotions aside, he might have been able to utilize Stanley's inside knowledge of the Cluster, particularly the finer points on security (makes sense, doesn't it?), but Thodin was so obviously incensed to find Stanley still alive that he couldn't help taking the extra minute to berate Stanley personally for the difficult position his capture had put them all in, on top of the many years Stanley had been humiliated as the Arch Traitor anyway. Meanwhile, Stanley was surprised and relieved to see Thodin still alive since the Reform Planets had been destroyed after his capture, based on coordinates found in one of his teeth. Basically, Thodin had to come re-steal what they had stolen in the first place, except now the Lexx was more than codes- it was fully grown and would have to be flown out.

:edit: 3-22-15 I originally prepublished this post before I was done, which a handful of you saw (12 direct link hits from twitter and G+, additional whole page views also happened before I did this update). The issue I posed to twitter (which turned out to be a nonissue for the one fan who responded) was about how the Ericon raid was played out. I have oscillated from one event to two events back to one event. "The first raid to smuggle out the Lexx codes must have gone off without a hitch until Stanley got caught, after that it turned into a war going back to steal a copy of the Key so they could steal the actual Lexx." I recant that. It was one trip to Ericon for both the codes and the Key, they barely made it out alive, and the Key lived inside Thodin all the years Stanley was prisoner on the Cluster, where the Lexx was being grown. How Thodin actually acquired the key during the heist is left to speculation. It was doubtful he throttled anyone for it since a- the Lexx hadn't been grown yet, and b- it was meant for His Shadow. This makes Thodin the true original captain of the Lexx, and this may be why he was able to willingly pass it along. Everyone afterward has inherited the key by means of death or sexual ecstacy, a spiritual 'death' state.

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Originally, the Lexx was designed by two Ericon biocode specialists, one of whom turned out to be Brizon. The Lexx was meant to be grown on the Cluster for His Shadow, a planet killer more powerful than any weapon that had ever been built in the two universes, including the Foreshadow, which we watched destroy every living thing on Brunnis 2 in only 20 shots (I counted the firing noises, it might have been 19 if editing put two sound effects too close together), leaving behind a blackened dead planet. The Lexx would be able to blow a planet up into pieces with one shot, making the stolen codes (over which a war cost millions of lives) a last desperate hope against a government that had been spreading across the Light Universe for thousands of years engulfing all of humanity, following a war with a race of Insects that had lasted thousands of years more before that. The League of 20,000 Planets forced a restrictive political religion that not only turned humanity into a slave culture, but very literally absorbed humanity into itself, as we see in Giga Shadow. The League didn't hesitate to reward crime syndicates for their cooperation in acquiring and turning over information and hostages, and Stanley Tweedle happened to be the one who got caught attempting to smuggle the stolen codes after the Heretics finally wrested them off Ericon.

The planet of Ostral-B, above all the other Reform Planets, was apparently famous as a staunch hold-out from the League and became synonymous with heretics and traitors, which is most likely League-speak. Joining the resistance meant politically aligning with Ostral-B, which was very dangerous since His Shadow had the resources to wipe out all life on a planet in minutes. As we must imagine, defense technology had developed into planet-level cloaking capabilities, which is confirmed in season two's Brigadoom. Since Brunnis 2 was destroyed 2000 years before Thodin's attempt to steal the Lexx, we don't know whether Brunnis 2 was part of the Ostral-B reform alliance or if the Ostral-B alliance came later. We do know that the Ostral-B were aware of the Brunnen-G being lost to history, and could reasonably make the assumption that they either once shared technology or one may have grown out of the other from another time further back, which could also conceivably make the Brunnen-G and Ostral-B very distantly related, as Vulcans and Romulans are in the Trek universe. But all that is speculation. For now, let us assume that Thodin and Stanley Tweedle were both actually from Ostral-B.

I have mentioned the curious incongruity between what appears to be low level culture and high level tech keeping that culture in place on the Cluster and throughout the League. That Thodin and his gang look a bit like steampunk warriors belies the sheer knowledge and experience they had with Insect technology for what must have been not only lifelong but intergenerational warfare. We can probably assume from even this small amount of information gathering that Thodin was an extremely high-ranked and well-known person bordering on legend across the Light Universe. The Cluster had evidently been attempting to acquire this publicly named Arch Heretic for years, as we see they already have his judicial proceedings prerecorded for very swift justice and execution. Ironically, it would seem that Thodin and his rebels might have somehow previously infiltrated the Cluster's automatic coding locks and procedures and used being captured as a sure way in without getting caught, because they were ingeniously already caught. I also believe they chose the gate change, but this is still highly debatable, and they obviously had no idea their own Stanley Tweedle would be manning that particular switch, just as Stanley had no idea they were on board the transport to which he was refusing to give docking permission. From I Worship His Shadow- Part 2- The Cluster, "A security guard with 991 demerits is almost late reporting to work at Department 511 Level 4. A prisoner transport has been diverted to Gate 511. This is Thodin's day of justice... "

This being the most important day in the history of the two universes, we're very surprised to see Thodin killed early on, after surviving so much war in the first place. His presence turned out to be crucial as he carried a copy of the Key to the Lexx, biotech created to reside within the body of its captain, which should have been His Shadow. As Thodin rants to Stanley about the war on Ericon where millions died so he could get the Key, we don't yet realize that Stanley failing to smuggle the Lexx codes in the first place is the reason it must be stolen now after it is grown. The Key, originating from Insect Essence and biocoded along with the Lexx, is the only way to operate the Lexx, using a host as an interfacing catalyst. If the codes had been smuggled successfully, Thodin would already be on the brink of using the Lexx himself as its captain, instead of stealing it.

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:edit: 3-22-15 Since I'm coming back to this two days later, that's go ahead and switch gears before I get lost in the history obsessing again.

Thodin was played by Barry Bostwick. I don't think he has a twitter, but here he is on facebook.

Ok, THODIN. This outfit is outrageously awesome. I've seen all kinds of speculation in forums through the years about what kind of warrior outfit this is, is there any significance, on and on. First of all, get standardized military uniforms out of your head. This isn't Earth, and it's not the Cluster. Next, notice the vibrant colors, much like the Brunnen-G. Kai wasn't wearing a warrior outfit when he was killed. Now think about what Thodin was actually doing, his goals, how he aimed to achieve his goals. I'm going to jump to a scenario that helps me visualize a little more what's actually going on.

Thodin and his gang of heretics wanted to be caught so they could get to the Lexx. They wound up on a transport carrying Zev Bellringer and Giggerota. Zev is from B3K. It's highly improbable that Zev had ever been off-planet, so I'm going to assume that the prisoners on this transport were gathered from B3K. Giggerota was charged with ravaging temples and eating priests, a setting which seems to be a theme when we look back through Zev's memories and conceivably fits in with being assigned to a wife bank training center and then going berzerk. But why are the heretics on B3K? Because the Reform Planets have all been destroyed. These are presumably the last of the heretics hiding out among the B3K citizenry, and we know that B3K is part of the League of 20,000 Planets. Thodin has probably been lurking in a base of underground operations on B3K ever since Stanley got caught. Or, who knows, maybe they had previously infiltrated the League and established this base before it all went down, and now it came in handy.

So if Thodin is hiding and wants to get caught so he can get into the Cluster and steal the Lexx, what does he need to do to get caught? Well, I'd call donning a ceremonial Ostral-B outfit and wearing it in public on B3K a good way to get some big attention real fast. From there it wouldn't take much for Thodin and a few co-conspitators tussling with authorities and being recognized to wind up exactly where they wanted to be, on a transport heading to the Cluster for special execution. We know Thodin smuggled in a bug bomb which was preprogrammed with blueprints and detailed instructions, so it's likely that B3K was an ideal place to lay down an undercover information pipeline that might have gone all the way into the Cluster. That would explain how they were able to get the gate change, which apparently got them as close to the Lexx as possible once they were inside. From there, Thodin and his gang acquired black packs and then managed to quickly reach the Lexx, so they clearly had help on the inside regarding building plans, codes, timing, you name it. This plan must have taken years to set up. (Remember that when you see Stanley slapping at the bug bomb.) At any rate, I can imagine how apropos it would have been, had Thodin successfully pulled off the Lexx heist, to blast up the Cluster wearing ceremonial Ostral-B garb after his planet had been blown up. BOOYA!!

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There are two things that Thodin unwittingly did that weren't according to plan and unintentionally made huge differences later. After the bug bomb detonated and he was pulling his heretics off the prisoner slabs, Thodin caved to releasing a prisoner known as Giggerota the Wicked. Giggerota is later responsible for getting Stanley up to the command center of the Lexx in a moth, then it's her idea to steer toward the Frontier, which gave them a head start. While we are speaking of prisoners, remember that Thodin was detained inside his own special unit during transport, so he isn't wearing the slab bands like the other heretics or like Zev is still wearing even after her transformation. He and Zev probably never saw each other before they met near the Lexx, even though they came in on the same transport, since she was already in processing by the time the bug bomb detonated and Thodin was brought back to the slabs. He and the other heretics never blinked at her slab bands (I doubt any of them recognized her as being from the same transport), and were so caught up in running into Stanley and stealing the Lexx that Zev wasn't much more than a wild card thrown into the mix. Thodin is responsible for shoving her onto the Lexx before she could be killed by a Divine Assassin. Zev is responsible for both bringing 790 on board and knocking out Stanley's tooth, a combination that proved extremely useful as another code was discovered for a flight path to the Dark Zone. She also told Stanley to stand up and die with dignity, which Stanley later exaggerated into mocking Divine Predecessors like no human in the Light Universe had ever done in all the millennia that humans had been savagely enslaved and abused.

I know I go off on tangents, but because of Thodin, these other things happened. Under all that brusque, Thodin apparently had a heart of gold for the ladies, and it made all the difference in the Two Universes.

--there may be a part 2 down the road--