| Natira | |
|---|---|
 Not a woman you'd want to cross. | |
| First appearance | 2.19 "Liars, Guns and Money - A Not So Simple Plan" |
| Last appearance | 2.21 "Liars, Guns and Money - Plan B" |
| Details | |
| Nickname(s) | Frau Blucher, Medusa |
| Gender | Female |
| Species | Saltici |
| Affiliation | Shadow Depository |
| Age | Unknown, but older than Scorpius |
| Romantic Associations | Scorpius |
| Known Family | Unknown |
| Vehicle of Choice | Unknown, but she presumably had one; she was too rich not to |
| Weapon of Choice | Pulse rifle; the claws on her head, which she used to remove eyes from her victims' skulls. |
| Portrayed by | Claudia Karvan |
- "This is why I can't have you around. You know me too well."
- ― Scorpius to Natira
Character History[]
Natira was a female Saltici, an intelligent bipedal creature with blue, crustaceous skin. She had a "crown" of seven claw-like tendrils on her head that she used in one of her favorite pastimes: plucking out the eyes of her torture victims.
Natira with Scorpius
Natira had a history with Scorpius, although the precise nature of this history remains murky. She took him in and helped him many cycles ago when he was still an angry, hotheaded young creature, presumably at some point after his first escape from Tauza. The relationship was not one-sided, however; Natira also owed Scorpius "too much that I cannot repay." Among other things, he apparently protected her from death at the hands of the Peacekeepers. Natira and Scorpius also have a long history of sexual, vaguely S&M-like encounters, despite the presumable age gap between the two. And yet, despite all of this history between the two of them, Natira never trusted Scorpius, and the favor was returned from him.
At some time in the past, Natira had become the head of a Shadow Depository, and she ran it ruthlessly. Possessed of a sharp business sense and a backbone of steel, Natira obviously rose to a position of no small repute due to her managerial skills and successful depository, and at the time of Farscape, she is the undisputed ruler of her own little kingdom.
Appearance in Season 2[]
Natira made her first appearance when Moya's crew attempted to raid her Shadow Depository in order to steal enough currency to buy Ka D'Argo's son, Ka Jothee, back from the Ketten Mines. The plan, which was devised by Stark, was devious and vastly complicated: D'Argo attempted to break into the Shadow Depository and was captured by Natira's guards. This caused Natira to reset the security systems, allowing Stark to hack into them as they rescrambled themselves. Once he was in, Pa'u Zotoh Zhaan (dressed as the pirate Aralla) marched inside with Chiana at her side, pretending to be a fabulously wealthy mafiosa who wanted to make a deposit. The deposit was actually Rygel, temporarily placed in suspended animation to avoid bioscans and secreted inside a hollow statue, which was then placed in a safety deposit "pod"; he would wake up inside of Natira's vaults, exchange his pod's ident code with that of another pod (which not-so-coincidentally turned out to belong to Scorpius), and return to the ship when the new pod's contents were withdrawn by "Aralla".
The plan, however, went wrong from the very beginning with the arrival of Scorpius. Natira, hearing of the destruction of Scorpius' Gammak Base and thinking him dead, had repossessed his properties in her depository as her own, and when he arrived and demanded triple the value of his property as repayment, she procured a shipment of borinium ingots for him... borinium ingots that turned out to be Karack metallites, an attempt by Natira to assassinate Scorpius and keep his belongings as her own. It was, of course, these ingots that Rygel ended up stealing, and once Natira mentioned the curious Delvian Aralla and her entourage of a Nebari, a Luxan, and two Sebaceans, Scorpius knew exactly who was in the depository and ordered a shutdown of all the exits.
Although Moya's crew evaded Scorpius' grasp, their problems were only beginning, as the vicious Karack metallites began to eat Moya alive from the inside. Chiana managed to capture one, and Zhaan discovered that fire would destroy it, but this meant that the only way to remove the metallites from Moya was to raze her with fire, damaging her severely. Although Pilot resisted, there was no other option, and the fire was ignited, killing the metallites but also scarring Moya.
Zhaan initiated the fire while Crichton and the rest of the crew were off-ship recruiting a strike team, consisting of a Vorcarian blood tracker, a Sheyang, a Tavlek, and the Zenetan Pirates, to recover Jothee. Upon discovery that they no longer had any currency with which to pay the mercenaries, Crichton chose to give himself up in order to assure Jothee's safety. Furthermore, because Zhaan had burned the metallites – which were the currency that the other mercenaries had been bribed into assisting Crichton with – Moya's crew was now without currency, and the mercenaries turned on them, seizing Moya for themselves.
It was only thanks to Aeryn Sun's quick thinking that the mercenaries were once more persuaded into attacking the depository, in order to give Aeryn the chance to save Crichton. Assisted by Bialar Crais and Talyn, Aeryn managed to rescue Crichton; however, in the process, Natira took the Blood Tracker Rorf captive, interrogated him as to Aeryn's movements, and tore his left eye out of his head when he would not satisfy her with answers. This horrific torture quickly got her all the information she needed; however, despite this, Natira did not stand in Aeryn's way. Indeed, she ended up helping Crichton to escape; realizing that Scorpius finally intended to truly kill her this time after a conversation with Harvey in Crichton's mind, she freed Crichton under the promise that he would get her to safety. Leading Crichton out of the depository, armed with a pulse rifle, Natira kept her head even when fired upon by Peacekeepers – when Crichton began slipping into delirium and Rorf was shot by the Peacekeepers, Natira cut and ran. Her current location is unknown.
Personality[]
Natira possessed a fascinatingly warped personality. Appearing to be manipulatively calm, completely in control, and constantly on guard against any treachery that might come her way – all necessary traits for the head of a Shadow Depository. Backstabbing came as easily to her as breathing; she would smile sweet as honey to your face even while her mind was working out a dozen different ways to kill you.
With her composure and haughtiness, she acted more like an aristocrat than a common criminal. Her speech was always high-flown, eloquent, and impeccable; she took pleasure in playing word games, using alliteration and elegant metaphors to make even a violent death sound refined. She enjoyed toying with her victims, speaking lovingly to them about the beauty of their eyes before she plucked them out and added them to her collection. She claimed to enjoyed collecting beautiful eyeballs.
Quotes[]
- As a race Luxans can be inartful at love, inadequate at war, and intrinsically inept, but this one...is intelligent.
- ...But perhaps you like pain. Is that it? I hope so.
- (studying a statue-fied Rygel) Hmm...it's extremely ugly.
- Animal, you have lovely eyes. I love red eyes. Very sensual. Very unusual.
- Animal, I love your eyes...your lying eyes.
Quotes Involving Others[]
- Akkor: May I help you?
- Zhaan: No. Bring me who ever is in charge here.
- Akkor: I assure you, madam, I am more than capable...
- Zhaan: Don't elevate yourself. I know a functionary when one crawls in front of my face. Now fetch me your master like a good little minion.
- Natira: I'm Natira. Are you here to make a transaction?
- Zhaan: I am Aralla.
- Natira: You act as if that name should mean something to me.
- Zhaan: I understand you've been having security problems.
- Natira: You've been misinformed.
- Zhaan: Oh really? I had one of my operatives test your systems himself. He got halfway into your vault before you even noticed him.
- Natira: The Luxan? He barely made it through the first door. He belongs to you?
- Zhaan: He's still alive?
- Natira: Last I checked.
- Chiana: They couldn't even kill a Luxan.
- Zhaan: Unbelievable. I will take him back now.
- Natira: You'll take whatever I give you.
- Chiana: Oh...?
- Natira: How did he get our code?
- Zhaan: It is not my job to plug your security leak.
- Natira: Then why have you come here?
- Zhaan: Time-sensitive goods. Short-term deposit.
- Chiana: Short term.
- Zhaan: I need storage for one solar day.
- Chiana: One solar day.
- Natira: Scorpius...for a half-Scarran you can sometimes be so... cold. We have so much to catch up on. I heard about the destruction of your Gammak Base.
- Scorpius: And you thought I was dead.
- Natira: Well, I'm glad I was wrong.
- Scorpius: You've seized my property.
- Natira: Well...of course.
- Natira: I'm procuring a quarter sakmar of borinium ingots for you – at least three times the value of the property you had stored.
- Braca: And where are you stealing them from?
- Natira: Do you care?
- Scorpius: No. How soon will we have them?
- Natira: The arrangements are rather complex.
- Scorpius: And what am I supposed to do while I wait?
- Natira: Accept my "apologies."
- Scorpius: At any event, the currency that was stolen belongs to you – yet, you seem strangely unaffected for the loss. Tell me, what did you really put in my storage containers?
- Natira: Karack metallites.
- Scorpius: Oh.
- Natira: While dormant, they look like borinium ingots. But they’re actually burrowing creatures. They consume metal in their natural environment.
- Scorpius: And you intended to destroy my Marauder. Kill my crew, killing...me.
- Natira: Yes. You wouldn’t have respected me otherwise.
- Scorpius: How commendable. Very fortunate I was robbed.
- Natira: Mmm.
Trivia[]
- According to Rockne S. O'Bannon's short story "Horizons", Natira spent time aboard Moya at some point after season 4. This may indicate that Natira was meant to return to the show at one point had it not been canceled.
- Claudia Karvan was one of Australia's most recognizable TV actresses and the network initially wanted her for a "princess" role, but she requested to be an alien.[1]
- In an early draft of "Incubator", the first meeting between Natira and Scorpius was to be shown.
- Though Natira's species was never identified onscreen, a similar character appeared in "Leave It to Crichton". Writer Keith R. A. DeCandido later confirmed they were of the same species. [2]