Talikaa is a minor antagonist from the fourth season of Farscape. While she appears to be humanoid, this is merely a form she assumes; she is really a shape-changing Wolaxian arachnid that feeds on the neural energy of sentient creatures. Her Sebacean guise is portrayed by Paula Arundell.
History[]
Appearing in the episode "Twice Shy", Talikaa first appeared aboard Moya while in the custody of a group of merchants whom the Moya crew were purchasing star charts from. The traders also offered up Talikaa as an apparent sex slave and Chiana decided to buy her freedom.
Once aboard Moya, Talikaa came into contact with each of the crew and infected each of them with some kind of toxin that brought out their strongest emotions in excess, eg. Crichton's optimism, Aeryn's sense of discipline and Chiana's sex drive. Then, at the appropriate time, she incapacitated each of the crew with a supersonic scream and harvested their neural energy in the form of a strange green orb. When her victims regained consciousness, they exhibited behaviour opposite to their nature; Crichton had become pessimistic, D'Argo was incapable of being angry and Rygel had become selfless.
Talikaa's true form
Moya regained contact with the trader ship that Talikaa had come from but found its entire crew dead having fallen ill due to the loss of their neural energy. A recording in the ship's computer system revealed that Talikaa was a Wolaxian arachnid and explained how it was possible to defeat the creature and reacquire the neural energy before it was consumed.
Death[]
Crichton and Sikozu managed to locate Talikaa's nest in Moya's cargo bay and found the neural energy orbs hanging from a web dangling from the ceiling. Talikaa appeared and Crichton distracted her by offering her his life, giving Sikozu a chance to sneak up to the orbs. Talikaa sensed Sikozu's proximity to the orbs and transformed into her true form, lashing out at Sikozu and knocking her out. She then went after Crichton, but Crichton fought her off and stuffed a heavy pulse blaster in the creature's mouth and fired. The pulse energy built up in the arachnid's stomach until she exploded from the inside out.