It's late in the 23rd Century and the aging interplanetary hauling vehicle Pequod is on a ten-year reclamation project on behalf of 'The Company', the corporation that has run North America since 2102. While in theory everyone owns stock in The Company, in reality, humans work for the Company and quality of life has suffered.
Opening narration
| "Who among us does not think he knows evil when he sees it? But are such distinctions really so black and white? Or is morality simply a matter of perspective?" |
Plot
In 2298, the crew of the hauling ship Pequod, which includes Captain Ira Merit (Keith David), telemetry officer Lieutenant Gwen "Hutch" Hutchinson (Jill Teed), payload specialist Augie Berger (Byron Lucas), paramedic Curtis Sandoval (Max Martini), systems technician Isabella Bixel (Allixandra East), and the Company's Man, Gordon Knight (Dion Luther), is tucked away in hyper-sleep when the ship comes across a mysterious object floating through space. Awakened from their artificial slumber, they retrieve the pod and are shocked to discover the body of Virgil Nygard (Corbin Bernsen), supposedly executed 150 years earlier for leading his militia in the slaughter of more than a million people. They are even more shocked to discover that Nygard is alive.
The crew are at odds over what to do with Nygard; while everyone agrees that he is a murderer, the pod he was in is made of a valuable and now rare material. The Company Man, Knight, wants to keep the pod and doesn't care what happens to Nygard. Hutchinson and Bixel don't want Nygard on the ship. And the drug-using Sandoval doesn't care what happens to him. To further complicate matters, the ship isn't where it should be and it appears one of the crew deliberately sent it to pick up Nygard's pod. Bixel is murdered while investigating why the ship was millions of miles off-course and the survivors begin to wonder who among them is a follower of this mass-murderer. For his part, Nygard says The Company, which wanted to access valuable mineral deposits under his people's land, framed him and that he only fought to survive. Now, he says, he plans to return to Earth to lead his persecuted followers to freedom. As tensions mount, the survivors must ask themselves: is he telling the truth or is this a ruse concocted by a homicidal maniac and his mysterious ally? And is it more evil to kill some to save many, or to be put in a position where that choice is necessary at all?
Nygard has reached the bridge with Hutchinson while everyone else is locked away in their quarters. Merit and Sandoval use waste disposal vents to try and reach Augie and Nygard, but Augie grows increasingly nervous and reveals himself to be the traitor. He is responsible for recovery of the pod and has positioned Nygard on the bridge. Augie opens the vents and kills Sandoval, but Merit survives. Augie also uses an axe to kill Knight, and while he feels guilt about betraying his crewmates, he kills Knight with no sense of remorse. Nygard has convinced Hutchinson to follow him, but Merit is prepared to kill Nygard per The Company's orders. He shoots Nygard, but Hutchinson then turns and shoots Merit, who utters "madness..." with his final breath. Left alone on the ship, Hutchinson becomes a new believer in Nygard's cause and plans to spread his message of rebellion against the Company.
Closing narration
| "Powerful ideas do not die with those who gave them birth—so long as the seeds of those ideas are planted in their followers." |
Notes
- Per the title, Abaddon means "A place of destruction" and in the Book of Revelation, he is the king of tormenting locusts and the angel of the bottomless pit.
- The stasis units were reused from "Stasis".
- The handguns used by the Pequod crew are a reuse of the Timecop Beretta created for the 1994 film Timecop. They also appeared in "Relativity Theory", "Think Like a Dinosaur" and "Human Trials" and as the Rand Protectorate pistols in the Stargate SG-1 episode "Icon" and the Genii pistols in Stargate: Atlantis.
Cast
- Keith David as Captain Ira Merit
- Max Martini as Curtis Sandoval (as Maximilian Martini)
- Jill Teed as Lieutenant Gwen "Hutch" Hutchinson
- Byron Lucas as Augie Berger
- Dion Luther as Gordon "Gord" Knight
- Corbin Bernsen as Virgil Nygard
- Allixandra East as Isabelle "Bix" Bixel
- Kevin Conway as the Control Voice (voice)