Sevencyclopaedia - Z

ZEN

The main computer on the Liberator, first appearing after Jenna touched a control that linked Zen with her mind. Zen took the name "Liberator" from her mind and referred to the ship as such immediately afterwards, explaining that "your thought was accepted". At some unspecified point it was told to accept commands only from recognised members of the crew, recognition being keyed to voice. Tarrant, Klegg and his troopers thus had no control over Zen. Avon later allowed Zen to obey commands from Tarrant and Dayna. In The Harvest of Kairos the same was extended to Servalan, but later removed by Avon. Avon ensured that Zen would only obey his course commands when journeying to Terminal.

Although an invaluable part of Liberator's capability (and considered by Blake at least as a member of the crew), Zen occasionally proved to be less than helpful. It never answered Blake's queries about the original owners of the Liberator or their possible whereabouts. It switched off when Blake attempted to bring the programmed guardians" cryogenic capsule on board, with no reason given. It also refused to take the ship through the Prohibited Space Zone to XK-72 in Breakdown, and the ship had to be flown manually. An order to self-destruct, which flying through the Zone was considered to be, ran counter to Zen's prime directive.

Zen was also unhelpful in identifying Cally as the source of the sabotage inflicted on the ship in The Web, saying that "pre-emptive interference in crew activities is forbidden".

Since the Liberator's defence system was probably under Zen's control, Zen can be attributed with a bodycount - Wallace and Teague from the London (with a third crewman apparently driven insane) and two of the Thaarn's in Dawn of the Gods. Blake, Jenna and Avon would also have succumbed had Blake not seen through the illusions it projected.

Zen occasionally came under external control. Orac assumed control of Zen when the Liberator arrived at Aristo, suggesting that tarial cells were a component of Zen's systems. In Redemption, Zen failed to respond to the crew's commands after the initial contact with vessels from the System. Orac assumed control of Zen for a second time in Dawn of the Gods. The undead alien in Sarcophagus managed to assume control of Zen.

Zen occasionally referred to members of their crew by their names, addressing Olag Gan in this way in Time Squad. In Terminal it called for Blake and Cally who weren't even present on board. In the same episode, as it finally lost all power and computing ability, it referred to itself as "I" for the first and only time. Zen exploded when Servalan took the ship away from Terminal.

Avon in The Harvest of Kairos described Zen as a "capacity charged brain", without elucidating further.

Blake used Zen in a novel way in Shadow, whilst held prisoner by Largo. He asked Cally to have Zen bring a further payment across to Space City, thus letting her know that things had not gone according to plan.

Zen's final demise

Zen's exact parameters were never defined. It had master control over all the ship's systems, and had to be bypassed when it automatically went offline in Breakdown. It frequently relayed detector readings to the crew, and also monitored inboard sensor readings. It managed to decode the Horizon Kommissar's coded message to Flotilla 13 and the flotilla's reply, which was also in code - this ability might have been due to Blake's theft of a Federation cipher machine, either that in Seek-Locate-Destroy or on another, unseen occasion. Zen also had access to considerable astrographic data on many of the planets visited by Liberator, as well as some Federation archive material (relating to Obsidian, for example). How it came to have such data in its memory banks was never discussed.

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