Eureka Maru

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The Eureka Maru is a fictional starship in the television series Andromeda. The Maru is a cargo ship owned by Beka Valentine.

1 Ship technical aspects
2 Ship history
3 Etymology
4 Crew

[edit] Ship technical aspects

The Eureka Maru is a slipstream-capable cargo ship and is armed with lasers and missiles, and has a three engine thrust system.

Beka has spoken to the Maru on many occasions throughout the series, and in episode 18 of series 4, the Maru appears to creak in response, despite the ship's lack of artificial intelligence. The Maru computer system responds to commands and inquiries in a manner similar to modern day computers.

The Maru is about 42 metres in length, judged by the scale of people against it as seen in episode 8 of series 5. It weighs approximately 12,000 tonnes.

[edit] Ship history

Beka Valentine and her crew often use the ship to make risky and illegal cargo runs, before rescuing Dylan Hunt from a black hole and joining his crew. The ship was built by Beka's father, Ignatius Valentine, and his friend Sid Barry.

Sid left the Maru crew when Beka was a child, after a fight between him and Ignatius. Beka has spent most of her life on the Maru, and it has been implied that she was born on board. She is very protective of the Maru and would never allow it to be destroyed; she also hates it when people insult the ship, including Dylan Hunt's frequent use of the term "bucket of bolts".

In episode 4 of series 1, Dylan states that Beka was captain of the Maru for 10 years, meaning she received official command of the ship from her father in CY 10077; in episode 16 of series 4, Harper states that possession of the Maru fell to Beka in CY 10081, the year her father died. Beka's original crew composed solely of herself and her boyfriend Bobby Jensen but they break up and he is replaced by Seamus Harper as the ship's engineer (after he was hired by Bobby for a one-time deal on Earth). Rev Bem joins shortly after this and then another crew member named Vexpag is hired, however he dies when his environmental suit rips and is replaced by Trance Gemini shortly before they found the Andromeda Ascendant (while under contract with a Nightsider named Gerentex).

[edit] Etymology

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Although the origin of the name of the ship Eureka Maru is never mentioned in the series, or any official literature springing from it, here are some facts that may provide clues to where the name comes from:

Heureka (often today spelled: eureka) means "I have found it!" in Ancient Greek.
The word maru is often attached to Japanese ship names. See Japanese ship naming conventions.
The Kobayashi Maru is a starship that first appears in the movie Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.
Maruts (sanskrit) are storm gods, company of Indra.
The Komagata Maru incident which occurred in British Columbia, in Canada — co-incidentally where much of Canadian Filming, including Andromeda, is filmed.