Invasion (Sliders)

Template:Infobox Sliders episodes Invasion is the twelfth episode for the second season of the science fiction television show Sliders. Arturo, Quinn, Rembrandt, and Wade first encounter the Kromaggs, an aggressive race with sliding (interdimensional travel) technology.

For a change, Rembrandt has a soft landing that doesn't require him to aim for Professor Arturo -- on the last world, he bought knee pads, elbow pads, and a helmet. Gaining their bearings, the Sliders find graffiti in an amusement park that refers to people known as Kromaggs: "KROMAGGS RULE" and "THE END IS HERE!" are among the messages in the deserted San Francisco they appear to have landed in. Quinn finds that something is emitting the same frequency that the timer uses, and he follows the signal to find a low-flying glider that prepares to bear down on him. Quinn uses the timer to emit an electromagnetic pulse that causes the "Manta ship" (not identified in this episode, but later in the series) to crash, killing the pilot.

Before Quinn and Arturo survey the wreckage in the time they have left on this world, several escaped inmates from Gatehaven Mental Hospital (Wade notices an ID bracelet) tell the Sliders that the Kromaggs will be coming for them. Questions about the Kromaggs reveal that they deported and enslaved the population of this alternate Earth, released the inmates, and are from Earth itself. Quinn and Arturo find that the ship is organic and the Kromagg himself (?) is an ape/human hybrid. looks and appropriate a wristband (possibly a Kromagg version of a dog tag) which sets off an alarm attracting other Kromaggs to the area two minutes before the slide. Arturo and Rembrandt make it through the vortex while Quinn and Wade remain behind just long enough to see another Kromagg vessel emerging from a vortex high above them. Quinn notes that the Kromaggs are Sliders too just before he and Wade jump.

While enjoying a meal in New France (the French were the dominant colonizers of the New World here), Arturo deduces that the Kromaggs are as much Earthmen as they are, but from an Earth that followed a different evolutionary path. Following the signal from the dead pilot's wristband, the Kromaggs abduct the Arturo, Quinn, Rembrandt, and Wade and take them to one of their conquered worlds, Earth 113, for study. The Kromaggs' intermediary, a translator named Mary, explains that they're "prisoners . . . guests of the Kromagg Dynasty", the military government that used sliding technology to unite the tribal Kromaggs under one government. On traveling to other worlds, the Kromaggs discovered nearly all of them were dominated by homo sapiens and, out of fear and for revenge, they set out to conquer other Earths. (Later in the series, it's established that the Kromaggs are exiles from "Kromagg Prime", an alternate Earth they fought with the humans there for and were driven from. In this episode, "Kromagg Prime" is described as their own world.)

As the first human Sliders that the Kromaggs have ever encountered, Arturo, Quinn, Rembrandt, and Wade are subjected separately to interrogations on Earth 113 to make them reveal where their home Earth is. Despite Rembrandt's reunion with his father (actually a double from another conquered Earth) and the Kromaggs' power to plant suggestions in their minds, he and the other Sliders are unable to reveal what they don't know, since they're sliding randomly. Quinn, while walking in the garden with Mary between interrogations, is slipped a pass key that opens his and his friends' cells. Quinn offers to take Mary with them, but she, like other conquered humans, is conditioned to regard the Kromaggs as her superiors in all things.

With Mary's help the Sliders retrieve their timer, but she's wounded by the Kromaggs as they slide back to New France (the timer's counting down to the next slide from that world since they were brought by the Kromaggs to Earth 113). After they arrive safely, it's revealed that the Kromaggs let Arturo, Quinn, Rembrandt, and Wade escape with a tracking device implanted in one of them. The Kromaggs plan to follow them to their Earth, and Mary sheds a tear despite her masters' success.

Notable Facts

Invasion is the only episode of Sliders to receive an Emmy nomination, for "Outstanding Sound Effects in a Series".

The Kromaggs in this episode were created by the makeup team of The X-Files as a favor to Tracy Tormé.