1914 Babylon 5 film as volcanic ash descends on Tory Party

Thursday evening April 15th dramatically changed the position of Liberal Democrat Leader Nick Clegg in the General Election campaign as he impressed the majority of over nine million TV viewers who watched part if not all the first ever TV debate between the leaders of the three main political parties. Afterwards three opinion polls revealed that between 51 and 61% of those watching considered Mr Clegg was the best performer on the night. I also thought he was outstanding but that the Prime Minister did exceptionally well given the reality that there are swathes of people unhappy with aspects of the Labour Administration, the Iraq War, the extent of immigration, and the banking debacle in particular. The person who failed was the Conservative Party Leader David Cameron because it was evident he was putting on an act, having been briefed by the media and public relations gurus not to be aggressive and overtly attacking the other candidates he performed differently from his angry man act at Prime Minister’s Question Time.

While it is not yet time to write his political obituary, the USA experience is that first public impressions from the TV debates have been carried forward through the others that follow. The big question was would the success on the night be carried forward to the opinion polls. In the evening politics show Andrew Neill and Michael Portillo in particular were way off beam for once showing the danger that those who inhabit the Westminster village do not have actual direct connections with the ordinary populations. Portillo showed all his latent political prejudices and inclinations suggesting the Liberal Party might gain a few percentage points which would not affect the overall outcome of the election.

It was during the Politics To Day show that the thunderbolt struck with the first results of a poll leaked via Twitter. This catapulted the Liberal Democrats into second position just a couple of points behind the Conservatives. There was a retraction within the next hour as the results and not been adjust to ensure sample polled reflected the national voting population. However by the 10pm news when this work had been completed the results were still devastating for the conservatives and if carried forward could change British Politics over the next decade. In the wake of the banking disaster and the expenses scandal the public do appear to have agreed that it is time for change and the effect of the TV debate featuring three prospective Prime Ministers with equal status has been for people to swing solidly behind the Party which has not held office alone for 100 years, although participating in the coalitions and national governments through to 1945.

The Liberal Democrats were indeed second to the Conservatives but the margins between them and Labour were not great and only 5 points separated three parties 28% 30% and 33% although because of the first past the post system this would result in Labour being the biggest single party the Conservatives second and the Liberal Democrats with a significant increase in seats from 60 to 100 and therefore likely to command what legislation was passed and what was not. This could suit Labour and the Liberals allowing the Government to remain in power but taking the flak for measures to reduce the national debt, but ensuring that important public services are protected, bringing about Parliamentary and other reforms and curbing some of the Labour decisions which I and the Liberal heart of the Labour Party have disliked over the past three years. It is early doors to forecast but the omens are good

The development is also likely to mean that other Parties like the National Front, UKIP and Green party would lose votes to the Lib Dems. It is difficult to predict the implications in Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales where other factors apply.

The other news story has been the closing down of air flights over Britain and the majority of Europe because of the nature of the volcanic ash cloud from the Iceland volcano eruptions. These have been taking place for several weeks but only became a problem to air flight because the latest movement was under deep ice which becomes converted into particles of glass when cooled. The problem is that if an aircraft goes through the cloud which is necessary to reach normal flying height the heat of the engines turns the dust in the atmosphere into molten lava again which then cools and solidifies within the engines causes them to cease functioning and in effect the plane falls out of sky although in one instance the pilot was able to restart the engines once the plane had fallen from over 30000 to 10000 feet. The impact on travel over the past three days has been dramatic with trains, coaches and sea ferries gaining, as well hotels around the airports and in travel destination abroad as holiday makers returning at the end of the Easter holidays have been stranded.

I had a good Friday in other respects having decided not to go to the cricket after Thursdays freezing disappointment. It was so unpleasant that my chest was affected by the walk around the ground at lunch time. I came home at tea time as it is difficult to get engaged in the action behind glass. There was an exceptionally good crowd despite the weather with at least 500 hardy individuals staying outside while I was there. There was a general air of expectation and enthusiasm after the last season.

For some inexplicable reason Durham having won the toss asked newly promoted Essex to bat. Facing Durham’s still impressive attack, but without Graham Onions, still recovering from injury (hopes to make the game against Yorkshire), and without Steve Harmison who has injured his ankle, Essex crawled to a dozen runs in the first half hour after lost of an early wicket and then second. Although three wickets down they accelerated a little with the excellent Cooke before lunch but when he went soon after and the total was just over 100 runs, the decision to bowl still looked good but then Mickleburgh joined Foster and the two batted for the rest of the day and most of the day after with partnership of over 300 runs and individuals total of over 150 runs each and an Essex partnership record.

I stayed home, deciding to work on the outside area of garage and patio. The first task was to wash the plates before returning them to the shelf with the six wine goblets from Valouris, creating a Mediterranean section at the end nearest to where I work. I also placed the prints and cheap painted canvases bought on trips to Spain and Greece after giving these a good dust and clean. The final disposition is not settled. Some I will repair rather than meet the cost of a new frame as the image is one of sentimental value only. I will also take individual photographs and perhaps include in a photo edition of these writings which I plan for after the 1010th work has been completed 10 X 101 which had I been younger I would have aimed at 101 x 101.

I then decided to work on the plant hanging baskets and containers rather than repairs to the wall above the garage door or the side of the house. I had purchased three boxes of training lobelia from B and Q together with two boxes of Geraniums. I used these on the five hanging baskets closest to the window out of which I look when working. The balance of the geraniums when into the attractive two tone green glazed pots and a couple of other containers on the table, which I moved back undercover but with one end open to the elements having reorganised the paving stones. I was tired by the end of the afternoon, but enjoyably so, and looking forward to continuing sessions of work outside to complete the task.
The only moment of anxiety in the day occurred later when I watched the previous episode of Lost on the i player and ran into a problem, deciding to then install the Microsoft Window and Norton additions and updates which had accumulated since last using the laptop. When the machine restarted it seemed to freeze requesting that the 2nd function button was required but nothing happened and after several attempts I closed down including mains energy. Returning I left on and eventually the screen moved forward and the installation process continued successfully. I watched the third in the reprise of the original Second Wallander series of 14 programmes having missed out on the first two (The Courier).

This was an engaging tale centring on forcing a top motorcycle racing driver to bring in cocaine from Copenhagen into Sweden by threatening his life and that of his pregnant wife. He had previously worked for the mafia in his youth. The first crime involved some small time thugs involved in the important of vicious dogs involved in fighting and the hunt for one of the heavies after he set one of the dogs on a policemen who had arrived to impound the animals. This brought the police on a criminal chain which tied the local gang to the murder of the former courier, whose motorcycle had a specialist engine which in turn led them to the replacement well known international celebrity racer. The situation came to head when the young trainee policewoman‘s younger sister was threatened with rape if she testified against the thug who had set the dog on her colleague. Wallander’s team have a break through when a colleague searching for his mother who has gone missing from a home for those with severe memory loss, finds a still warm car in the grounds of a church at night which is being repaired. They find that the car belongs to a well known international criminal based in Stockholm in a situation where Wallander already knew that the church was being renovated by a former criminal associated with dog fighting and thus the links between the criminals, the drugs and the dogs were made and sorted in an excellent finale. The episode provided the opportunity for shots of amateur and professional motorcycling.

The Call to arms, is the fourth full length film is the Babylon 5 series broadcast on the TV network after the series ended and features Sheridan, Garibaldi and Lochley in a story about a major threat to Earth about five years after the new alliance was formed and Sheridan and Delenn had established its headquarters on the Minbari home world. There are continuity issues which spoil and entertaining but unremarkable film.

Sheridan joins Garibaldi on a mission to inspect two new battle cruisers which his corporation has been contracted to produce using Human, Minbar and Vorlon technology although it is not clear how they obtain Vorlon technology who it was my understanding departed taking their craft with them while it is the Shadows whose craft has been captured or found in various forms before and since the establishment of the Alliance.

Moreover given Garibaldi’s decision to use creative members of staff on his board, a crazy and doomed move by any standards given our detailed knowledge of how to use and manage Creatives in research, development and management, it is questionable that any owner managing director would have arranged a demonstration without for the client without having personally attended a run through of the demonstration of what the prototypes could do. To find that the craft have been fully equipped to operational standards before discovering they were fundamentally flawed in having superior fire power which is used drained the energy source rendering the craft immobile for a full minute is unbelievable, making what then happens ludicrous.

Unfortunately this is not the only absurd aspect of this film. Apparently we have previously encountered the Technomages beings which appear to combine virtual reality creations which powers similar to those in Close Encounters of the Third Kind and elements of the previous film and the Star Trek series, in the ability to communicate with selected individuals and motivate them into compulsive activity of the first order and in secret. Without those ability the plot falls apart even more. They have moved to a new planet after as planet destroyer ended their homeworld. One of the Technomages who appears to be part of a controlling group of the beings, called The Circle, and who is something of a young outsider, again similar to the role played by Martin Sheen in the previous film, decided to intervene in a situation where the Earth is to be obliterated by the Drakh, the Shadow friends, to escaped from Z’ha’dum after their masters left and before the planet was destroyed by Lyta to prevent their technology and other knowledge from falling into the hand of the less developed races prematurely. The Vorlon approach being evolutionary.

The Drakh blame Sheridan and other humans for what happened to the Shadows and to them and want revenge and to make a demonstration of their power to destroy the alliance and bring its planetary systems and races under their control. They are able to do this having acquired a Shadow Planet destroyer. While it is rational for the rebellious Technomages, Galen to have in effect summoned Sheridan into action, his choice of two others is at best questionable. The first is a battle cruiser commander who failed to join Sheridan in the civil war to remove Clark. Given that Ivanova, who remained a member of the Earth military was progressing through to the position as General in Chief by the time Sheridan’s life ended and they had evidently maintained contact, one has to ask why she was not the individual Galen would have contacted. The answer, I suspect, is that with the films on a fixed budget they could not afford to have used her, or other major characters, in all the films.

The third character has an individual storyline rationality but dopes not stand the test of critical evaluation. A notorious criminal called Dureena has come to Babylon where she is captured and chained by the Thieves Guild, which given the previous efforts of Garibaldi, Zak, Lochley, the Rangers and Delenn to prevent the station having a criminally controlled underworld, is inexplicable.. It is also a puzzle that when Babylon 5 starts to be run down Sheridan did not reward his first wife Lochley and Zak with major positions in the Alliance.

Dureena is only on Babylon 5 because she too has been summoned, and breaks out of the chains to demonstrate that she is after all a Special One. Dureena has been chosen by Galen because has also escaped from a destroyed planet, and blames Sheridan for failing to save it, and is told by Galen that she must be sure to pick the right target for you will get only one shot. Both she and Sheridan are told to go to a planet called Daltron 7.

Having been contacted Sheridan breaks off the trials of the new craft and persuades Garibaldi to take him immediately to Babylon where he ties up with Dureena and captain of an Earth battle cruiser which is listed has having gone missing from his official posting. Garibaldi confers with Lochley over Sheridan’s increasingly strange behaviour, and they put it down to strain over what has happened over the previous decade and a half. They are doubly concerned when they find he has disappeared and even more so when it is realised he had taken control of the two prototype new battle cruisers ordering the head of the production unit a Mr Drake not to accept communications from Garibaldi or elsewhere.

Sheridan, Earthforce captain Anderson and Dureena head for Dalton 7 where Sheridan hopes he will find a Drazi, the third other image he had seen when contacted by Galen and whose picture he has sketched in an attempt to translate his vision into a reality. The not only find that Daltron 7 has been destroyed in much thee same way as other planets in the era of the planet destroyer but recently and that the Drazi contact has also been killed. The find in a secret part of his body an information crystal which reveals what happens. They understand what has happened and that the planet has been destroyed in a test of the Shadow planet destructor but before they can warn Earth and help to save the planet they are attacked and narrowly escape, indicating that their secret mission has been compromised. Sheridan contacts Lochley and persuade her to contact earth and persuade defensive action and also Garibaldi because he suspects the leaks must have come from Drake. Drake has persuaded Garibaldi to take him with him to Daltron 7 in search of Sheridan and the prototype craft, and attempts to capture Garibaldi when Sheridan warns about Drake or one his staff being the leak. Garibaldi defeats Drake and learns that he sold out for money and what is planned next.

During the subsequent battle the role of Dureena comes to the fore as she persuades Sheridan that although it looks as if the control centre for the death star is within its most fortified areas, this is bluff and that th unit is elsewhere is an unusually externally defended position.. The one shot opportunity works and the destroyer is disabled and the Drakh leave however, they go with a parting present for earth and plague virus high in the atmosphere which will take five years to affect the humans, thus giving opportunity to find an antidote. This made the first episode of the final series even more puzzling given that 100 years after the formation of the Alliance and Sheridan’s death historians were debating whether he was nothing more than a power hungry individualist who had little or no effect on the future development and survival of earth.

1913 Babylon 5 Space Souls

The ability to travel through space visiting beyond our planetary system has fired human imagination since when 100 years ago humans found the way to fly in aero engine planes. We remain limited by the distance which can be travelled unless human life can be placed in abeyance for the journey with the problem that on return everyone and everything known will have changed beyond recognition e.g. Planet of the Apes or the development of the technology to enable space jumping which is the method of travel which Earth was able to use after it made contact with other races in Babylon 5. An even more spectacular form of space and time travel is the subject of the second film shown on Tuesday evening Babylon 5 Thirdspace, originally shown during Season 5 but covers a period during Season 4.

The film is set in the period after the war between the Shadows and the Vorlons and before Sheridan deposed President Clark and formed the new Alliance. His deputy Ivanova is on a mission when she becomes aware of a giant object, apparently drifting through space, and arranges a chain of location and contact points so that the object can be investigated without being lost in space themselves. Seeing that the object is so large and does not respond to external investigation she arranges for it to brought back to Babylon 5 where it immediately attracts the interest of other nations.

The other empires and races involved with the station want to participate in the investigation but Sheridan is anxious to retain control and only agrees to an interplanetary expeditions team investigation on the basis of a willingness to break the earth blockade and reprovision the base as well as make available their findings exclusively to Sheridan so that he can determine what to if there is advanced technology, weaponry or other findings of a commercial significance. This is a weak storyline because needs help he can trust.
After her initial inquiries the head of the unit determines to keep the findings secret until she is sure they will make and her team famous and wealthy. She correctly determines that the object is a different kind of space jump gate, more advanced and able to travel even greater depths into the universe quickly. It was built by the Vorlons over a million years ago.

Lyta, the telepath, enhanced by the Vorlons is able to receive Vorlon communications held within the device but appears to be prevented from revealing the threat by greater force from within device belonging to an race which once threatened everyone else

Although the super jump gate is no activated various people on the station, including Ivanova, Vir and others have come under its power, including the head of the anthropological and archaeology expeditions units, in a way reminiscent of Close Encounters of the Third Kind. This force is disrupting the station working in various way with fights breaking out, individuals endangering the safety of the space station, seeking to reach the device and places which are revealed to them, and pushing those working to uncover its origins and functions to make rapid progress. When the game opens it is evident that craft that appear are hostile and beyond the defences of he station and the device in turn has established a protective force field which makes it immune to attack.

It is only when Sheridan and Delenn break into the quarters of Lyta that she is able to reveal the dreadful truth. The device was created by the Vorlons, one of the First known races, who having advanced beyond present human imagination had attempted to explore beyond their limits. What they managed to do was to open a link with a similar device created by other First ones, but these were even more dark and sinister that the Shadows, in their drive to destroy any beings who were not the same as themselves. While the Vorlons had been successful in defeating the aggressive beings because of their own advanced abilities and technology, hundreds of races and their worlds have destroyed and a group of Vorlons under the telepathic influence had closed down and jettisoned the Vorlon device in hyperspace hoping that one day it would be rediscovered and reawakened, enabling the race to once again set out on their mission to destroy all others different from themselves The Vorlons had continued to search for the device to destroy it, and now one ambitious individualist had enabled all the inhabitants of the Milky Way planetary systems to be destroyed.

The solution, very similar to that in Independence Day, the 1966 released film, is for an individual to secretly enter the device- in Independence day it was the mother ship, with thermo nuclear device and destroy from within, in both cases successfully managing to escape although narrowly doing so.

The film does not resolve gaps in the main storyline. It is said to have been based on a story of that original science fiction writer master mind H P Lovecraft. The film made major use of special effects although not of an order to have enabled the film a stand alone theatre release. But it was a breakthrough in TV film making.

Back in real time Babylon 5 Learning Curve 506 covers three story lines one of which is designed to flesh out live within the life of the space station. Because the station was never fill equipped to provide residential and community provision for everyone there are areas, described as down below, and with 5 miles in length it is perhaps not surprising that there are not a couple of hundred thousand people coming and going with overnight stays even in the expanding universe of races and planetary systems within reach. This has enabled a subterranean criminal community to develop as in any city, using force to provide protection, in unregistered gambling, prostitution, supplying illicit substances and other black market goods and supplying false entry and exit papers.

A new young crime boss arrives having been displaced elsewhere and determine to become the head man through a mixture of bribery and force. In order to make his mark he kills someone who is refusing to pay up, against the advice of one of the existing gang leaders who warns that Security Chief Garibaldi will not tolerate such a threat to his authority. The approach of the new man is set a trap to kill Garibaldi if he refuses to cooperate.

The second storyline involves the development of the Rangers with their training the Anla’shok and the arrival on the station of two recent recruits who are left to explore station on their own. The crime boss has used a woman to provide Garibaldi with information about the killing and when she finds out the intention is to kill the security chief she back out and find herself the next victim only prevented by the intervention of the two trainee Rangers. One of the two rush to help and is badly injured and left for dead. When visiting the young recruit in hospital Delenn explains that this is now a matter for them to deal with, and she has already gained the approval of Sheridan which Captain Lochley expresses surprise given her knowledge of him. This is in turn surprise Delenn and leads to the revelation that Lochley was Sheridan’s first wife. The young man who was beaten gains in strength and faces the crime boss who he defeats and the man is then handed over to the authorities.

Sub stories include Garibaldi’s questions about the choice of station captain, asking Lochley which side was she on under the Clark regime and had she ever questioned or challenged authority in her life.
The Rangers have been open to all races but those from one race have created a problem with everyone else refusing to work with them because of their habits. Delenn’s solution is for them go deep undercover. Lennier is reported as pushing himself too far in his training, with her suspicion he is trying to impress Delenn.

In Strange Relations 507 an attempt is made on the life of Londo Mollari after he is appointed to be the next Emperor after the death of the ailing Regent. Because of this and the need for Londo to visit his home world to attend national functions, Sheridan asks G’Kar to act as the personal body for his former enemy and he agrees in order to see the look on the faces of the Narn’s on his position. This quirky decision explains how G’Kar is on Centauri Prime for the events forecast in World Without End.

The rebellious Telepaths led by Byron are confronted by Bester, who insists in cooperation from Lochley now that Earth has joined the alliance so he can end their independence. Lochley is not unsympathetic to Bester‘s mission as she was stationed on one outpost where a rogue telepath murdered two crew members. Dr Franklin is offered an important job on Earth which he finds it very attractive and with Sheridan planning to leave Babylon with Delenn, he decides to accept.

In Secrets of the Soul there is no major story development. Dr Franklin discovers the secret of one of the minor races who visit Babylon 5, the Hyach who have heath problems and are dying out. They refuse to pass on their historical medical records. Dr Franklin eventually discovers that in the past the Hyach systematically slaughtered the other race on their planet the Hyach-doh because they wanted to preserve their racial purity and had become concerned at the extent of intermarriage and breeding. However was they did not realise is that it was the interbreeding which was progressing the survival of both races and that in the absence of the Hyach-doh they would begin to die out.

The telepaths led by Bryon work out a means to persuade the authorities to find them an uninhabited planet to make their home. Lyta has resolved her situation with Bester by become a special member of the Psi corps and has a relationship with Byron whose authority is being challenged by some of the other independent telepaths who have come to Babylon 5 as a refuge.

Day of the Dead is something of a diversion. Two highly regarded comedians on Earth arrive on Babylon 5. There are those who find them exceptionally funny and those like new station captain and some of the Ambassadors who do not. This is simply device for the main subject of the episode which is the day of the dead, a religious festival for one the races with the power to brings back people lost for one night where there was unfinished business of different kinds. The night when the souls rise only occurs once every 200 years when a comet approaches the homeworld of the race, the Brakiri.

For Londo it is the dancer mistress murdered on her way to stay with him on Babylon 5.

Garibaldi sees again the young fights who stayed with him the night before she went into battle and died.

She recites a poem
Because I could not stop for death
He kindly stopped for me
The carriage held but just Ourselves
And Immortality.

Followed by the rest of A few Figs from Thistles by Edna St Vincent Millay.

The closing lines appear to be a mixture

My life closed twice before its close
It remains to see
If Immorality unveil
A third event to me

So huge, so hopeless to conceive
AS these that twice befell
Parting is all we know of heaven,
And all we need of hell,

With the last two lines from an Emily Dickson poem.

Lennier spends the night with Morden of the Shadows. Morden tells Lennier he will betray the Rangers and die soon. Modern also appears to make reference of Dante’s Inferno from which I select

When things draw near or happen, we perceive
Nothing of them, Except of what others bring us we have no news of those who are alive

So may you understand that all we know
Will be dead forever from that day and hour
When the portal of the Future is swung to.

Captain Lochley is visited by a friends for whose death she had felt responsible and former Ambassador Kosh also visit Lochley with a message for Sheridan.

The message is, “When the long night comes, return to the end of the beginning.”

This is the right moment to insert the film The River of Souls which has two first class TV and cinema actors in major roles, Ian McShane and Martin Sheen.

Garibaldi now living on Mars and heading the corporation previously run by Edgars, having married his widow and the love of Garibaldi life, summons Ian McShane to Babylon 5 playing, an archaeologist who for the previous three years has received £2 million credits for unspecified research. McShane explains that he has been working on a search for immortality. While the average lifespan of humans has increased to 140 years, some races have a normal body life of two to three hundred, while other have evolved into creatures without a defined physical form, and such higher states characters appeared before in episodes of Star Trek, the original and the subsequent.

At the beginning of the film the character is seen taking one of a number of colourful globes from and dark vault like place, pursued and narrowly escaping. He brings the globe with him to Babylon 5. He asks Garibaldi to give him a few days more as he anticipates a breakthrough but Garibaldi insists that he produces a summary of his work over the past three years by the following morning. Instead of working on these McShane establishes communication with the Globe and we begin to learn what it is.

The soul collectors were covered in a previous episode, Soul Hunter. There are a dedicated race who capture the soul at the moment of death and give it immortality living in a globe full of the good memories and experiences and able to communicate with one another. McShane has removed such a globe, one of the great works of the Soul Hunters in that they were able to capture an entire race, one billion souls, the population of China. The people of the planet Ralga just before they became simultaneously extinct. A representative of the soul collectors, Martin Sheen, arrives to demand return of the globe, only to find that McShane having established communication with a soul within the globe has been alerted and makes off to where they are able to hide and counteract. Sheen explains that the souls appear angry and as such can develop their own power if not under the direct control of the Soul’s collectors, and in the form of a lightening bolt they attempt to strike him down but Lochley intervenes and appears to be struck down with death imminent. Her heart stops for a few seconds during which time she is transported in the Globe and their world, with she beings addressed by a spokesperson in the form of Dr Franklin, you only see others you want to see. The representatives explain that far from dying they were at the point of evolving into bodiless beings who would have been able to roam the universe free but have been imprisoned for 10000 years, many going mad with the rest experiencing a great sense of injustice, frustration, sense of loss, sadness and hopelessness.

Lochley lives to report her experience but finds that a fleet of Soul hunters have arrived, and having obtained information as who to stole the globe, capturing and killing McShane’s associates, they demand its return or they will invade the station and take it by force. The Ralga aided by McShane have attached themselves to the station’s core energy threatening to blow themselves and everyone up rather than be returned to their confinement by the Soul collectors.

Lochley persuades Sheen to explain the situation to his colleagues who cannot accept that they made such a significant mistake and give 20 minutes before coming on to the station. Sheen then offers his life and soul to enter the Globe as a means of preventing catastrophe and buying time in which to be able to communicate further with his colleagues and persuade them that it has not been a trick, that they have made a mistake and must find somehow to free those imprisoned to continue their evolution in some form.

There is a sub story which interacts. In the Star Trek series and follow ups we learned of the development the virtual reality experiences to the extent to which some became nearly trapped in the artificially created world while creations in the world are able to break out, at least for a time.

Zak is sent to investigate the alleged setting up of a holographic brothel in which the love object (hetrosexuals only waiting in reception) can be created to look as you wish from a three dimensional photographs and you put yourself into a special suit which can respond to actions which appear to be initiated by the virtual reality creation. When Zak tells the owner to close down he is first confronted by defiance that the accommodation was contracted for six months as an unspecified entertainment facility and then by a smart lawyer who demands compensation against the Station and against Lochley personally. She gets out of this by arranging for the facility to be destroyed when dealing with the Ralga who have used the virtual reality centre as a conduit to gain access to the station’s core. She also threatens a counter claim having discovered that the owner has created a virtual reality model in her likeness said to be very popular with female members of staff on the station. This provides humour as part of a serious subject.

Would people like to live for thousands of years in such a state? How does the work of Soul Collector square with Christianity, Judaism and the Muslim faiths?

1912 Babylon 5 in the begining and in the begining of its end

On Monday 11th April 2010 I saw again the first of the Babylon 5 films In the Beginning. I say saw again because of the memory of an aging Londo telling two children, he encountered, in the palace the story of Babylon 5 prior to the start of the first series. Much of what he says has already been explained during the first four seasons but we are presented what purports to be an accurate and comprehensive account.

Londo has boarded all the windows of the Palace because he cannot bear to look out on the destruction outside. He is also alone with the being, called the Keeper, who controls him within his body. It is thirty five years since the outbreak of the war between the Minbar and earth and therefore five since the ending of the life of Sheridan, or is it!

We find Delenn acting as a replacement on the Grey Council of nine, three from the Warrior caste representing a third of the population, three from the ordinary people, the second third and from the religious educated and cultural class.

The Council is led by Duhkat, Delenn’s mentor and their primary concern is to strengthen the role of the Rangers who have been kept going to keep an eyes and ears open for evidence of the return of the Shadows who according to the prophecy would challenge their survival again in 1000 years time, about now. There are rumours that they have returned to their original home world of Z’ha’dum and the decision is taken for Duhkat and Delenn to go on a mission to investigate, as the Warrior caste does not believe the prophecy and is reluctant to go on the mission alone.

Meanwhile the earth alliance embolden by defeating the Dilgar have become anxious about the position and intentions of the Minbar, a race with whom they have had no direct contact and only know the basics. They have trading relations with the Narn’s and the Centauri who they approach for advice and are warned to leave well alone as the Minbar do not welcome strangers or those who pry into their world and its defences. Nevertheless earth decided to send a small mission, to observe and report rather than make contact and Sheridan, as an up and coming officer is invited to participate, but rejects the offer out of loyalty to his present captain and because of concern that the person appointed has a reputation as a hot head. This is a new insight and in my judgement a flaw because it is unlikely that any government having decided not to begin contact would send someone likely to do so, and in some way which could create problems, if not as happens, disaster. I would have had no hesitation in those involved being tried for war crimes.

What happened is that they encounter Duhkat and Delenn on their mission to Z’ha’dum on much the same basis as the Earth’s mission to Minbar and unfortunately the expeditions are unable communicate, go to battle stations and the Earth vessel opens fire killing Duhkat, resulting in Delenn behaving out of character, and crying out for vengeance and destroying the Earth expedition without mercy. In my judgment she is even more responsible for what happens than the Earth craft because she knows better and is responsible for giving the Warrior class their head. Thus the two nations go to war although even on Earth to this day individual incidents of themselves do not lead to all out war involving civilian populations. Over the first month earth warships and defensive outposts are destroyed without losses on the part of Minbar. This again is odd because one would have assumed that faced with obliteration earth would have attempted an attack on the Minbar home world.

There are then developments which are post hoc ad hoc with no indication of their existence prior to the film and with evidence to the contrary. The first is that that Molari and G’Kar are official ambassadors/Contacts with Earth over ten years before Babylon 5 is created. Earth recognising inferiority is space craft and weapons approaches Londo and then G’Kar for help. London refuses concerned about the consequences for his people, fully justified in the circumstances while G’Kar sees this as opportunity to get at Centauri by selling at a high price to earth, captured Centauri technology, in the hope that this will lead to the Minbar attacking the Centauri. This again is morally indefensible.

Following the death of Duhkat a shrine is created to him and the head of the Rangers advises Delenn to visit at the earliest opportunity when she finds the Vorlon Kosh, The Vorlons and the Minbari were allies in the previous war against the Shadows and the Minbar Rangers have been looking out for them for information and to re-establish an alliance. Kosh advises Delenn that the war with Earth should be ended quickly because the human race is important in the war to come, but does not explain why, which is puzzling. Again there is no evidence that Delenn had any contact with Kosh prior to his appointment on Babylon 5.

We see the young Ivanova saying goodbye to her brother as he joins the battle knowing that to date there are always losses. Dr Franklin is arrested and imprisoned because he refuses to release the information he gained on his travels meeting up with the Minbar who he was unable to help when those contacts needed attention. He refuses to pass on the information as to do so would be contrary to his ethical standards although it is pointed out the future survival of humanity is at stake. More post hoc ad hoc.

As Earth’s losses mount an attempt is made to broker peace with the head of the Rangers, Lennon is asked by Delenn to meet a deputation from earth which includes Dr Franklin and Sheridan who meet on Narn with G’Kar the meeting broker.

Sheridan is there because he has become an Earth hero. His craft is badly damaged and his captain dead he takes over and rather than await to be destroyed he deliberately sends out a distress signal knowing it will attract the enemy, having placed his remaining three nuclear warheads on nearby asteroids, detonating them as the enemy approach and destroying the Minbar flagship, the Black Star. This is greeted with acclaim on earth and with horror on Minbar who experience their first losses. However there is no previous evidence that Sheridan knew Franklin or G’Kar prior to his arrival on Babylon 5. More post hoc ad hoc.

Moreover the susceptibility of the Minbar to this kind of offence does not appear to be used again.

The peace meeting fails because Molari finds out and concludes that the craft is an arms shipment arranged by G’Kar and arranges an attack in which Lennon is killed and the war escalates with the population of earth facing extinction. Molari as the guilt ridden and controlled President tells the children that he therefore was responsible for the subsequent deaths before the war ended, however he was doing the right thing, given that he had found out about the intention of G‘Kar to cause Minbar to attack the Centauri. The consequences is that the war intensifies although it is surprising that G’Kar who can communicate with the Minbari and has formal relations did not explain that they had been attacked by a third party. What there appears to be a well thought out and coherent back story is in my view significantly flawed

The remaining Earth pilots are asked to volunteers to give their lives while Earth arranges to get as many people as possible of the planet as refugees to other worlds. For every ten minutes the pilots survive another 700 humans escape. It is during self sacrificing gesture that Delenn on impulse arrange to capture a pilot to find out more about a race prepared to go into battle knowing they will lose. This is the famous moment of series when Sinclair is captured as he attempts to ram a Minbar craft and during the investigation it is discovered that he has a Minbari soul and Minbari do not kill Minbari, well at that point they do not. The war is ended to the amazement of Earth and Minbar warrior caste. Earth decides to start to build the Babylon 5 stations as a means to prevent such a situation happening again in future. That Earth has the technology to do is also surprising, as well as the resources to build five such stations in the ten year period. Thus Molari ends is story and then we are given a peek into the situation which we have seen before in World without End Part 2, Sheridan and Delenn are imprisoned on Centauri Prime. He is drinking heavily to get his Keeper drunk and to sleep so he get enable Sheridan and Delenn to escape.


Episode 501, The Deconstruction of Falling Stars, the first of the final episodes is a look forward in contrast to the previous look back. 100 years have passed since the founding of the Alliance with Sheridan as the first President, and Earth historians debate his role and that of Delenn, with one arguing that Sheridan had no part in getting rid of Clark and his fascist regime, while another claims he was a megalomaniac It is Delenn who then appears, some 80 years a widow who demonstrates that some of the historians have fabricated facts to fit their interpretation and provides them with information on what happened and why.

500 years later we find earth in turmoil again with a repetition of what happened before and a Fascist anti alien leadership and movement in which the Babylon heroes have become war criminals. Original film is used in holographic form to turn situations inside out but the creations behave as they would in real life reminding of situations in the Star Trek series, and Garibaldi acts in a way which results in the anti fascist movement getting information and carrying out a sneak attack on the military base in which the propaganda creator operates. He is destroyed. However this is not the end of earth divided.

1000 years later the civil war which developed between humans 500 years before has reduced earth to medieval times from which it has only commenced to recover Babylon 5 heroes have become mythological figures written about in illuminated manuscripts by monks. The Rangers at work again, on earth, determined to help create a civilization which is not anti alien or anti technology.

One millions later humans have evolved into First one beings and need Vorlon type suits and with two glowing eyes. The Vorlons have one. They are leaving earth because the sun is to exploded despite our knowledge this will happens only millions of years into the future.

In the Very Long Night of Londo Mollari 503 he has a near fatal heart attack and we are given insight into his dream world. Mollari is at the crossroads between his past misdeeds and the full realization of what has been the outcome. He expresses regret to G’Kar and there is movement forward in their personal relationship thus confirming the bonds which can develop between former political enemies who work in close association. The episode also sees the departure of Lennier as the devoted assistant to Delenn. Whatever he says about trying to find himself, he cannot cope with the love of his life marrying Sheridan. No one with human form characteristics can be that saintly all the time There is an ancient Centauri saying that sometimes an angelic soul can be trapped inside a body that has done great evil and can kill its host in an effort to break free and inhabit another body. Presumably the opposite is also true, although I believe neither in the form presented

In the Paragon of Animals, 504, we begin to see the emergence of G’Kar as a Guru spiritual leader. He has been writing a book which he had allowed Garibaldi and others to see passage in order to understand what was happening with the Shadow based on his study of the past and thinking about the future. He is chosen by Sheridan to write the principles upon which he new Federation is to operate. The title comes from Hamlet What piece of work is a man.... the paragon of animals. An interesting line in its time context before Darwin had published the Origin of the Species.

The programme also sees the development in the role the Telepaths are to have in the series. With the help of Lyta a group of breakaway telepaths led by Byron have been allowed to make Babylon 5 their home. In addition to the Minbari telepaths which are used in an open and carefully controlled way, the Centauri have used them as part of the military for 300 years. G’Kar has attempted to recruit Lyta to provide genetic material to establish telepaths in the Narn world and has also indicated carnal designs on Lyta. Lyta has been realising that her powers are developing since she was altered by the Vorlons through her association with Ambassador Kosh. She has been trying to read into two individuals at the point of death, something which Bester also has attempted in order to try and find out what happens to human consciousness after the body dies. Does human awareness really end when the brain is declared dead?
Garibaldi has persuaded Sheridan to agree to using two of Byron’s telepaths to help finds out what the Drazi race is up to and what is going on in the station in general. The Drazi have been recruiting raiders to attack minor worlds in their planetary system and their behaviour undermines the role of the new federation. The deployment of the two telepaths helps to stop this practice.

In my view the least successful of the Babylon 5 characters is the new head of station Elizabeth Lochley, who it emerges was married to Sheridan during an early period in their military careers. Their relationship appears as unlikely as his with Delenn. Nor is she convincing when later she reveals to Garibaldi her troubled past. She is no substitute for the always engaging Ivanova. She remained loyal to the Earth regime against Sheridan’s breakaway during the Clark reign as a fascist dictator

G’Kar writes

The Universe speaks in many languages but only one voice( oh if this was so)

The language is not Narn or Human, or Centauri, Gaim or Minbari.

It speaks in the language of hope. It speaks in the language of Trust.

It speaks in the language of strength and the language of compassion. It is the language of heart and the language of the soul. But always it is the same voice.

It is the voice of our ancestors speaking through us
And the voice of our inheritors waiting to be born. It is the small still voice that says we are One.

(The last paragraph is important because it communicates something fundamental in my set of beliefs viz that we are more clones of our ancestors than we presently understand bringing forward their memories and understanding into our subconscious and presently unused and undeveloped parts of our brain).

G’Kar then says
No matter the blood, no matter the skin,
No matter the world, no matter the star
We are One.
No matter the pain, no matter the darkness,
No matter the loss, no matter the Fear
We Are One

(My only observation is that he ought to have said we should be one)

He continues, Here, gathered together in common cause, We agree to recognise this singular truth and this singular role
That we must be kind to one another.

Because each voice enriches us and ennobles us,
An each voice lost diminishes us.
We are the voice of the universe, the soul of creation,
The fire that will light the way to a better future.

We are One.

Alas no one truly lives up to these fine words in the series
And in life as we know it, Jim.

1910 Babylon 5 Background to final season

The Series, Babylon 5 came to an end yesterday(9.4.2010) with a double episode. This however is not the end of Babylon 5 on current TV because over the course of seven days, the FX channel is showing the seven subsequent films which they claim have not been shown on British TV before. Given the same claim is made for Friday episodes of the NCIS which I have seen previously, I suspect have are omitted a qualification, or two. At present I do not know if these films reveal what happened to some of the main characters during the final two decades of the life of Federation President Sheridan - Lennier, G’Kar, Molari, Lyta, Bester and new station chief Lochley are all absent at the final get together before he stops at his appointed hour and joins the First Ones who are able to commence second journeys of self aware experience.

Today I begin with a reminder to myself of the main features of what has happened during the first four seasons and on the main characters who have important roles during the last season, and hopefully in all or some of the films. I will then add my notes on the episodes and films over the course of coming week.

Apart from the first and last episodes, the rest of the final season covers the first couple of years after Sheridan becomes President of the newly formed interplanetary organisation which provides military security for the different nations and their races spread over their systems. This has come about because of the threat posed to all life in the known worlds from the conflicting philosophies and approaches of the ancient races, the Shadows and the Vorlons, and who have been persuaded to return to new homelands beyond the rim of the explored worlds. The penultimate episode sees Sheridan and Delenn move to the new headquarters of the interplanetary organisation to Minbar.

In the first episode there is a future’s look back on how Sheridan and Delenn are viewed on earth, 100 years, 500 years, 1000 years and 1 million years later. The last episode concentrates on the final days of Sheridan, some two decades after the move of the New Order headquarters from Babylon 5 to Minbar. It is possible that the missed episodes also went beyond the first couple of years and provides some answers to the number of unresolved what happened to questions with which I am left

The move of its main function to Minbar commenced its decline and with the effectiveness of the new order there had been decreasing need for the space station to act as a refugee camp, a military staging post, or as a colourful expensive centre with poor accommodation and an absence of natural earth foods, for rebels, and the displaced, rather like Las Vegas meets the restaurant at the end of the universe. In the last episode Babylon 5 has become a shell and is in the process of decommissioning, blowing up in spectacular fashion rather than becoming a hazard to future space travellers.

The major purpose of an Earth alliance inspired Babylon 5, was to prevent conflicts between nations leading to blood shedding and destruction on an inter planetary scale. The first Babylon station was constructed after the end of the war with the newly discovered race, the Minbari, started accidentally in which the human race nearly perished and were only saved because the man subsequently appointed to command Babylon 5 had been captured and unknowingly revealed something which led the Minbari to immediately stop hostilities. This in fact is the subject of the first film to be shown next Monday

The first three stations were not completed and the fourth disappeared just before commissioning and was to play a crucial part in the story subsequently and involving the re-appearance of the Babylon 5’s first commander, Sinclair, meeting his successor. Babylon 5 was established on the model of a United Nations with a permanent inner Council chaired by the station commander and involved the Minbari, the Narn’s and the Centauri who were the three other major planetary systems, together with the mysterious Vorlons who were many thousands of years older than the races represented by the other permanent inner council members. The inner council required the support of the other races and planetary systems whose ambassadors participated in general decision taking sessions. While the Earth, the Narn’s and the Centauri had broadly the same technological development, the Minbari were more advanced with the Vorlon having superior personal powers beyond human understanding.

During the first season there was growing indication of the re-emergence of another of the ancient races -, the Shadows, who held a philosophy about the rest of the universe in conflict with that of the Vorlons. The Vorlons believed in intervening organically at a pace which the newer races could cope with. The Shadows believed in the big bang and the Hegelian notion that out of conflict between extremes a new equilibrium is achieved, until there is further imbalance and further conflict will lead to development of the survivors however few. The last conflict between the intervention of the Shadows and the Vorlons took place over a thousand of years before Earth was able to explore its planetary system and beyond, making contact with other races (the good work of Star Trek)

During the first season and second seasons we came to know characters who play an ongoing role throughout the series. John Sheridan is appointed the commander when Sinclair moves to Minbari to prepare for what has been prophesised. We learn Sheridan fought in the war with the Minbari and became hated by the Minbar Warrior class because of military success against them. He is a widower, or so he believes, and develops a close relationship with the Minbar Ambassador Delenn who is assistant by Lennier, a young Minbar who unknown or unrecognised by her comes to worship everything she is and does. She understands she is part of the prophecy and undergoes a metamorphosis, developing human characteristics which enable her to have a physical relationship with Sheridan and they marry at the conclusion of season four. While Sheridan is a military man, she has been an important part of Minbari ruling Council representing the interests of the caste dedicated to the spirit and to peace and while Sinclair is action man she is more of a guider than adviser.

There are four individuals on Sheridan’s management of the station team who have ongoing and crucial roles. (Susan) Ivanova is second in command, initially as head of the station’s defence she becomes the stations trouble shooter and fixer, dealing with union problems, helping ambassadors to settle in, handling trade missions and potential new members of the General Council.

The station has its internal security services led by (Michael) Garibaldi a recovering alcoholic with an aggressive and rebellious past. He becomes assisted by Zack (Allan) who is to have an increasingly more important role over the final season. Michael is given an outreach role when Sheridan breaks away from the Earth Alliance when the new President creates a fascist state

The third individual is head of medical services, Dr Stephen Franklin, whose role was help with understanding the different make up of the races as a means of helping them to live together peacefully. He also has his personal problems, relationships with his father and with drugs because of the pressures of role and living alone and he also goes into the wilderness for time and the internal journey‘s and work of both men on the station providing opportunity top explore and reveal the lives of majority of inhabitants of the five mile in length and with 250000 inhabitants at any one time, about the size of Newcastle, the capital city of the North East of England.

(Unlike Battlestar Galactica and even Star Trek we rarely see children, and there is no reference to schools, libraries cinemas, dance halls, museums, art galleries, sporting events and the only recreation appears to be bars, gambling and restaurants, and with partners and sexual activity only referred to occasionally.

The fourth role is undertaken by two people - the station‘s telepath. Lyta (Alexander) is the replacement telepath and her role becomes crucial to the development of the fifth season and the survival and success of the new order. She is appointed by the earth Psi Corp of telepaths although other races, the Minbari for example have telepaths with the Vorlons more advanced of everyone akin to those of the 4400, and which the Psi Corps are experimenting in order to achieve their objection of power and control within the Earth alliance. The issue of the respective positions and powers of telepaths and other humans comes to the fore throughout the series. Ivanova is hostile to the Psi Corps because of what happened to her mother who when her powers were identified refused to join the Psi corps who then made her life hell.

Although not the head of the Corps (Alfred) Bester, appearing in 12 important episodes, is a kind of Witchfinder general, especially when it comes to Telepaths who attempt to leave the order, he tracks them down so they can be retrained or eliminated. His duties and his personal interests come into conflict when he finds that the love of his life, a renegade telepath he has partially retrained is one of the telepaths captured by the Shadows and converted into an organic machine to run some of their warcraft. With the help of Lyta, Sheridan uses some of the retrieved telepaths against the earth alliance immobilising the ships on which they have been placed sufficiently long enough to change the balance of the conflict. Bester’s woman is not one of them and he supports the work on Babylon 5 to try and free the telepaths from their Shadow shackles. Lyta in turn gain power through her association with the Vorlon Ambassador Kosh. For a time I speculated if the decision of Garibaldi to oppose Sheridan during season four had been an arrangement by the Commander for his friend to go underground and report intelligence. In fact Garibaldi had been worked on by Bester and although he had been freed from control, a block had been left which prevented Garibaldi from trying to kill Bester.

Because of her past experience, her warrior training and personality, deputy Ivanova resisted any ongoing heterosexual relationship, although as season four progressed she came close to admitting her growing feelings for Marcus (Cole), the head Ranger trained by the Minbari. There are several similarities between the personalities of Ivanova and Marcus, and between Delenn and Sheridan. Like Sheridan she is a warrior at heart, dislikes management and administration, but is also not afraid to take decisions, accept responsibility and face the consequences of actions. When she is mortally wounded at the end of season four, it is Marcus who gives up his life to in effect resurrect her. Marcus therefore plays no part in season five, not does Ivanova for the greater part as she decides to return to active services and is given a role akin to a Squadron leader or perhaps that of a fleet admiral in charge of the latest battleship.

Throughout there series there are two characters with strong feelings for and against each other and we the audience also develop strong feelings for and against them, in some respects stronger feelings than towards Sheridan and Delenn. When the series commenced it is G’Kar of the Centauri we dislike who appears underhand and ruthless, in his hatred of the Narn’s because of the way they colonised and humiliated his people for centuries before they were able to regain their freedom. (Londo) Molari, the Narn Ambassador, enjoys gambling and alcohol and women with several wives and the love of his life, his mistress, a dancer. However Molari wants to regain control of the Centauri and also wants personal power within his Empire, so he accepts the offer of help from the Shadows which leads to the destruction and subjugation of the Centauri whose leadership is eliminated with the exception of G’Kar, who then leads an underground insurrection.

Molari becomes increasingly guilty over what he has done and what happens within the leadership of his world. When he finds that the Shadows have a been given a base by the mad despotic President, prepared to sacrifice his people to become a God, he organises his assassination, with the final blow taken by his faithful assistant, Vir (Cotto). He then frees his people by blowing up the island where the Shadows have their forces. G’Kar is captured and torture and rendered blind in one eye but does a deal with Molari in which the freedom of his people is gained. By the end of season four G’Kar has become a thoughtful, sad individual, no longer interested in personal power but wanting to contribute to the future welfare of his people, returning to Babylon 5 as an Ambassador. Molari has also changed despite being told that he will become President, as also will Vir after the death of Molari. Londo also mourns the loss of his mistresses killed by treachery from home and the loss of his closest friend.

By the end of the fourth series the two major stories have run their course. First there was the conflict between the Vorlons, initially viewed as the good guys through the role of Ambassador Kosh, and who saves the life of Sheridan during an assassination, and the Shadows, portrayed as dark, destructive, sinister and openly human controlling, who have a secret presence on the station through a human looking individual (Morden) who is the first link with Molari. Modern is present when Sheridan is persuaded to visit what has become the Shadow home world, by his long since thought dead wife who appears to have survived intact and become a convert to the Shadow approach. She is destroyed when Sheridan refuses to agree to their approach and proves that his wife has become a Shadow controlled shell. Sheridan has been resurrected from the explosion by a God like figure who claims to be the First of the First ones. He is advised that his future lifespan is limited to two decades and then he will stop existing as a human. (I reminded of the fate of the surviving space explorer in 2010)

When Sheridan returns to the former home world of the defeated Shadows to try and find and make use of their technology and advances on what beings can do, it is Lyta who triggers the self destruction of the planet, so the information will not become available to Sheridan, and to the Psi corp. This action is to have profound consequences during the final season.

During the fourth season Sheridan and Delenn have progressed the role of Babylon 5 as a bridge between races and nations bur with great difficulty and setbacks, but there is unity when the Vorlons and the Shadows start destroying entire planets and all the people on them. They both have planet destroyers akin to that in the Hitchhikers guide to the Galaxy, creating a space super highway which destroys earth and its people in their entirety.

After reaching a stalemate between the Vorlons and Shadows, and they are required by The First One to leave the area and find new homes beyond the rim, the alliance breaks down and Sheridan becomes preoccupied with defending the station from the despotic new president and working to over throw the man who has become a fusion of Hitler and Stalin operating a regime which is a fusion of Orwell’s 1984 and Animal Farm, and Huxley’s Brave New World.

We learned that the head of state had only come to power with the help of the Psi Corps who had also be party to the recovery of a Shadow craft and a knowledge of their powers and technology. We also learned that Garibaldi has been commissioned in his work as a detective by the head of Mars based inter planetary corporation (William Edgars), who had also married the love of his life. This corporation with other earth based interplanetary corporations, also wanted an end to the Earth dictatorship but for different reasons. Their concern was the role and ambitions of the Psi corps who they recognised were after the subjugation of normals and the taking and advancing of their own powers, given the knowledge of how it had been developed by others. The Mars based enterprise had developed a drug which could kill telepaths if they are not provided with ongoing treatment. However the side effect of the treatment is to render them ineffective and controllable and to be used as work slaves for the corporations. They were hostile to what Sheridan was doing and planning not just because it was thought his timing was wrong, but they feared his plans to set up a new from of alliance which would have power over them rather than the other way round, thus confirming the established truth that the development of International Corporations with the movement of capital and production to friendly, accommodating and stable regimes whatever their composition was advocated, planned and implemented on earth during the last three decades of the twentieth century, and in the UK under Thatcher.

With the help of the combined forces of the Narn’s, the Centauri and the other nations and races who remained part of the Babylon 5 Council, President Clark was deposed, and the earth planet is saved, as the President turned the defence system upon earth before committing suicide. The new administration on earth while recognising that Sheridan and his team had saved them and the planet, in more ways than one, recognised that he was then a threat and insisted on his premature retirement. Sheridan accepted and produced his mastercard, his appointment as the President elect of the new Interplanetary government with Babylon 5 as its initial base.

This then is the baseline for the final season and subsequently broadcast films. Will the new Interplanetary organisation work and achieve its objectives? What part will the characters who have played such important roles in the previous seasons have in the brave new order?

1904 Babylon 5 fourth season climax

My second trip to London of the year, a visit to the Midlands and wanting to maintain some form of chronicle of activities have all affected my viewing and writing of Babylon as the penultimate season ended and the series struggled to justify the decision to continue for another season.

I like the idea of the Shadows and the Vorlons representing the Americans and Russians nearly bringing earth planet to the verge of total destruction as well as the known universe, and with factions from earth having links with both sides, and only a combination of, shapers creatives, individualists, mavericks, oddballs pacifists, spirituals and ordinary folk managing to outwit, hold off and ultimately have God on their side.

At first sight this should have been sufficient of a near general Armageddon and individual death experience to have made everyone sit up and determine to never allow petty quarrels, differences, imbalances between individuals and peoples to escalate into increasing violence and destruction, involving everyone one anyone whether they are directly concerned or not. However I had my experience of a week long role play involving of a fair cross section of local authority chief officers in a post Armageddon situation in which it quickly became evident that although the majority rose to the occasion and worked tirelessly to achieve the best result for everyone, the chief executives and others appointed to plan the reconstruction quickly reverted to type, behaviours and attitudes when the crisis was over carrying on in the same way which had led to the destruction of the city and a high percentage of immediate and subsequent deaths.

This was to be the situation portrayed in Babylon 5. First there was the little problem of the Earth alliance having been taken over by a Stalinist Dictator having assassinated his predecessor aided by the self determined super race of human telepaths, the Psi Corps, who had developed in contrast to the Minbar who use their powers creatively and spiritually, thus confirmed the basic and inherent flaw in humanity, and it is no good saying that is how we have been created, or have developed.

The final part of the fourth season commences with former security Chief Garibaldi insisting on meeting his employer William Bill Edgars on Mars. Edgars is married to the love of Garibaldi’s life and has understandable misgivings about the role which is Garibaldi has been playing and which I have suggested could be part of a deep undercover plot acting on head of station Sheridan’s behalf. I was wrong in this as the script writers had determined a different explanation to fit in with their ideas for another season, the possibility of which only emerged as what was to have been the final season drew to its planned closure.

The exercise of Vital Powers 416 reveals that contrary to appearances Edgars is also opposed to the paranoid Earth Alliance President Clark and is working for his removal with the leaders of the other big corporations. This also confirmed my experience on the Internal Management Course in the mid 1980’s when the concept of alliances, mergers and take overs between companies cutting across national boundaries was being fostered, together with planning to move production units to the most stable and business sympathetic of countries in terms of tight controls over labour and trade unions, low taxes and official controls and restrictions and the ability to accumulate shareholder profits to the maximum. A feature of subsequent episodes has been the concept that sustainable size and sustainable value and benefits, something which was featured on Newsnight recently with a group of companies working together in Wales to limit any adverse impact on the environment, creating stable and content working relationships, and making enough money to enjoy in a realistic and constructive way the profits rather than concentrating on growth and profit maximization. In the past we have been faced with the extremes of capitalism and communism without choice.

In Babylon 5 episode 416 Vital Powers, the Mars based Edgar international business consortium had more in Common with Sheridan than difference, with the main difference being the issue of timing. They both realised that the longer term risk to the majority of humanity was the assumption of the human telepaths that their special powers gave them superiority over everyone else, described as normals. However this also lends itself to the dangerous fear of the normals that any one different is a threat which has to be eliminated by whatever means available.

Interestingly this was a major issue in the 4400 and also in the film series the X Men, based on the Marvel Comic stories in which Mutants with special powers are trained to use their abilities in the service of humanity. They have to contend with the normal who are fearful and want to control and eliminate the Mutant abilities and those Mutants who see a fight to death between themselves and normals as inevitable.

In the episode Edgars also reveal that his corporation has been working on a way to neutralise the powers of the telepaths. It emerges that far from been a deep uncover agent for Sheridan, Garibaldi was in fact taken prisoner and mentally altered by Bester and the Psi Corps, in Manchurian Candidate style, and in other series such as Callan, reminding also that the CIA also funded secret experiments in mind bending and control to counter the work under by the Russians in the Cold war and no doubt by the Chinese. It will be remembered from an earlier episode that earth had developed a machine to mind wash and personality bend convicted murderers so they have no memory of their past and concentrate on making peaceful contributions to humanity over the rest of their lives.

Edgars also demands that Garibaldi undertakes a loyalty test. He responds by offering to find Sheridan’s father and use the man as a hostage as bait to capture his son. Edgar also become aware that Garibaldi is still in love with his wife and that she has good feelings towards her former lover.

Back on Babylon 5 Dr Franklin is trying to find a way to neutralise the negative reactions of the frozen Telepaths who have been prepared by the Shadows to integrate with their fighting spaceships. Lyta who visits Franklin to see what he is up to manages to resurrect a telepath from his state in such a way that Fr Franklin believes he can develop to provide their use in as yet an unstated way by Sheridan in the forthcoming battle to free Earth from the tyranny of its President.

The truth about Edgars, Bester and Garibaldi emerges during The Face of the Enemy 417. Bester implanted a communications control device Garibaldi. Lyta, Marcus and Franklin have also gone to Mars with some of the frozen telepaths to use under the Sheridan plan although how is not immediate stated

Meanwhile Sheridan has successfully prevented major bloodshed on his way to removing Prsident Clark and his leadership from Earth by persuading battleships to surrender or join forces with him. Some are reluctant to do this under the impression that Sheridan is not taking prisoners. The commander of his former cruiser comes to join him and convinces others that Sheridan “has God on his side.”

Just when it looks that all is going so well, Sheridan learns of the capture of his father and that he is being held on Mars and agrees to meet Garibaldi on his own. He is captured. Earth News gives the impression that Sheridan has recanted and apologises for his errors, and that he is being well cared as a consequence. Garibaldi is the hero of the hour on Earth.

Garibaldi then demands to be told the truth of what is going on and Edgars reveals the virus his company has developed only kills telepaths unless they are given the antidote periodically, and that this is the means to create a slave labour force of telepaths for the International corporations. Bester also visits Mars to find out what Garibaldi has found out and then kills Edgars taking away the information about the virus and existing supplies. Edgars has brought about his own downfall by insisting that Garibaldi fire Lyta who had agreed to work for him as part of his ongoing detective business. Bester then decides to free Garibaldi from his control knowing that the man will not be able to return to Babylon 5. Ivanova who has taken control of the assault on earth fleet orders that Garibaldi by killed on sight. Delenn is left in charge of Babylon 5.

I missed Intersections in real time 418 and rely on The Lurkers guide for information. The episodes concerns he attempt to mind control Sheridan using physical force, psychological insights and technology. There are links with early series the Prisoner and to the book and film of 1984. It can be argued that the decision to try and break Sheridan rather than concentrating on learning the battle plan against Earth was the major mistake made by President Clark.

In Between Darkness and Light 419 Sheridan believes he is back on Babylon 5 having a meal with Dr Franklin but Sheridan works out this is the effect of drugs and that his captors are trying to seek information about what the resistance is planning to do. Garibaldi is captured by the Mars Resistance movement and want to kill him for dooming their cause with the capture of Sheridan. Garibaldi pleads to Dr Franklin to let him explain what happened to him and Lyta successfully reads his mind, despite blocks placed there by Bester and is able to convince that he was not in control of his actions.

Ivanova has been successfully leading the resistance against the remaining forces of President Clark with a stead stream of defectors to the cause despite the capture and imprisonment of Sheridan. She learns of a last stand plot to ambush the fleet and take control of White Star warships top deal with the threat. The plan works but she is critically injured. Her condition looks beyond saving even with the help of the medicines and powers of other races. Delenn had heard from her aide Lennier that Ambassador Molari had convened a meeting of all the members of the Council without her. She learns from G’Kar and Vir that the purpose was to throw the weight of the Council behind Sheridan. She ahd not been invited to ensure the support would be translated into action rather than a symbolic form of support to her for Sheridan and his objectives. The Narns and Centauri would be fighting alongside each other for the first time in their long history of conflict.

Garibaldi, Dr Franklin and Lyta free Sheridan from captivity and he takes control of his former battle ship the Agamemnon and command of the battle fleet before she appears to be fatally injured.

Episode 20 Endgame Sheridan sets off for the deciding confrontation with the Earth Fleet. He has become aware that the fleet has developed Shadow technology to operate their craft and this is where the work of Dr Franklin and Lyta to revive the Shadow altered telepaths comes to good effect. Thirty individuals without family responsibilities or close ties have been placed on board the earth fleet orbiting Mars. The telepaths were then woken by Lyta remotely they effectively immobilise the ships on which they have been placed enabling th Sheridan attack to succeed. Sheridan looking at the long term has insisted that the large force of craft from others worlds is used only as a back up and that in the battle with forces under the control of President Clark only earth humans are involved. Throughout he continues to work to minimise the deaths of human by humans.

Sheridan is able to broadcast to the people of Earth calling on them to rise up against the Clark Dictatorship, to disband the Nightwatch organisation and restore democracy. They respond and then disaster looms when before committing suicide, in an act reminiscent of Hitler, Clark sets in motion the major destruction of the Earth planet by turning the defence mechanism so that it attacks earth. This is where the rest of the inter galactic fleet play their part, destroying the outer space defence platforms but sustaining serious casualties. Sheridan’s ship is also damaged and the only way he can save the eastern seaboard of the USA from annihilation is to ram his ship into the platform. This he achieves and survivors. He returns to earth and is greeted by the new regime as its saviour but also with a case to answer for his rebellion and subsequent actions.

Meanwhile Marcus has left his post and returned to Babylon 5 where he has learnt there is a machine which might be able to save Ivanova. He realises that the reason why the machine has not to been used because it would mean one life for the saving of another, his own. He gives up his own life to save the one love of his life in Rising Star, episode 21 of the fourth season. Ivanova is heartbroken when she realises what has happened as it means she has missed out on one chance of a relationship happiness and that she never had the opportunity to tell Marcus how much she cared about him. Sheridan is able to negotiate amnesty for himself and all those from earth and the other human earth worlds who supported him. He must leave his position with the military forces and therefore his command of Babylon 5. However he has a major trick up his sleeve in that he was aware that rest of the Babylon Council of states had decided to form a new alliance with Sheridan as its first President and invite earth to participate. The new alliance is to offer military protection as well as trading relationships. Sheridan learns that his father is free and that the rest of his family was safe.

Londo Mollari learns that the Regent is dying and that when this happens he has been chosen as the next Emperor on his death. Meanwhile he remains as Ambassador to Babylon 5 but his position and influence has been enhanced greatly.

It is quickly evident that the death of Marcus was a device to cover for his obtaining alternative work, or not wanting to continue with the series into another and its final season. However far from Ivanova now becoming the head of Babylon 5 she appears to have decided to leave or her departure was devised to bring in a new and potential problematic Babylon 5 commander. Ivanova is placed in charge new form of battle ship fleet commander. In fairness she has always expressed reservations about her management Babylon based world, with a hankering to be out there in thick of any action. Earth agrees to join the new alliance under Sheridan on the basis of being given further access to Vorlon and Minbar technology in its possession.
Garibaldi goes in search of his former love and now widow of Edgars, Lise, who he finds and that she has inherited most, if not all, her former husband’s wealth.

Garibaldi has been freed from the control of Bester and Bester in turn challenges Sheridan because of concern that the love of his life was used to inhibit the earth fighters and therefore died in the battle when the role was discovered. Sheridan explains the basis that the telepaths were selected and that Carolyn is still in her frozen but altered state.

Delenn and Sheridan marry in the episode and Delenn is able to forecast that there will be problems ahead involving the Drakhs and other alliance members and that conflicts will develop into war involving the telepaths over the next 20 years, in the predicted lifespan Lennier chooses to leave the service of Delenn, having sworn to be at her side and given her his support and protection. However he cannot cope with her marriage to Sheridan and my interpretation of her response is that the Minbar part of her has loved him in return but feelings and passion for Sheridan is part of her human development although a human sexual based relationship between Sheridan and Delenn has never appeared convincing, nor indeed have sexual relationships in general other than the smouldering relationships between Marcus and Ivanova or that of Molari and his mistress. I felt that Sheridan and Delenn were more like brother and sister or a work partnership borne out of shared involvement in work or some campaign and with similar backgrounds in terms of their beliefs and actions. This brings to an end season 4 and which much resolved, or so it appears, and with a few twists the series could have been brought to a successful and satisfying end. So what is lefty to a whole new and final season?

1889 Babylon 5 Mid Season 4

Although I was away for three weekday nights I was able to keep up with the latest episodes of Babylon 5 when the week’s shows were rerun later on Sunday followed by NCIS.

In truth I do not remember much of what happened over the last two season of the series after the Shadows and the Vorlons departed to distant parts of the Universe.

After the battles, the problem confronting the main characters of the series Captain Sheridan head of the Babylon Five space station, his deputy, Commander Ivanova, Captain Sheridan’s closest ally and would be lover Delenn of the Minbari and her loyal assistant Lennier, the two warring Ambassadors who became unwilling partners in saving their respective populations, Ambassadors Mollari and loyal assistant, Vir of the Centauri, and G’Kar of the Narn, the good doctor - the recovering druggy Dr Franklin, and the former head of station security Garibaldi and his former deputy Zack who is most reluctant to take over the role of his former boss, There is also the independent telepath Lyta who could communicate telepathetically with the Vorlons and the head of the Psi Corps Bester, together with the Ivanova fan and head Ranger Marcus was- what do I do with myself now that the great war is over.

In my occupational life I also experienced major moments of change, the reorganisation of the personal social services, the reorganisation of local government, a divisive industrial action, participation in an intensive national inquiry, and in what happened during the past the last year of full time occupational activity and its aftermath which continued over the next decade. In my life outside occupational activity, there was the period in prison, the death and follow up inquiries of my care mother and the last three years in the life of my mother, her 100th birthday celebrations as well as other development which remain confidential. There is always a sense of personal anti climax and the separateness after such events because of the difficult of others not directly involved in the experience understanding or wanting to involve them. It is also understandable that some people become locked in a past situation and are unable to move forward. What happens to sports personalities when they retire or their careers end, to Government Ministers who lose office and soldiers returning from the battlefield are all similar kinds of experience of what do I do now. to the individuals directly concerned.

In this report on the second part of season four all the main characters feature but to varying degrees and to an extent in isolation from each other and it is only towards the end of this period do the various individuals and interests begin to work as a team. The exception appears to be former security Chief Garibaldi who continues to claim he cannot remember what happened to him during his two week disappearance apparently in the hands of enemies. He turns increasingly hostile to Captain Sheridan and joining forces working against the role of the Sheridan and his colleagues, setting up his own private detective service on the station until he goes to Mars where to insist on meeting his new Employer.

First there is action of President Clark against Babylon 5. In Epiphanies 407 the President with the help of the Psi Corps that decided it is better to go on the offensive against the space station rather than await for the Sheridan and his allies to turn their new power and status among other nations against him. Thus begins a blockade and embargo and a fierce propaganda war with black operations.

The Illusion of Truth 409 comprises a government inspired Television programme which cleverly misrepresents what has happened in the War with the Shadows and Vorlons as a power and personality trip for Sheridan under the influence of Delenn of the Minbari, the former enemy of the Earth alliance. A reporter and camera team arrive of the open Space Station and persuades Sheridan against his better judgement to be interviewed with Delenn and for other members of the team to give their perspective while admitting the programme will be heavily slanted as part of the propaganda war. Garibaldi gives a damaging interview against the captain and Delenn is also much affect by the allegations against her, The programme is clever because it uses elements of truth to give a one sided and false perspective. Sheridan’s father and mother, and what other family he has on earth have in effect been taken into protective custody and are being used to undermine Sheridan.

It takes a little while for Sheridan to work out a new strategy for dealing with the situation and this has three facets. He belatedly, in my view, works out that he must counter the Earth propaganda by establishing an alternative information service, called the Voice of Resistance, based on the truth and drawing upon the free radio used in France and other German controlled nations during World War 2. He puts Ivanova in charge of the operation and as the chief broadcaster in Lines of Communication 411 and she makes the first broadcast in Conflict of Interest 412.

His second approach is to send Dr Franklin with Ranger Marcus on a mission to Mars where the President’s forces has been attempting to regain control of the former colony and his third approach is bring up the other worlds into an alliance to protect the station and break the embargo. He remains reluctant to take offensive action because this would involve civil war and killing former comrades in arms. The important consideration is that he and the other officers on station were within the military command and his objective is to re-establish democracy throughout the earth alliance.

Three episodes feature the Mars Mission of Marcus and Dr Franklin with them setting off on the cautious three week journey to Mars to evade capture in Atonement 409. In Racing Mars 410 their contact with the Resistance is a Captain Jack (Billy Joel song) who unbeknown to them has been taken over by a parasitical creature and he betrays and frames the two so that the Mars resistance believes they are assassins in the employ of Earth, They have to work hard to persuade the resistance leaders to the contrary and in a reference to the Prisoner they are called Number One and Number Two. Captain Jack gives his life for the cause. It also emerges that those on Mars had been so preoccupied with their own struggle and cut off from communications with the outside world by Earth, have little idea of the great battle which was fought, of the planet destroyers of the Vorlons and Shadows, or the role of Sheridan and his team on Babylon 5. The same applies to the population of earth. Thus it was ever so.

(Passing thought Is there any official record of the extent to which social service departments would not have been created without my interventions in terms of promoting the Lobby of Parliament, the article saying no to the proposed role of Medical officers of Health and the Blacklisting of the London Borough of Sutton and of Torbay when Chairman of ACC0‘s Blacklisting Committee, acting on the Advice of senior Labour Government Ministers that without a stop on what was happening with nine variations of reorganisation, it would be impossible for the government to introduce one national form of reorganisation for England and Wales, an a separate pattern for Scotland?) (Would things have worked out better for Child care services if I had not intervened in this way and Child Care officers remained with specialist working even if their training became generic?)

One problem which Marcus and Dr Franklin face in persuading the Mars’ rebels to work with Babylon 5 is that Sheridan was involved with the suppression of food riots on Mars immediately after the ending of the Earth Minbari War. Their efforts are eventually rewarded and the Mars planet is to play a major role in the rest of the season 4.

The parasitical creature who took over Captain Jack also has a continuing role. In Epiphanies 407 Bester, the head of the Phi Corps of telepaths arrives on Babylon 5 seeking to do a trade, he not only alerts Sheridan to the Clark offensive against the station, but to provide details of a forthcoming black ops operation, in exchange for Sheridan undertaking an expedition back to Z’ha’dum to try an retrieve the technology which the Shadows used to prepare captured telepaths to become integral parts of Shadow war craft. And which happened to his rescued lover. He hopes to find a way to reverse the process and to free his lover and the other telepaths who are being kept in a cryogenic condition for their own and Babylon 5’s protection. Accompanying them on the mission is the independent telepath Lyta who was also separately transformed but this time by the Vorlons and which enable direct communication with them as long as she carried out their requirements. She is concerned at the implications of the technology falling into the hands of Phi Corps and sends an alert to those on the planet who arrange for its total destruction before any of its secrets can be discovered. In Lines of Communication issues are raised about the Drakh, the parasitical creatures who it appears inhabited Z’ha‘dum and where one or more may have escaped before the self destruction of the planet. Sheridan refers to the Drakh as wild cards which is the reverse spelling of card!

In Moments of Transition 414 Bester returns to Babylon 5 with an offer to Lyta. She is having a difficult time finding legitimate work on the station being blacklisted by the Psi Corps. Bester offers her continuing independence to work on two conditions. First she must wear the official uniform and insignia and secondly upon her death from natural causes, only, her body is willed to the Psi Corps so they can study how she was transformed from a low grade telepath into a super powered one by the Vorlons. Reluctantly she accepts. In a later episode not covered in this report Lyta is to aid Dr Franklin in finding a way to free the telepaths in cryogenicsis from their Shadow implantations.

In addition to the cold war with earth two other stories dominate this part of the series. The first is the relationship between Sheridan and Delenn and her role on Minbar as a member of the Religious and peaceful Caste compared to the role of the Warrior Caste. Having spent the third night observing Sheridan asleep according to the ritual, Delenn announces they take their relationship to the next stage which involves spending a night discovering pleasure in each others bodies. However this ritual has to be witnessed by an appropriate gathering of other members of the caste outside the chosen room. This reminds of the tradition of a similar approach to the marriage nights of Monarchs and their children to ensure the purity of the line of succession.

Before this happens in Atonement 409 Delenn is summoned back to justify her relationship with a non Minbari to the Grey Council. If she cannot persuade them, she will be required to cease further personal contact with Sheridan. The episode is important because we learn for the first time that after humans inadvertently killed the Minbari leader and Delenn‘s mentor, Dukhat, it was Delenn who sided with the Warrior caste on the Grey Council to launch the war against the earth alliance, because of her shock and anger at his death.

The case against Delenn is that her action is against the Minbari insistence on racial purity. However Delenn reminds the Council that this is nonsense as in reality many Minbari are already a mixture of Minbar and Earth beings including herself as a descendent of Valen, their recognised supreme Minbar being. Because she was never pure before her metamorphosis, the Council agree that her relationship with Sheridan can continue..

However the pathway of true love is never straight and an easy one to tread as Civil war breaks out on Minbar, Rumours, Bargains and Lies 413 and Moments of Transition 414. The key to any resolution is the relationship between Delenn of the Religious caste and Naroon of the Warrior caste who previously came to Babylon to kill Delenn and near killed Marcus before relenting because he realised there was something special and different about her. Delenn agrees that the Religious caste should surrender their position and she arrives with the senior members of the caste for the submission, but this is a clever plan in which she insists that under the surrender the Grey Council is recreated with a balance of power not going to either the Warrior or religious castes, but to the Worker’s caste who are to have five of the nine positions.

In the days before Valen when there were war between the casts from time, the leaders would gather in the Temple of Verenni, which is Delenn’s chosen place for surrender of the Religious Caste. The Temple is equipped with planet wide media. There is also the Starfire Wheel. The two leaders, or more in any conflict would enter the beam of fire where the one who stayed and died would prove their cause was the righteous and therefore their side would win the conflict. Delenn challenges the leader of Warrior Class, an ambitious man without regard for loss of life and allegedly unconcerned about his personal fate. However when forced into the fire beam by Delenn rather than lose face with his caste, he refuses to die and backs out leaving Delenn who had promised Lennier to also leave once she had made her point about the hypocrisy of the Warrior leader. However it is Naroon who intervenes and removes Delenn but remains to die so that his caste has their honour restored but he makes it clear that he is a substitute for Delenn and her position. So peace returns to Minbar with their partially destroyed capital city.

The second important story is that of Garibaldi who appears to playing an in the future’s role of Judas. However I still have in mind the secret instructions which Sheridan gave to Garibaldi, to be followed without question, before Sheridan set off for his first visit to Z’ha’dum. Fortunately I cannot remember what happens so his true position remains open.

In Epiphanies Garibaldi resigns as Security Chief and begins a new life as a self employed private eye in the sub strata of the station. There is the suggestion that he has been programme in some way as a fifth column during his disappearance. In several subsequent episodes Garibaldi is seen in league with individuals hostile to Sheridan, as agents of Earth and because the blockade is severely hindering some trade although as with all blockades some people can made fortunes providing goods at inflated prices. In Racing Mars Garibaldi is approached by one interest alleging that Sheridan has developed into a cult of Personality and Ivanova does a deal with smugglers to keep the station supplied with food and spare parts.

The episode also reinforces my point that Garibaldi could have gone underground at Sheridan’s request to gain intelligence on the enemy within. In Conflict of Interest 412 the group plotting against Sheridan disclose that they regard Garibaldi as expendable. He in turn finds out that his former lover has married one of the most influential businessmen on Earth/Mars, William, Bill, Edgars. Edgars offers Garibaldi a retaining contract to arrange for packages to smuggled onto the station and handed to designated parties, It is not known if Edgars has a relationship with other groups against Sheridan on the station. Sheridan insists that Garibaldi hands over his Identification, official weapons and other privileges of office. Sheridan and Garibaldi come to near blows as Sheridan seeks to bring the former security chief back into the fold and Garibaldi lets it be known in front of witnesses who he has become opposed to what Sheridan is doing. Sheridan comments what he does not like the company Garibaldi is keeping suggesting that more is going on that the audience is being informed.

It should not be forgotten that Sheridan was given insights into the future when he went to Babylon 4; The machine on Epsilon 3 is also able to see into the future as well as everything that has happened in the past. Ivanova seeks the help of the Epsilon 3 to gain the energy necessary to ensure the Voice of Resistance Broadcasts. It also has to be remembered that Sheridan developed a special relationship with the first of the Originals who ensured that Sheridan had over two decades of more life, all things being equal, to carryout his destiny. Garibaldi insists on going to Mars to meet Edgar in the next episode following this section.

Playing only very small roles in the fourth season are London and G’Kar whose presence on the station is something of a puzzle given the job of work required on both their home planets, especially in relation to the Narn world although G’Kar is still trying to recover from the torturing at the hands of the former Centauri President. G’Kar is another who found a lack of understanding among his compatriots for his role in working against the Centauri and in gaining their freedom from Londo. G’Kar is given an artificial electronic eye by Dr Franklin in which can see outside of its socket. He must remove the eye at night. G’Kar is troubled by the break down of relations between his friend Garibaldi and Sheridan and he only learns of the trip to Mars after Garibaldi has departed.

It is more understandable that Londo and Vir should return to Babylon 5 full of guilt for their assassination of the President and ensuring the freedom of Narn. It is Londo who takes the initiative and suggests to G’Kar that they should issue a joint declaration of support to Sheridan as an act of reconciliation and in giving a lead to the other non aligned worlds. G’Kar is understandably reluctant but does agree to drink a toast with Londo towards the new venture. We have learnt that one of the creatures who left Z’ha’dum before its destruction

This gesture is badly needed as Sheridan has struggled to gain the support of other races in relation to his concerns and dispute with Earth. However he works out a way to make them seek the help of his fighter force by patrolling the outskirts of their planets in exchange for their support should it be required. The situation comes to a head when he learns that not only has earth attacked the breakaway colony of Proxima 3 but destroyed ten thousand people on a refugee escape craft. He devises a plan which involves giving the impression that eh is about to attack earth to draw away warcraft from Proxima 3 and then send his strongest force to the planet to order the departure of Earth forces.

He has discovered that all has not been going well for the Clark Dictatorship in that three quarters of his government has resigned when martial law was declared. Clark has been forced to reinstate the Parliament and more importantly Sheridan learns that not all the war craft commanders are happy about their role in attacking the breakaway colonists and several did not participate in the killing of the civilian refugees. Sheridan uses this to try and divide the earth forces in the campaign to free Proxima 3 No Surrender No Retreat 415 The divide and rule approach works out as the earth battle fleet surrender or are destroyed or join forces. Some go all the way and agrees to join Sheridan at Babylon 5 while others stay to defend Proxima 3 from further attack. He also allows the remainder to return to earth. The programme provides makes a good place to end this report update of the season as it also marked the departure of Garibaldi to Mars and the signing of the support agreement between the Narns and the Centauri although given their off world status is not clear what the declaration will mean in practice.