Contents: Overview - Backplot - Questions - Analysis - Notes - JMS

Overview

As the station adjusts to the arrival of a new command officer and prepares for Sheridan's inauguration, a group of telepaths arrives looking for sanctuary. Robin Atkin Downes as Byron.

P5 Rating: 7.45

Production number: 502
Original air date: January 21, 1998

Written by J. Michael Straczynski
Directed by Janet Greek

Plot Points

• B5 is now under the command of Captain Elizabeth Lochley, an Earth Force officer hand-picked by Sheridan for her ability to defuse crises without resorting to violence, and her ability to fight effectively when required. He has placed her in charge of all aspects of station operation except political decisions affecting the Interstellar Alliance.
• B5 hasn't rejoined Earth yet. The Alliance is discussing buying it from Earth. In the meantime it remains an independent state.
• Sheridan has allowed a group of rogue human telepaths, led by a man named Byron (whose psi powers seem to be quite strong) to establish a colony on Babylon 5.
• Narns aren't given their adult names at birth; they're given temporary ones for the first ten years of their lives, after which they're allowed to select their true names from whatever pantheon they've come to believe in. G'Kar was no exception.
• G'Kar has assembled a declaration of principles for the Alliance. It consists of the first page of every holy book of every race in the Alliance, a reminder that the Alliance is a multitude of voices and beliefs, all worthy of respect. (See Analysis)
• G'Kar continues to write his own book ("Point of No Return") and has shown it to other Narn and to Garibaldi. The other Narn have even begun quoting it.
• Sheridan has named Garibaldi the head of the Alliance's covert operations division.
• B5 continues to employ Narns in its security forces.
• Sheridan's first assignment in Earthforce was the 54th North American Unit.

Unanswered Questions

• When they first met, Sheridan told Lochley, "It's good to see you again." Under what circumstances were they previously acquainted?
• Who was the girl in Simon's vision? What was happening between (or to) the two of them?
• Did anyone discover the murder of the Gaim ambassador? What repercussions, if any, will it have?
• Who was the original G'Kar? A character in the Book of G'Quon? Why did G'Kar choose that name? (See Analysis)
• Why wasn't Lochley at the swearing-in ceremony?
• Did G'Kar put the first page of his own book in the declaration of principles?
• Which side was Lochley on in the civil war?

Analysis

• Lochley was described as Ivanova's replacement, but she really replaced both Ivanova and Sheridan, since the latter isn't in charge of station affairs any more. Will Lochley bring in additional staff to help fill that apparent gap?

• Both Zack and Lochley are in the unenviable position of having their predecessors nearby, now civilians but still second-guessing their decisions.

• Sheridan's story about washing his own socks echoes his conversation with Lorien ("Whatever Happened to Mr. Garibaldi?") about his life being predicated on finding something to live for. In a less drastic sense, that's exactly what Sheridan's drill instructor was doing by washing his socks every night. Presumably "washing my socks" wouldn't have sufficed as an answer to Lorien, though.

• How strong is Byron? He was able to project his image to Lochley, something most telepaths don't seem to be able to do. Is that simply a normal ability of high-level psis, or is there something different about Byron? One other example of someone able to push thoughts to others was Matthew Stoner, Talia's ex-husband ("Soul Mates.") Another example was "A Race Through Dark Places," in which the combined power of Talia and the rogue telepaths was able to project images into Bester's mind.

• Byron alluded to Franklin's participation in the underground railroad ("A Race Through Dark Places.") How many of his people did Franklin assist? Do they feel indebted to Franklin as a result?

• How was the assassin able to steal a Starfury so easily? It's been previously implied ("Survivors," "A Voice in the Wilderness, part 2") that Starfury launches -- or more specifically, the launch bay doors -- are controlled from C&C. If that's true, the assassin might have had inside help, which would in turn imply a wider conspiracy.

  If he did receive inside help, there's some indication (not very conclusive) that it might have been Lochley. The assassin served with her in the past. Her evasive answer to Garibaldi implied that she opposed Sheridan in the civil war. She argued for the inauguration to proceed on schedule. She would have had the authority to launch the assassin's Starfury, and she wasn't present at the ceremony.

  On the other hand, the assassin may have been the computer expert Garibaldi supposed, and may have launched the Starfury the same way he sent untraceable messages to Sheridan. His task would have been made easier, perhaps, by the fact that it appeared the pilot he knocked unconscious was getting dressed for a launch -- a Starfury launching on schedule would presumably raise no alerts in C&C.

• How was Garibaldi able to get to a Starfury? As a civilian (at the time Sheridan hadn't yet appointed him to any official position) he should have been barred from the launch bay as well. Of course, by his own admission, Garibaldi is perfectly able to circumvent B5's security measures when he needs to.

  Garibaldi's ship, incidentally, was his own personal Starfury, as evidenced by the Daffy Duck emblem on the right side, between the wings -- Garibaldi has been a Daffy fan from day one (the cartoon he shared with Delenn in "Midnight on the Firing Line.")

• Sheridan's decision to allow Byron's people on B5 may be a point of contention with Lochley, even though it was arguably a political question from the start. If she denied Byron's request, she clearly thought it fell within her jurisdiction to make such decisions, and may now feel that any decision she makes can be declared a political issue by Sheridan and overturned.

• Sheridan's assumption was that by allowing the colony to form on the station, he'd be gaining telepathic allies in any future war between telepaths and normals. But doesn't that depend on the nature of the war? It might be sparked in such a way that it's not just a matter of Psi Corps versus everyone else, in which case having a colony of telepaths, some quite powerful, aboard Babylon 5 would be a tremendous liability. For example, Edgars' telepath virus ("The Exercise of Vital Powers") would clearly be seen as a threat by all telepaths, regardless of their political affiliation, and all normals would be potential carriers.

• If Psi Corps propaganda can be believed (comic "The Psi Corps and You") the circumstances surrounding the establishment of the Corps (a telepath foiling the assassination of the Earth Alliance president) closely resemble those of the establishment of Byron's colony. Whether the colony will mirror the Corps in other ways remains to be seen.

• Another on-station colony, of sorts, also helped uncover a murderous criminal: Theo's monks, who identified the bomber in "Convictions."

• Byron said his people refuse to have anything to do with technology (except, presumably, the ships that brought them to the station.) In some ways that makes his group the opposite number of the technomages ("The Geometry of Shadows.") Both achieve near-magical results, the technomages using advanced technologies honed to an art, Byron's people using no technologies at all. And both want to be left alone by the rest of society. Will the two groups ever meet?

• This wasn't the first time an attempt was made on Sheridan's life following a shift in political power: in "Ceremonies of Light and Dark," a gunman almost killed him in the Zocalo following B5's break from Earth, and a ceremony celebrating the new order (the Minbari rebirth ceremony) was disrupted.

• How do Garibaldi's new job duties differ from Delenn's as head of the Rangers? Though their presence is public knowledge now, the Rangers have traditionally been a covert intelligence-gathering group. Are they no longer performing that function? Will they be reporting to both Garibaldi and Delenn, or will Garibaldi put together a separate group answerable only to himself?

• The exact workings of the Narn naming custom are still unknown. G'Kar said that Narns pick their true names at ten years of age, but he didn't say what that meant exactly. He named three examples of religious persuasion: G'Quon, G'Lan, and Na'Kiri. From that, it's possible to infer that only the prefixes of Narn names come from their religions (G'Kar, Na'Toth, etc.) But it's equally possible that Narns select their entire true names from their religious texts.

• Which holy books did G'Kar choose to represent humans? In "The Parliament of Dreams," it was implied that humans have a far greater diversity of religious beliefs than the other races. Did G'Kar attempt to represent all of humanity's religions, or just the major ones? He might have had some help from Theo's monks, who, if they're still on the station, are already engaged in the work of cataloguing the religious beliefs of all the races on the station ("Convictions.")

• It's possible that the book G'Kar used for the swearing-in wasn't intended to be the declaration of principles at all, and that G'Kar is still writing the declaration. Swearing on a holy book may be as common among alien races as it is among humans, so G'Kar may have intended the book of holy books simply as a ceremonial device.

• The question of who controls B5 is a bit muddled. Lochley is an Earthforce officer, but at least some of her senior staff (Zack and Franklin) are, judging by their uniforms, affiliated with the Interstellar Alliance. So is Sheridan, who is in some ways her superior and in others not. The rest of her subordinates, the crew of the station, are presumably employees of a sovereign state until B5's final disposition is determined. Though on a day-to-day basis this jumble of affiliations may not be problematic, it's probably untenable in the long term. For example, if some of the crew want higher pay, as in "By Any Means Necessary," it's not clear to whom they'd make their appeal.

Notes

• Sheridan and Delenn are alternating between their quarters, apparently on a nightly basis.

• Garibaldi's comparison of Sheridan to Joan of Arc is another instance in which the prospect of burning in fire is used a metaphor for imminent danger. Others are Delenn's repeated references (following Valen) to going into darkness and into fire, and Kosh's predicting all would end "in fire" ("The Coming of Shadows.")

• As Garibaldi tried to figure out the assassin's identity, he mused about the historical references in the message to Sheridan. Though the error did lead him in the right direction, he was wrong about Lincoln's assassin being a soldier on the opposite side in the Civil War: John Wilkes Booth was never in the Confederate army, though he was in the Virginia militia for a time.

• The Gaim have been around since season two (they first appeared in "Confessions and Lamentations") but this episode was the first time one was shown without its helmet. According to the official CD-ROM encyclopedia, Gaim ambassadors aren't typical of their species, but are specially bred bipedal creatures engineered to more comfortably interact with other races.

• Despite the title, there were several compromises in this episode: Sheridan and Lochley compromised over responsibility for the station. Garibaldi took a job that's a compromise between reenlisting and remaining a civilian. Sheridan and Delenn compromised about their quarters.

• Continuity glitch: During the swearing-in ceremony, after the assassin was dispatched, G'Kar held out the book to Sheridan. He was holding it in his left hand in the shots showing him from the front, and in his right hand in the shots showing him from behind.

• Possible continuity glitch: The Acheron, the ship that brought Lochley to the station, was an Omega-class destroyer (the type with the rotating middle section.) Later, an exterior shot of the station showed an Earth ship nearby, but it was missing the rotating middle section (a Nova-class destroyer.) It's not clear that they were intended to be the same ship, though.

• Effects glitch: When the Starfury is shown floating outside the station, maintaining a more or less fixed position relative to the window, the lateral thrusters on the right side of the ship (from the pilot's point of view) can be seen firing, presumably to keep up with the window as the station rotates. Unfortunately, that's wrong. The thrusters on the bottom of the Starfury should have been firing instead.

  To see how this works, imagine B5 as a planet and the Starfury as a satellite that wants to attain a circular orbit. To do so, it has to get the desired distance away from the surface of the planet (not very far, in this case, but with no atmosphere to create drag that's fine) and move in the direction of its orbit at a high enough speed that it's always inching away from the surface at the same rate that gravity is pulling it down. Once that speed is reached, no further adjustments are required; momentum will pull it away from the planet and gravity will pull it toward the planet and the two will cancel each other out.

  In the case of the Starfury and B5, there's no appreciable gravity from the station. So the Starfury would have to apply the same force gravity would have supplied, thrusting toward the axis of the station at the same rate that it was drifting away. Since the pilot's head was facing the station (implying, incidentally, that the ship had a slight spin) that would mean continuously firing the bottom thrusters.

  Once the correct orbital speed is in place, any acceleration in the direction of the orbit would cause the Starfury to move past the window. In an atmosphere, of course, the side thrusters would have to fire just to maintain that speed, thanks to drag slowing the Starfury down otherwise. But there's no appreciable atmosphere outside B5, so that wouldn't have been a factor here.

• Possible timing glitch: Byron visited Lochley in a cafe and asked her to meet him in two hours. Franklin interrupted her lunch by asking her to come to Medlab right away; she agreed and left. She arrived in Medlab and was there only a few minutes when she received a call from C&C reminding her of an appointment, which (judging by the fact that it was the next scene) was the meeting with Byron. That means it took her two hours to get from the cafe to Medlab to the meeting with Byron. Of course, it's possible she did something else on her way to Medlab, or that the station's transportation systems are just that slow.

jms speaks

• About the title
  I picked "No Compromises" because that was my approach for this season: we aren't going to give an inch on the quality of the show.

• John Copeland and I just did the producer's cut on 502, the first S5 episode...and Tracy [Scoggins] is *terrific*. I think she's going to go over like gangbusters. It's a solid episode, and her presence adds a great deal to the show.

• BTW, saw the first pass today on the S5 title sequence, based on my outline to the editors...looks pretty spiffy, and a big difference from what we've done before, stylistically.

• Whose idea was it to put your name on the back of the station?
  I confess it was my idea...damn taggers are everywhere...it's my one indulgence in 5 years. Doesn't any good artist sign his work?

• This in some ways is my favorite title sequence. It took a long time to make it, and it was very difficult to assemble. Usually I can design the title sequence on paper, and the working with the editors part doesn't take that long...here it took a Long Time to painstakingly choose the images, use counterpoint dialogue, pick the high moments and make it all flow from one year to the next, sort of a Cliff's Notes version of the history of the show. And the music is terrific...very mature, solid sounding.

  As for the back of the station...y'know, those damn taggers are everywhere, aren't they?

• In about two dozen comments so far about the S5 title, only one has been negative, the rest loving it. It helps to place each season for the new viewers, recaps things, hits the high points, and the new music gives it a more mature sound. I'm pleased. (Since I designed it, I guess I'd better be....)

• Won't it confuse new viewers?
  I think the newbies will be fine...unless and until you know the context of the scenes from S1-4, they're just pretty pictures.

• My local station didn't show the end of season 4. Should I avoid season 5?
  My gut reaction...because S5 starts pretty cleanly, and Sheridan's new situation is set up right from the git-go, I think that you'd be okay to just dive in. Not knowing at the time that there'd be any kind of problem in the airing of the final 4, but having learned from experience that nothing about this show is EVER easy or predictable, I did sort of a primer about where things stand now in the top of the teaser, done breathlessly by Corwin as Lochley arrives.

  (That ain't much of a spoiler since it happens in the first few minutes of the show.)

• One note: due to the TNT ad blitz, we went into this on the assumption that we were (and did) pick up a LOT of viewers who had never before seen B5. These folks would need to be brought up to speed on the returning characters and situations, and the regular viewers would need to be brought up to speed on Lochley...so I wrote it with that intention.

• Robin Atkin Downes played Morann in "In the Beginning." Coincidence?
  We were impressed by his portrayal of Minbari, and that led to him coming in for Byron.

• Garibaldi is completely bald this season, and Sheridan has a beard. Whose choice was that?
  Jerry has been shaving his head, getting shorter each year, and it worked for where his character is going, so I let it stay...Bruce would love nothing more than to get rid of the beard (I suspect Melissa doesn't like it also), but for me it's important to make the character visually different, and to give him a more mature look, so Bruce graciously indulges me.

• We always start out slow each season...especially in this case, knowing that we're going to get a lot of new viewers, I structured the show so it would bring folks up to date asap on who everybody is, and where things stand. Believe me, there's plenty of tragedy and pathos lurking right around the corner. It picks up at the end of the season, after some very rough things for the characters, because I can't end it all on a downer, but at the same time, it has to have meat to it.

  "Isn't the Psi Corps still formally a branch of EarthGov? If so, then wasn't Captain Lochley duty-bound to report Byron's people to the Psi Cops as soon as she found out that they were rogues?"

  You'll find that question answered soon enough.

• About Lochley
  It's easy to mistake the actor for the character in situations like this.

  It's a vastly different character from Ivanova also, not meant to fit in the same place, do the same things, or be the same person. They're both strong characters, but different in their approach. Ivanova tended to be a shouter, and on the impatient side...Lochley is a thinker, and more inclined to the blade than the ball-bat. But both are equally lethal.

  Lochley, I think, also has the maturity of character you need to rise to the rank of captain in the military, and the voice of moral authority, which both Sinclair and Sheridan had, in comparable positions.

• Oh, she has a sense of humor...but we don't see it here in this episode any more than when Ivanova first came in, because both are in new situations and that requires a certain degree of seriousness. We'll see some of her humor along the way...it's also different from Ivanova's, more a sly kind of humor, the sort that slips past you and ricochets around the corner half an hour later to nail you between the eyes.

• About Sheridan
  There's certainly a messianic streak running through the character, though he himself might challenge that notion.

• What is G'Kar's position now?
  A lot of that will be established this season, but technically, he's still the Ambassador from Narn.

• The ship that brought Lochley was named the Acheron
  Actually, the Acheron is the river of woe....

• "Does anyone know whether Byron's "The geometries that circumscribe your waking life draw narrower until nothing fits inside them anymore" came from anywhere. My first (rather obvious) guess was that it was a line from Byron."

  No, that was me.

• Why did you name the character Byron?
  It's a play on words that becomes a bit clearer later.

• "Why couldn't the young telepath just broadcast his discovery to the others, vs. having to deliver it himself?"

  Line of sight.

• How does Sheridan know about the telepath war? Did he watch "Deconstruction" or something?
  This is hardly a new plot element...this has been brewing for 4 years now, with the growing telepath underground. As for the latter part of that comment...did you already forget that in "Rising Star" there was a conversation between Sheridan and Bester about the coming telepath war?

  Not my fault if you're not paying attention.

  Wouldn't Garibaldi believe the telepath war had been averted since Edgars was killed?
  No, Edgars wasn't trying to *start* a war, he was trying to solve it BEFORE it started. He knew it was coming, is coming, and was trying to give normals an edge. That edge is now gone. Again, you're misinterpreting or misremembering what's been established and saying it's an error on our part.

  If B5 is a free port, why did Byron need to ask permission? Isn't the station open to anyone?
  Individually, yes...but again, pay attention, we're talking about a COLONY, which means you've got several hundred people living in one area, under one authority (Byron), with an unknown or unspecified agenda, whose presence might bring problems from the Psi Corps and elsewhere. So yeah, they're going to need somebody's permission.

  Why did Sheridan break his promise to Lochley?
  He didn't break his promise...he moved this into a political decision, which is his purview. He said specifically, "If it's a political problem, or involves the Alliance, it's my turf." This is a strategic decision on behalf of the Alliance.

  How can Byron project images? We haven't seen that before. It took an entire mob of telepaths in "A Race Through Dark Places" to fool Bester.
  Well, now you've got a contradiction. Either we have seen this before, or we haven't seen it before. You say where did it come from, then cite an example of where it's been seen before. And if you'll go back and rewatch that episode, you'll see that teeps can act collectively and be very strong.

  [...] No...again, you're distorting the situation. The task wasn't just to send an image into his [Bester's] head, it was to CONVINCE HIM that this image had really happened, and it took a lot of them to do this to a Psi Cop. That's why it took so many of them; he's a strong target. It ain't the same as doing it to a normal. You're not thinking through what you're saying.

  Why don't Byron and his people just turn invisible and live on the station without anyone knowing they're there?
  Maybe because they are (or are trying to be) the good guys? Maybe because they don't actually vanish, or turn off sound, they can individually manipulate somebody by pressing on receptors and distorting things like their time sense...but they're going to show up on cameras, and on sensors, and unless they want to constantly try and control every single person on the station in large groups as they pass by, they're going to be discovered, and booted off the station. So they may as well do the right thing and ask. Just because someone *can* steal doesn't mean they *should* steal.

  Besides, where are they going to live? Quarters have to be assigned, and they're always short on space. Food has to be paid for. On and on. Your contention doesn't make sense...they're not gods.

• "That last one is what hooked me. I figured you'd be spending the next few weeks explaining how you really hadn't broken the cardinal rule of B5 ["No cute kids or robots"] by introducing little Simon."

  That means you went for the okeydoke...and thus didn't see the last bit coming. That was the intent.

• How did the assassin manage to position himself outside the window so precisely?
  Excuse me, folks, but he was using a B5 starfury, which is programmed like all starfuries there to sync up with the station's rotation for purposes of docking, ejecting, and holding position for repair purposes. All a pilot would have to do is tell the on-board computer to sync up the thrusters with the station's rotation, and it'd be done.

  This is a no-brainer...which is why I didn't specify it in dialogue (also it would've killed the drama of the moment).

• Was Garibaldi's "it's a little crooked" comment about the EA logo meant as foreshadowing?
  No, but it was certainly meant as a subtle double-entendre, given his recent experiences.

Last update: October 20, 1998