Guide page: "Patterns of the Soul"

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

Overview

A group of refugees from Earth may be spreading the Drakh plague offworld.

Production number: 110
Original air date: July 7, 1999

Written by Fiona Avery
Directed by Tony Dow

Dureena's people didn't develop spaceflight on their own; they were taken offworld to act as workers for another race.
Dureena is not the last of her race alive. A transport carrying workers for a new colony was attacked by the Shadows, and 100 of the workers managed to escape in lifepods. They formed a small colony on an otherwise uninhabited world, Theta 9.
Dureena's race is more susceptible to the plague than humans are; their genetic makeup is apparently closer to the template the plague uses as a starting point.
Gideon has access to top-secret materials thanks to a card game he played against a drunk Earth official some years earlier; the official put up his access codes as collateral and lost.

Are there other instances of the plague being exported intentionally from Earth?
How did Max know about the Pro Zeta corporation?

Was the cybernetic implant program related to the one involving Abel Horn ("A Spider in the Web")? The specifics were different, but may have been part of the same larger operation.
Given the huge risk involved if even a single person outside the Earth quarantine is infected and able to travel freely, Gideon has a strong motivation to report this incident to someone, even at the risk of the General Thompson finding out about it. Will Gideon do so? Since the plague can easily jump species, he could legitimately take the approach of reporting it directly to the Interstellar Alliance rather than going through his normal chain of command.
This episode has the first reference in the series to the Interstellar Alliance, though an oblique one: General Thompson claimed that his authority to redirect the Excalibur came directly from President Sheridan. Which implies that the Excalibur isn't entirely under Earthforce control; given the Alliance's founding principle of autonomy for member races, Sheridan presumably doesn't have the power to directly meddle in Earth's internal military affairs.
Dureena's race hasn't had good luck with the Shadows and their cohorts; they destroyed the worker transport, then wiped her planet out. Just a coincidence, or did Dureena's people pose some kind of threat to the Shadows?

Theta 9 is Canada. The views from orbit are images of Earth landmasses: the Great Lakes, Hudson Bay, the St. Lawrence Seaway, Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland can be seen.

Chambers could be seen on the shuttle in the footage Gideon showed General Thompson. Won't people wonder why she's still alive?
It's only ever going to be seen by the general, and bear in mind that in that shot Chambers was WAY in the background, it was only seen for a moment on the monitor, with the General more concerned about what's happening in FG, and in any event he would have to instantly recognize her by sight, and he didn't know her.