Mind War | For the Second Time

[0:00] Music.

[0:22] Into it jack the year is 2025 the name of the podcast babylon 5 for the second time welcome to babylon 5 for the second time my name is brent allen and i'm Jeff Akin. brent and i used to be star trek podcasters but then we watched babylon 5 for the first time and everything changed now we're watching this incredible series for the second time paying attention to all the things we didn't even know about the first time around and you know what just like the first time around jeff we are still going to be searching for those sci-fi messages that we find in this series because what better genre out there than it is to hold up a mirror to society or give you hope that things can be better in the future just tell you how to be better human beings to one another you know what i mean now this is a uh jeff we asked this question earlier today uh what what is the babylon 5 equivalent of a red alert we did ask that question yes i don't have one.

[1:26] Yeah uh so this is a uh uh station uh babcom channel open i don't know gold channel gold channel there you go here's here's the thing all right from this point forward um jeff and i could talk about anything from any episode of anything in the franchise of Babylon five crusade, the films, any background information, anything from cons, we could talk about all of it at any point. This is your spoiler warning. If you have not watched this incredible show first, please do not watch us right now. We beg you go watch the show, binge it, get through it. It's 110 episodes total, get through the show. You will thank us for doing it. And then come back and join us here but if you choose to stay with us anyway welcome you have been warned and today we're going to be watching the sixth episode of the first season it's called mind war we're watching it for the second time and like we said we're looking for those things that we missed the first time and we had no idea where this story was going so Brent what do you remember about your first viewing experience with mind war honestly Jeff, I don't remember what my initial, yeah. You might not remember. There's somebody right over here. I don't know.

[2:44] What? Yeah. Is that cool? That guy. This is what I remember. Bester. Bester is it? I don't remember what I thought about this episode, Jeff. I really don't. I know this is the episode we meet Bester in. I don't know anything else about this episode. I don't remember it I wish I did I just I don't remember it I have yeah so I that being said it makes me really excited to dive back into this episode because here's what I do know you and I referenced this episode we've referenced Mind War a million times throughout the course of the show but what I'm really but in my mind it's it's the one we meet Bester in what does he do he does what Bester does that's what I know like the crew responds the way the crew responds like yeah that's that's what I That's what I remember. How about you, Jeff? I remember not liking it very much. Yeah. Like what I remember is I liked a lot of the ideas in it. I didn't think it was executed very well.

[3:42] But I did look back at some of my notes and I saw one that we've been talking a lot about how JMS very specifically did this first season in a way to make us believe a certain set of facts that he was then going to flip over a couple of times. So it turned out a different way. so I said at this note it said I really want to believe that Jakar is making sure Catherine didn't die on her mission that that was a show of sympathy and compassion and maybe it was given a statement about people not being what they appear but even just a few episodes in I can't help but think he's just doing this to hold it over Sinclair's head at some point I was totally sucked into the Jakar's a jerk thing it's interesting you'd say all that Jeff oh yeah Well, because while I may not remember what my first reaction was, I do know what my first reaction was.

[4:34] And I know what your first reaction was because I went back and listened to our original episode. Really? Which we haven't done before now. No. I did. I went back and I listened to our original episode. Would you like to know what you actually said? You want to see how close you were to what your recollection was? Yeah, yeah. All right, here we go. This is what Jeff said. This feels like a super important episode that we're going to look back on a lot. You called it out, which we did. We absolutely did. Overall, though, actually, both of us said the same thing. We both were in agreement on this episode. we didn't want to watch the episode again oh we're like we know this is an important episode we know this sets up a whole lot we know this does whatever we're gonna we're gonna look back on this episode quite a bit but we don't ever have to see it again okay we're good you know we're good it's fine you you had this great line you said i'm more excited to see where this one goes than to actually revisit this one itself that's cool well that brent let's uh let's go watch this thing let's do it if you're watching us for the first time hi it's so cool you're here the way this is going to work is brent and i are going to watch this episode for the second time right now if you didn't catch this episode the first time around we talked about our first time stuff that brent talked about there's going to be a link button thing up here go ahead and hit that it'll take you to it pause this go to that watch that whole thing come right back hit play and finish this one, it'll really help fill in a lot of the blanks for you.

[5:58] If you are sticking around though, and just watching this, you're about to see our reaction to this. You're going to watch Brent and I react to Mind War. If you want to see the full unedited version of that though, you can head over to our Patreon page at patreon.com slash Babylon five first, the number five, the word first and see all kinds of unedited stuff or check the updated link down below.

[6:23] This is what it is right now. Hey, listen, if you guys are listening to us on the podcasting app, you're going to hear our reaction. And then, like Jeff said, we're going to hook up on the other side where we'll get to share some of our thoughts about the second watch through. And we'll talk about maybe some of these new messages that we uncover. So, Jeff, let's go watch an episode. Let's do it. Accessing file. This is Earth Alliance Fighter Squadron Black Omega to stolen transport. Black Omega. Black Omega. If you attempt to escape, you will be fired upon and destroyed. Do you understand repeat they got the symbol painted on and everything they are the black, so black omega which we now know we wouldn't have known this back then and people would have expected us to know this back then uh-huh yeah but you and i now know black omega is the psycor it's bester's personal like star fury whatever uh squadron they were going after ironheart and they got a little too close and ironheart went nay nay and he he basically did this yes that's a star trek reference folks and they disappeared they blipped oh it's not star trek it's a marvel it's a okay we got to pay attention i have to pay attention here yes this is the dude that stabs garibaldi in the back uh-huh yes great job this is him mm-hmm.

[7:43] No, sir, I just never met a psych cop before. Yes, sir. I'll bring you there myself. This way. He didn't ask him anything. Could you tell me a little more about the target? It's a class four world, designated Sigma 957. Yeah. For the audio listeners, I'm just looking at you. A flyby sensor picked up traces. 957 is so Sigma. By product of quantum forward. Usually. We need that verified. If so, we'll send out a life sciences probe, make sure we're in accord with all the regs in planetary exploitation. But we can't afford that unless we're certain it's worth it. Can I tell you something, Jeff? You can. I am just now. Right. As of this episode and the conversations you and I have been having over the last week, aware of what Quantium 40 is. Really? Mm-hmm. So here's the thing, though. Like, it's a big thing here and now and up into part of – and then it's basically never mentioned again. Right. But don't they also mention it in, like, Crusade a couple times or something like that? I think so. Comes up a little bit. Yeah, that's what I mean. But like you clearly, you were like, yeah, it's stuff the jump gate's made out of. And I'm like, sure, we knew that word. I don't know.

[8:51] But knowing it now, I pick up on this. Of course, that's what they're talking about. I guarantee you as a first-time viewer, I was just like, I don't know what you're saying. I don't remember. It's technobabble. It's just technobabble at this point. I don't remember if it's this episode. It might be by any means. I forget which one, but one of them coming up, we find out, oh, my gosh, there's a shortage of quantum 40 q40 as they call it um and so like earth specifically has like a backlog like they're building jump gates out there and they're backlogged i want to say it's six months or something like that but i don't know if i'm remembering that right there's a shortage of q40 on earth it backed up six months on jump gate construction which is why we need confidence wow.

[9:33] Okay okay including the commander my personal life has nothing to do i know i know i was told to ask, so I'm asking. We each have our marching orders, Ms. Sakai. This guy looks like the Jinkso actor, like, being legit. I like this and I like that he, Oh, that's a really great pause.

[9:51] Take, take the watermark down and just let's look at the beauty of this pause. No, that's, that's perfect timing. All right. Put the watermark back up. Go ahead. What? No, I love how she's just like, I think a lot of times in sci-fi there's the person they go do business with. First off, she just has random people. You know, this is different than the people last week or the week, but you know, whatever. Like I just, I don't know. It feels very real. It's occurring to me right now, basically being a telepath out here it's gig work it's just gig work that's all it is right like you got a gig now let's go do that i got my schedule i'm gonna go sit for negotiation here i'm gonna you know go to an interrogation paid per thing and if you got an empty slot you ain't getting paid jack like instead of tasker they have teeper see but here's the thing and and knowing this now that's different because i would have thought coming from psych or she's actually being paid by psych or and that's not the case like talia's here working for herself with a percentage working for orthgov she's not with a percentage going back to psych or is that what it is yeah oh i don't think i knew that i don't think i knew that we learned that getting paid well we learned that when best her uh contracts lead his body he's like well you only have to spend 10 like well you know instead of the standard whatever interesting well then we have a deal.

[11:05] There is one other thing the target is in a contested sector of space so we'll need the approval of one other party before we can proceed with the survey that's great that's great, okay jeff do you remember where this where that storyline goes him and katherine storyline that with the whole thing with katherine and jakar through the rest of this episode do you remember where that goes yeah okay that there's a planet in narn space that they're going to try to go mine this q40 from sigma 957 that's where you got that sigma 957 sigma 957 is is that zaha doom no that's not zaha there are we called them i called them the tiki party first ones but i think they're called the walkers of sigma 957 okay oh is this the one where we get the tiki head no that's with marcus much later but this is they fly by and it looks just looks like a big party on the outside all right disco ball and stuff so this is this is not zaha doom no zaha doom is not located in narn space at least not as of right now no okay although i think he's one of the first people who says zaha doom on screen jacar is jacar is one of the first if not the first now i'm listening commander some vips here to see you sir nia says uh nia says that this guy right here who's walking out he was supposed to be the zach of season oh it's a fine time i agree oh he did He did it there to Sinclair, too. Get out of my head. At least he's not doing the, like, furrowing his eyebrow. Like, you want to talk to me?

[12:29] I apologize, Commander. Saves considerable time. I don't care. I would be the same way. I don't like people rummaging around in my head. I thought the Psy Corps had rules about this sort of thing. I'm turning the station upside down because you're hunting down one rogue telepath. Not just a rogue, Commander. This is a special and very dangerous individual whose presence here threatens the entire Earth Alliance military structure. So just checking in. I'm on a mission in this episode, and I was with Bester to pay attention to how he interacts with the crew. Oh yeah. Yeah. And so upfront, you know, so he telepaths to Sinclair, a hundred percent understandable for him to be like, uh, no, not cool. And then he's cold to him that point forward. It's fine. I get that because of the way he came off, but he was never, um, he was never inappropriate to Bester, um, until he's just like, I'm not letting you do this, but that's also his job to keep the thing. So, so far Bester's being treated. Okay. but Bester and lady aren't doing anything wrong outside of like telepath. I'm going to, I'm going to push back on that just a little bit. Okay. That I think gives Sinclair the right to be that much more cold because I would be, because I literally just made the note about this. Sinclair confronted them, asked them, and they unapologetically confirmed that these psych ops are enforcing rules that they themselves are not bound by.

[13:51] I'm probably going to like, that's, I don't like that. If you, what's good for the goose is good for the gander, right? Is that what it is? Yeah. That's what they say. Good. Like, I don't disagree. Right for the goose, whatever. Like, like, I think, I think, You, you come in, you do this. And I say, get out. I think, oh, okay, cool. No problem. I thought you guys weren't allowed to do that. Well, we're cops. We can do anything. Yeah. I see who you are now. What do you want? Like I like putting myself in that position. That's exactly where I find myself. I'll accept that. But I will say that's not a Bester thing. That's a psych or thing. Psychop thing. But these are the ones who are right in front of him right now. And that's going to make me act cold to you. And probably all psychops until that particular psychop proves me otherwise. By the way i just want to say ben agrees with me dylan is team brit and fabio says ben laid it out masterfully um which just means fabio also agrees with me it just means group think is a powerful thing 500 credits per week based on earth standard rotational cycle.

[14:53] I want to point out in my defense of psych or jason iron is clearly a danger to the station right now clearly so like but then i also have to ask who else is a danger to the station like like here's the thing right now let's put this in x-men terms like yeah i don't i don't want to go through mutant registration process i don't necessarily like mutants are good people and should be also some of you are a full-on danger to society or to whatever building you're in or whatever and we need to be able to handle this for everybody's safety and we know who you are like it this is the same same situation right now yeah but i'm saying is like there's there's bester coming on the station and being like we have a random rogue telepath that we are interested in for our own purposes and then there's we're here after a rogue telepath that could destroy your station.

[15:44] Not bring down the entire military structure of Earth Force. Right, yeah. Could destroy, could literally shake apart the station. Just say that what's in his brain would compromise Earth Force defense and lead to the death of many of our covert operatives on other worlds. We think he intends to sell that information to other governments. That's nonsense. Jason would never do anything like that. Our job is to find him and bring him back alive if possible. This is where they need to start talking about him being a danger to the station. Dead if necessary. Because them saying, we have to find them to serve our own, to protect our own. That's not, I'm not going to get on board with that. I mean, it's not wrong to, you know what I mean? Like, but it's also, yeah, you're trying to get them to help you out. That's not the pitch. You understand we'll have to scan you to be sure. Is that necessary?

[16:29] I'm telling you the truth. Perhaps. I'm really going to break all this down. So one, I love Talia's, the break in her voice. Like, because being scanned, like they're talking about is painful. and she wants nothing to do with that, right? So totally get that. But the tone that Bester just had where Sinclair doing the right thing, standing up for this person who's on his ship, being like, yeah, if she said no, she means no. But his tone is like, look, she has to. Basically, like, right or wrong, we have our organization and our organization has these rules and she is a member of our organization and has agreed to abide by those rules. I hear you, Commander Sinclair. This is an A and B conversation. you may see your way out. Oh, you did not just say that. I did. I did. She doesn't feel, she feels completely pushed into this, doesn't she?

[17:16] Like she's going willingly, but also not very well. Well, she doesn't want to, because it's painful. Like, right. I'm sure in their training, they all are subject to deep scans from time to time. And so like, she knows what's about to happen. Yeah.

[17:29] She's telling the truth. She hasn't seen it. I honestly would. Surprising given your prior involvement. What level of physical threat? So I want to ask a good question here. That's something else you don't need to that's the question just find him no actually you do, yeah that's not him being a jerk that's him being bad at his job or he doesn't know or bester really doesn't know what he's doing right now hello talia like you know that's fair but i think but i think he knows exactly what he's doing in this one i think i'm not supposed to talk to you run away talia talia wait please because in this business whoever has the strongest telepath wins. The military wants to scan the enemy. The enemy wants a telepath strong enough to block the scan. And we want someone who can cut through the block. They said it was necessary to help.

[18:16] Anyway, the experiments went on for months. Genetic manipulation, mutated strains of serotonin and acetylcholine to increase neural processing. Five, ten, sometimes fifteen injections a day. The pain was... We also know that they're doing like a breeding program and stuff here. Yeah. One day, I woke up and I could see everything. I think that's a really important point because we have talked frequently about the fascist nature of Psycor. And in modern parlance, when we think of fascism, we think of just that, you know, no choice, no nothing, you know, straight lines and all that. What we don't reference so much is just the horrifying experimentation they did, you know, trying to, as I say, improve humanity. But that's what they thought they were doing, right? And the same thing SICOR thinks they're doing. But, you know, there's, I mean, just atrocious things that were perpetrated on people in the name of science or whatever. I mean, in this particular thing, like with the breeding program, that's more, okay, we're going to force you and you to mate and have children, which is bad enough, right?

[19:26] But also we do that with dogs and create new breeds of dogs. But humans are different than dogs. I will acknowledge that. We are more than just mammals. So – but they're doing that with people of trying to – and what's the worst that happens? The kid that they produce is a regular pea level something. Mm-hmm that's that's it the injections the the stuff the chemicals that they're submitting them to now that's a different that's a different thing altogether they have no idea you know what what anything and in five ten fifteen injections a day fantastic uh point from our council chambers chat over here uh from fabio uh he could have said i can see everything there's a big war coming no i'm gonna reconnect with an old flame for the last time and then go become god i would simply say ironheart has his priorities straight just my opinion just 50 quarters to search good that should help narrow it down anatomically impossible mr garibaldi but you're welcome to try anytime what did he just say what did he just say to him he's like i'm gonna shove my boots So you're going to taste my dog's poop on the bottom of my shoe. Turn that sumbitch sideways. And so I just want to break this down, taking all the people out of it.

[20:51] You're thinking something and you don't know me at all, right? And I don't know you at all, but I can read that you're thinking the thing. And we walk by each other and I say to you, that's not going to work, buddy. Or, hey, you can't do whatever. Who's wrong, right? Who's wrong? No, Garibaldi didn't say anything. He didn't put it out there. But he's in the presence of a psycop. He picks that up. Is Bester wrong for calling him out on basically thinking about hurting him? Is that wrong? No, he definitely was a jerk about how he did.

[21:25] He's like, come on, let's do this. That's not cool. I'm not saying Bester is a likable guy or what he's doing is friendly, cool, and nice. But I'm saying right here we're all just like, oh, my God, Bester is so horrible. He's doing this. Is he, though, in this situation? Oh, no, this is him just being a being a dude, you know, because, OK, just put it in actual verbiage. If you walk past me and say something and you're mad at me and you go, yeah, you do that again. I'm going to shove my boot so far up your ass. You're going whatever, whatever. What's your response? You just can try and let him walk away or you can be like his his response. You know, it's the nerd response. He's a nerd. Yes. Yeah. It's anatomically impossible, Mr. Garibaldi. Also, if you want to try it, let's go. Let's rumble. Like, that's all that is. And I can hear everyone else making the comments. I can see them over in the side. He scanned him without consent. He didn't this. If you walk by a person who has the ability to hear and you say something, they're going to hear it and they're going to react to it. They know he's a psych cop. They made it clear they're not held to rules.

[22:37] I'm not saying again, I'm not saying it's right but I'm saying that this is the reality they live in, it's not so much necessarily a scan it's just floating in the air and we know from later episodes Garibaldi broadcasts his thoughts very loudly I mean, look, if I walk past somebody who's talking on their phone but they have their phone on speaker and they're holding it up here I'm not at fault for hearing their conversation.

[23:04] You know but it but it's not like i'm eavesdropping either you're putting it out there that's that's on you not me well in the chat it comes up also like we saw that in um in midnight on the firing line when talia just walked by londo and he was so loudly thinking and so that's the thing right so it was okay for talia to pick that thought up and then take action on that and yes it saved lives and blah blah blah yeah but that was okay but this isn't because it's bester so i'm gonna say something jeff and this is gonna piss some people off because it's gonna hold up a mirror to them all right the reason people look at bester and see what he does and go oh he just scanned him without permission but as you point out talia did the exact same thing to londo nobody had a problem with it it's not because of what happened it's because of who did it the truth is you don't actually have a problem with it. You just don't like who did it. And that is so true in so many aspects of life, whether, whether it's in religion, politics, education.

[24:07] Medicine, whatever, it's not so much the message that you hate or the, the action that you hate. It's just a matter of whether or not you agree with this person or this person, whether you want to like it or not like it. That's really it that it comes to for most things there are exceptions to that rule and if we were genuine integrous adults we would be able to recognize that about ourselves and be able to recognize when it's our bias against the person versus when it's our bias against the action or idea and that's an us thing not a dome thing also fester is a snake and yeah he's a piece of garbage i mean no question you want to assassinate someone so you bring in a telekinetic murder without a trace no fingerprints no poisons they didn't understand Talia the power how far it Jason what is it oh please quick go I can't control this get out see if you're Jason Ironheart at this point don't you feel like I have to get off the station yeah because I'm going to shake this, By the way, I'm pretty sure he goes to the Avery Brooks School of Action.

[25:18] Mind the way. They look at that like, oh, we don't have to see this. We've seen this before. We studied this in the Academy. But at this point, this is where they say to Sinclair, this is why we're here. This is why it's important. We're only going to get worse. Level 16, about three sections further down. What is it? I don't know, but it's got level 16 completely surrounded. Really bad effects. 360 degrees. We can't get past it. You ask me right now. We need to know. I think we needed to know. That's what we said yep jeff that's what you and i said literally the most important thing he could have said you withheld information and put this station at risk call me crazy but don't you think it might have helped for us now i want the truth and i want it now mr ironheart is no longer what you or i would consider entirely human that doesn't answer my questions right but i'm gonna show the fairness of the Aiken view on this. Sinclair was 100% correct to come at him that hard, if not harder. You got people hurt. You've got structural damage. That was a very appropriate response. And Bester's response was still as shmarmy and smart ass and non-informative as he possibly could be. I almost feel like the lady was trying, hey, look, this is where we were coming from whatever and then you're right Besser is just like nope I'm shutting that down you got no idea what you're dealing with here mister yep.

[26:45] This is totally I'm gonna I'm gonna sneak right up behind her and go this won't work I need to talk to you Jason, so what's happening right now is Jason is cognitively controlling whatever is going on in.

[27:03] Yeah because he can raise he can lower he's aware of what's going on around him we all thought, psychore was controlled by the government but that's changing the core starting to pull the strings behind the scene they're more powerful than you can begin to imagine huge telepaths make the ultimate blackmail is talia you know what i picked up from that it's not just that psychore is pulling the strings it's as psychore is starting to pull the strings so this hasn't been a long ongoing thing right it's starting right now post this election you know the shadows are woken up now at this point no not yet almost maybe well yeah i guess because they would have been woken up when um anna yeah and her crew went to the planet have they gone yet how many how many years before sheridan shows up did that happen i don't remember somebody in the chat yeah tell us Tell us how long prior to Sheridan showing up on Babylon 5, Anna went gone, went missing. But my point being is this isn't something that's been happening for a long time. They're starting to pull the strings. Now, certainly it's been in the works for a very long time. Yeah, that's where I think it's just starting to come to fruition now. I love her little bridge. five seven is not a so yeah yeah like it's not it's not the big thing you see in star trek in the or most other shows like it's it's a cockpit you know hold on it's not a bridge.

[28:31] This is pretty great she gets environmental probe on my mark so her impression here we go.

[28:41] So we're supposed to this right now this is jakar i think i need to talk he's coming so i think he's coming to attack her. Do you know what it's like when telepaths make love, Commander? Drop every defense. I'm a telepath, so no. And it's all mirrors, deeper and deeper. Now, see, take this and apply it to her and Ivana later. Somewhere along the line, it's all smicks. Also about her teacher, when she was forced married and bred to someone else. You mean stoner? Yeah. That's good. Look at you, man. It's good. But look at this. Let me draw this analogy. Okay. uh jason ironheart is to talia who carolyn sanders is to bester they both have their forced marriage person that they don't do their duty as the best they can but then they have like their true real loves what i find remarkable about that both bester and talia they're like they're my everything like bester is willing to burn the galaxy down for a shot at getting carolyn back here tolly is just like yeah like go do this thing he might rip the station apart but it's worth it interesting that's a good that's a good good comparison i would not have thought about that that's really good oh yeah.

[29:59] So here it is party first ones here's the disco ball it's a carnival cruise is what it is it's an alien carnival cruise ship so it literally literally popped out checked her out no pop back in computer or flew away power laws emergency power negative emergency power no i refuse i am not going back with you this man is under my protection no don't know is this similar to when, londo and like walked your car out of the or no no it was it was jakar and londo walked natoth through the halls of the Centauri Prime stuff, and they were like being drunk or whatever, trying to get them through. Probably not at all like that, except, Not much. The fail-safe code. They're trying to shut him down. Doesn't. Like, Bester's in a different spot right now. There you go. I won't go. And. I won't go back. Is that when Talia got her, her, please, heat ability? Don't make me do this. Is that the gift he left her right there? Oh, yeah. You cannot harm me. You cannot harm one who has dreamed a dream like mine.

[31:17] Music.

[31:30] Now wait he could do that to to chicky with the lips why could he do that to best because he just got shot no no time let's just pretend for a second all right that instead of just knocking talia back and potentially giving her that gift right there he disappeared her and not baroness Okay. Like, oh, and I don't mean that against Baroness or Baroness. I mean like the Cobra Baroness. Okay. Would we be okay with that? Because we seem to be okay with him taking out the Baroness. Hmm.

[31:59] Music.

[32:12] Is this not assault is this not i mean gave it to her without consent yeah literally altered her brain without telling her what it was or asking if it was okay not much of a choice is it it gets better your report will indicate that talia winters was not responsible for her actions in helping ironheart that she was under his mental control and should not be penalized for her actions that's a lie yes it is what's your point there's a transport leaving her earth in 20 minutes It's Mr. Bester. Be on it. Be seeing you, Commander. Two thoughts.

[32:46] First, I am surprised Bester wasn't like, cool, tell him that happened. I'm Alfred freaking Bester. Like, whatever. The fact that, like, showing he has that level of fear or whatever about, like, getting tattled on, I find that very inconsistent with his character. I also find that it undercuts a lot of my earlier arguments, where i was like like i even wrote it down here everyone's talking about how those psycops are breaking the rules you can't do that there's rules against this there's they outright told us that those rules don't apply to them so yeah there are rules but they're not their rules so there aren't breaking them but if that's the case why does he care if sinclair tells them what really happens so i'm shifting over a little bit but but i also find that choice of besters to be on not in character for him and to straight up agree to just lie because that's my second thought like who's the bad guy here best but also hey so here's what happened and here is the blatant lie that you're going to tell about it so that you don't have to face the consequences for what you did and we don't have to face the consequences for what we did but as viewers Sinclair and Garibaldi heroes and Bester's a villain where I think this whole thing is a lot more gray than we would make it out to be. That looked like a Canadian coin to me. Yeah, that's her lucky pen. That is a.

[34:13] That is Abraham Lincoln, a United States Earth penny. What are they doing with that? Abrahamo Lincoln. Well, she just moved it just a little bit. Oh, no. Oh, it's later. Didn't it fly into the wall and stick into the wall? I think that's in the Underground Railroad. Yes, thanks to you. Just one question. Why? Why not? There are things in the universe billions of years older than either of our races. They are fast timeless and we've learned that we can either stay out from underfoot or be stepped on you know right now he's basically talking about the shadows yeah like he knows the history of narin's original conflict with shadows a thousand years ago like stay out from under their foot we're never going to talk to them just don't be crushed right like like that's what he's By the way, in our first episode, you were particularly enamored with this speech. Really? Yeah. You were.

[35:15] Yeah, this is just his – I think this kind of goes back to those first indications that Jakar is not just the bad guy villain of the show. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Which is what we've been led to believe in the first five episodes. I also found – and there's a really interesting thing he said that we can't communicate with them. Believe me, we've tried. We've tried. Yeah. In three seasons, we do communicate with them. Like with the work that Ivanova and Marcus go out and do, pulling Laurie in. And like we get to a point that as a galaxy, able to communicate with them. Not effectively, necessarily, but. Well, it also took Sheridan dying to make it happen. True. Whatever. They must walk there.

[35:54] Music. I wonder how much anti got paid yeah what is scale how do you not listen to that final speech there from jacar on the second watch knowing where jacar goes and not just be like oh that's the jacar yeah that's my jacar right there he's speaking in metaphor and painting pictures and like just all of the oral skills that we get from him he's doing right here and and with that humility, you know, that humility, because there's these, you know, the race, it's whatever. Like, yeah, as I said, that's like, gush over it, Jeff, gush over it, Jeff. It's so good. Everything about it is good. His, the fact that we were deceived about who he is, the fact that he's coming in, literally laying out the next three seasons for us and the overarching theme of all science fiction.

[35:56] And Maddie brings up, it really could just be a reference to the first ones in general, not necessarily the shadows. Yeah, yeah. Maddie's absolutely right. I'm specifying the shadows, but.

[36:57] There is stuff out there we do not cannot and will not understand but damn it we're going to go try we're going to go out and do it and i love how like i can look at it with the lens of a first time viewer and i can still see where i'm like oh he's still playing against the command like i want to think this is good but he got into just a few little things about what i wouldn't want the commander to this here's the thing this is the first time you're really seeing your jakar uh-huh now you've got a first time viewer going through and that first time viewer is going you know what i bet he's just saying that he's playing against the commander yep exactly i bet that's all he's doing now now gush over him respond to me jeff mr person who's seen the whole show and i haven't i bet he's just just playing against the commander i can see how you'd think that he said No, that is not what you said. See how you think that? He says a lot of things that makes it sound like he's against the commander and Sinclair and everybody. But the reality is if you really listen to what he said, he cares deeply about all life. Not just his life or Narn's life, but everyone's because he knows there's more out there. He knows there's something bigger than any one of them. And he wants it to be better for them. Might, Jeff? Might this be one example of Jakar's words from earlier talking about himself? Not everyone here is exactly as they seem. Yeah.

[38:27] Just showing it right there. Right?

[38:30] Right? Yeah, that was, that was fantastic. I think it was, I loved it the first time. I loved it the second time. It's so good. I just love, there's a couple, I'm sorry. You loved what the second time, because you did not love the episode the first time. Correct. I loved Jagar's, Jakar's speech. Gotcha. Okay. Yeah. And one of the things I loved about this episode was between Jakar and Catherine's story with the, the, the, with Sigma nine, five, seven. And then what we learned about Psycor and what Ironheart shared about it, we kind of got the series laid out for us again. They're pulling the strings. There's this. Little did we know that those two things were actually connected, you know, with Psycor and the Shadows, you know, being in league with each other. But we got those two huge angles just spelled out for us.

[39:21] You know we um we get that one shot or one one little scene later on where we're in the president's office.

[39:31] Or vice president's office back on earth right and there's uh there's the vice president or the senator or whomever it was it wasn't clark and then morden was there yep and then the psycop was there and we realized they're all three working together yeah now we know that they're all kind of doing a thing but did we ever really get any true clarification on exactly how the shadows are you i mean think about that the only thing that stops the shadows is psych or so they've teamed up with psych or to control like like it i feel like they never really fully explained exactly how that dynamic was working did i just miss that or i don't think it dwelled on it a lot because what i what i what i think of it being is they needed telepaths to pilot their ships right because they need the human cpus and what they know is it's better if that's why they had all the psychor people that were the teepsicles you know to do it that said anna was able to do it so they don't necessarily have to be but maybe it's just a perfect it's like high octane gas versus just regular octane gas well i mean you you've got the you've got the um what do you call them what what are the rogue telepaths what do they call them the blips the blips you've got the blips that what that's the people you're just going to try to throw away anyway so let us go use them and put them in our ships so we can control them versus the.

[40:55] Taking versus just calling the herd as the gold do you know we'll take actually your refuse because we could use them oh by the way the telepath is actually a little bit easier to do than say anna so but then they kind of like fed the you know they're they were feeding earth gov just like or clark you know specifically through all that the same way they were feeding the centauri through londo and you know and the the drossy when they had you know they just had their people and all the little governments to try and get everybody to fight we just got we we saw how they were doing it with londo we never really saw how they were doing it with clark no like we know that they were doing we just don't know like that's what i mean like i feel like we're assuming a lot although like we kind of know what was going on but like they really never explored that and that's okay they didn't have to i just uh because i think i think if you think about it from a thematic and storytelling standpoint the centauri were the storytelling device for how the shadows do their stuff earth gov was the story of fascism and the dictator and you know having a tyrant with massive super powerful backing behind them because if you remember one of the big things that led to clark clark didn't just off himself because sheridan showed up he did it because they knew the shadows weren't around anymore like i have no backing and you're at my front door so it's same story just different aspects of it i think so i want to give my final where i've landed on bester.

[42:23] Okay and being treated and here's here's what i know uh bester doesn't show up again in this season the next time he shows up is in season two and sheridan makes the comment uh hey i watched that episode you were in so like i know what's up with you you know basically he's like i read the What we had here with Bester was he's an elitist narcissist who believes he's better than anyone and everything, but also has jurisdiction, like legally has some jurisdiction.

[42:54] And when you boil it down, we got into that fight. It was a fight of jurisdiction. Sinclair's like, this is my station. I want things run this way. Bester's like, we have a dangerous rogue person over here. I want to do things this way. And they never had the actual conversation of, well, then how does this jurisdictional thing work? How do you do this? So I'm going to say Bester was wildly inappropriate, crossed lines, also wasn't wrong. And I think that from go, Sinclair, Garibaldi were giving, like it was a, it was a level, it wasn't one person, oh, this guy was bad, so this guy did, they both came at it in a way that could only lead to conflict. And this went at both, and also saying Bester's a jerk. But my question that we'll answer in season two, Bester's ultimate crime was withholding information. That's the thing I cannot dispute. Very important information. Critical.

[43:46] Critical information. Does that warrant his future treatment? A year later when they see him again, we'll answer that question in season two. So I'm not landing at he was a victim, but I'm also not landing at he deserves to be treated like a jerk. Right, right, right. If, if I'm Sheridan and I'm reading the report of what you and I just saw, Bester comes out. Now who's writing that report? Oh, Sinclair. Okay. I read that report from Sinclair's viewpoint. Bester comes in. I immediately have my guard up because my fellow earth force captain who was in the same chair that I was in said, whatever Sinclair is going to say, I immediately have my guard up and I'm kind of taking my cue from wherever Sinclair, whatever Sinclair said in the, in the thing. I don't remember how it went, but if Sheridan did this, Hey, I read the report and I know how you showed up last time. This is how it's going to be with you and me. That's not going to work here. You know, kind of like acknowledge there was a bad thing here, but we're going to establish our relationship and how that works from here moving forward that's the right way to do that jeff.

[44:50] What you have just described is the very first episode of the PsyCore Leadership Academy. No, no, no, because I don't think they did that. I don't think they do it. Is that I was trying to think of the, oh, of, of the Alliance Leadership Academy. Okay. Yeah, there you go. But for real, I was just like, interstellar Alliance Leadership Academy. There you go. Okay. I like that. No, for real. Cause like, look, you screwed up. I see that. I know that I'm not going to tolerate that. So let's start fresh with both of us knowing that we know that. But if he comes out guns firing, then he, then he'll, then in my mind, he will be guilty of everything that happens afterwards. It'll all be Sheridan's fault. That was hyperbole and not true at all. I really like the interstellar Alliance leadership Academy. That's a good one. We need to market. That's a t-shirt, Jeff. Right. Like whether it ever becomes a thing, like we need to get the logo for the Academy and like, it's, it's a, you know, get the thing going alumni, put it, put it. Yeah. You know what I mean? Class of 2257. There you go. There you go. I like it. I like it. Jeff, did you pull any messages out as you were watching this time? I actually did not. Yeah. You know, I mean, again, we could dive into what I think I did the last time. So in our first episode, and you heard this, but I gave this two and a half deltas. You gave it four deltas. Did you place a lot of those deltas on Jakar's speech at the end? Yes. Yeah. Yep.

[46:18] But also on – it was also on how they treated Ironheart. Actually, it was more so on what they treated Ironheart. Because my point with that was you can't be afraid of the unknown. You see, Bester and the Psycor lady were scared of what Ironheart had become. And they also wanted to know how to get it themselves. But they –, sinclair was able to go in and actually have a conversation and talk to him and get to know him and then be able to make a decision all bester wanted to do was come shut him down yeah and then take him back and study him but like and so that was that was a an underlying pin to the whole to the whole episode i did get something else though this time around uh outside of mirrored to society psycops enforce the rules that they don't have to follow uh but avanova asked a very simple question who watches the watchers which i think is a is a great uh under underlying piece of the whole deal.

[47:11] And was not something that this episode explored but it posited it and threw it out there and a very clear like that's one of those lines who watches the watchers that i think writers have like a phrasing that they have that they stick in their back pocket and just wait for a time where they can use it right yeah much much much like a phrase that goes that's need to know information mister and you don't need to do like turns out we did yeah also it's a little bit of a cheesy line and i'm not sure where all i've heard it but i know i've heard it in many different places so oh my god here's the message that i got out of this no one here is exactly what they seem, and what but where i'm going to dive into that yeah because i'm just like a dog with a bone with this thing and i'm just not going to let up the community is like bester is horrible and evil yeah but no one here is exactly what they seem.

[48:02] Jeff except Bester he is exactly what he's yeah but he's not actually no Bester isn't exactly what he seems he's worse than what he seems we find out that he's worse but where I'm going folks I got you I got you I am with you I'm gonna keep this fool in line alright I got you this is where I'm going though ow that hurt yeah go ahead.

[48:28] Bester could not be any other way have you read have you read the first book of the psychor trilogy i'm halfway through it absolutely the way he was raised he could not turn out any other way yeah absolutely not it is a miracle that jms turned out different from the way he did yeah given how he was raised and that said oh god i'm gonna say this because byron was raised that way and he saw it differently byron was the jms of the psychops except byron did bad stuff for quite a long time james didn't yeah byron took no see what byron did was he took all of that and and again because because he said you don't do to people what they have done to you you do to people what you want them to do to you and byron went in and he started doing to folks what had been done to him um by the way i just wanted to let you know fabio uh this one is for you my friend purple green.

[49:19] Go ahead. I'm right on that. Did you find any other messages in that game up? No, because I was so enthralled with all the other stuff that we were talking about. I know. Jeff, this episode is now up to two hours on our recording length. I don't know what this is going to be when we edit it down. But we're up to two hours on a recording length. Typically, this whole thing front to back is an hour and a half.

[49:39] You and I stopped a lot to talk about a lot in this episode because we were finding so much, which is what makes Babylon 5 for the second time so special. And so good and and exactly the way we knew this would be because we could we we you could just take what we talked about and turn all of those into individual podcast episodes it'll go 30 45 minutes oh totally well i just think i mean we already wrapped this part up but i just got to go there's so much foreshadowing in this we laid out the first one stuff we let the psych course stuff i don't know that deconstruction of falling stars was ever a part of the plan right you know for the arc or whatever was kind of got to fill it in but just planted the seeds for the end of that you know with uh with the sun getting blowed up and humanity becoming or whatever like again to check myself but they're hanging out with the council chambers a couple days ago i was like yeah this episode happened and nothing and it mattered no actually everything a hundred percent of stuff that happened in this episode totally matters well jeff with that we're doing something my friend what are we doing we are creating the absolute 100 and completely accurate and definitive ranking of babylon 5 season 1 for the second time so far we're pretty in line with our first rankings will that.

[50:56] Continue will it not i don't know our top five because we only have five episodes in the season so far number one parliament of dreams number two born to the purple number three midnight on the fire line four infection five soul hunter jeff where is mine war going to find itself in the top five because i know it's going to be in the top five it is uh spoiler soul hunter will no longer be in the top five.

[51:16] Uh infection well i'm in a very big way in a lot of the same places i was the first time i watched this where like so much awesome stuff was laid out and whatever also there's a lot of poor execution in this there's some pretty ridiculous acting the effects left a lot to be desired um i think they were more interested in like planting the seeds and giving you exposition about psychore and stuff than they were about like the story in the episode and that's awesome that's great but it doesn't make for a really entertaining episode but ultimately uh i'm doing the mental math right now and i'm asking myself.

[51:53] The question that we always ask it's the final like litmus test which would i rather watch and so between infection and mind war the answer brent is mind war which is going to be our new number four wow okay actually that's not surprising at all that's that's exactly where i thought you were gonna go cool yeah there's other firing line born of the those are just great episodes well jeff that's going to do it for mind war next week we are.

[52:22] Watching the war prayer which you and i had a big a big to do last time about mind war war prayer what is this right um do you remember what your prediction was for war prayer last time we we went through this i think my exact thing i said was you know it's been a little bit and it's been building up it's it's time that this thing turns into something we're going to get this start of like a narn centauri war probably over in the euphrates sector because we've been talking about that for a while so i was pretty sure this was going to be the start of that war what did you think it was going to be about i said this was going to be a direct sequel to mind war just because they both had war in the name um but here i i laughed when i heard what i said i said we've got to follow up immediately what happens with talia there's no way they're going to let that drop or even or even sit for a bunch of episodes or a whole season or so so the next time we really come back to this whole moving the penny thing the next time i can think about it is when you get all those runaway blips like the underground railroad episode you get the mary has a little lamb oh it was high off on that one oh man i'm excited to see i've i've i remember parts of the.

[53:31] Episode and i remember this was a this is a big moment for us i think uh i think it was katerina who reminded us of this or someone recently that like like.

[53:39] The episode itself and then the fact that we saw dc fontana wrote it like this was the moment we got pulled into babylon five was this moment here oh the next episode because dc fontana wrote it yeah it certainly was the moment that i'm going to use a word that jms if you're watching i'm i'm.

[53:58] Very much apologize for using this word. I just don't have a better word right now off the top of my head. Having DC Fontana as a writer, for me as a Trekkie, who frankly had never heard of the name J. Michael Straczynski before. I just didn't, I didn't hear about it before the show.

[54:12] I'm sad that that's the case. And I'm obsessed with going back through all of his stuff right now. Seeing DC Fontana pop up for the first time legitimized this show to me. And that's, I feel so bad saying that, but it did like the show wasn't legitimate until she came over from Star Trek because she's Star Trek. Like that sounds so right now, like, but that was, that was, I think my true God's honest first reaction coming over the way that I came over, man. Well, we'll find out why we felt that way next week, right here when we watch it for the second time. Thanks for joining us. Please subscribe wherever you're watching us or listening to us. Give us a like, give us a rating, all the cool things that you can do on whatever app you are consuming this program on. The one thing you can do for us, though, that means the absolute world is to share this show with anybody, anybody who's going to love it, whether they've seen Babylon five before or not. Just let them know that there's two dudes watching this thing and gushing over it all the time. So until next time, I'm going to go. Hey, Jeff. Yes. What's up? hey got a joke for you okay what did the carnival cruise line first ones say to katherine when she asked about is there anything if there was anything interesting there on the planet.

[55:32] I have no idea what did they say zog oh for crying out loud.

[55:39] Music.