Yora reviews Babylon 5

[Rodin]

We don't really get to see the interior of Vorlon ships, but Kosh's ship is quite big compared to a lot of other transports, and we were explicitly told that it also had only 1 life form on the entire ship when it departed and was scanned.

Well...

Spoiler: Season 2 spoiler

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That's because scanning the ship picks up the ship. It's impossible to actually scan inside a Vorlon ship to pick up life forms.

It's implied that Kosh is typically alone on the ship, but he isn't piloting it. The ship is piloting itself and Kosh is just along for the ride.

Glad to see someone new picking up the show as well. It really is fantastic and I never feel it gets enough love. I'd be cautious around this thread because there's likely to be a lot of spoileriffic conversations going on.

[factotum]

Yeah, I agree with Rodin's spoiler.

[Olinser]

Yeah, I agree with Rodin's spoiler.

Yes, but that's the point. It doesn't need crew, 1 'individual' such as it is, is the entire ship. No crew, no pesky sensors/power/life support, the organic tech means the ship literally flys itself.

[Fyraltari]

Glad to see someone new picking up the show as well. It really is fantastic and I never feel it gets enough love. I'd be cautious around this thread because there's likely to be a lot of spoileriffic conversations going on.

Yeah, so far I try to mostly just read Yora’s review and I don’t click spoiler boxes. Though I remember somethings from season 2 (and a bit of exposure over the years):

Spoiler

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The minbari spared the humans because Sinclair has a piece of one of their holy man’s soul in him. Delenn will become half-human somehow. The vorlons are way more powerful than they let on and they look like what other species call gods or angels. They are at war with another super-species but eviiiiiil called the shadows (real original) but the vorlons recruited Jack the Ripper so they’re probably evil too. Londo is going to make some sort of deal with the shadows and feel like **** about it. And the human government is going to keep getting more totalitarian.

But since I don’t know how any of this end, I’d be grateful if you could put that in boxes when talking about it.

[Yora]

Good idea to put my foot down. Anything that in some way refers to something from future episode has to be in spoiler boxes from here on.

[Yora]

S1E5: The Parliament of Dreams

Since Babylon 5 is primarily a diplomatic station, it's religious events week. Sinclair and Garibaldi are not fans of it. The first event they have to attend to is a big Centauri feast to celebrate surviving a great war in their ancient history, where Londo unsurprisingly gets completely drunk, all in the spirit of the event. Ivanova seems to quite enjoy it, though.

G'Kar is getting a message from an old enemy who tells him that he is dying and should be dead by now. And he also used his entire wealth to hire an assassin to kill G'Kar. Which makes G'Kar very suspicious of his new assistant Na'Toth.

Sinclair sneaks away to greet a space prospector who just arrived and who seems to be an old ex-girlfriend he had a difficult past with. But he tells her he's not bothered that she's come to his station on business and they both seem to want to leave the troubles of their past behind them.

Na'Toth assures G'Kar that she's not there to kill him and thinks that there might not even be an assassin and his enemy just wanted to scare him. But when he wakes up the next morning there's a black flower on his bed. Na'Toth suggest to talk with Sinclair, but G'Kar thinks it would lead to questions about why someone wants him dead, and the the story of political backstabbing might damage his reputation with the other ambassadors. He tells Na'Toth to go searching for the assassin while he's going to see Don Mantis to hire a big burly bodyguard.

Delenn is greeting her new assistant Lennier who arrived at the station. He's a bit overwhelmed with his new position and someone like him got this assignment. Delenn tells him to not mention to anyone that she's a member of the Gray Council.

After the Minbari ceremony that greatly bores him, G'Kar goes finding his bodyguard who was supposed to protect him, but finds him dead in his own quarters with another black flower. He calls security and claims to never have met that guy before, which Garibaldi doesn't buy. Na'Toth brings G'Kar the Narn who delivered the message earlier and G'Kar talks to him in private. He claims that he had been send to deliver the message by Na'Toth's father.

Captain Sakai comes visiting to Sinclair's quarters with intentions to get back together with him, but he doesn't think that's a good idea, and she's not really sure about it either. He decides to not send her away but they get interrupted by a call from the command center. Sakai decides she better leave, but Sinclair tells her to stay.

G'Kar calls the homeworld to ask about the messenger and is told that the delivery has been delayed because the messenger died in a strange accident just before he was supposed to leave for Babylon 5. Unfortunately the fake messenger already made it inside his quarter and stuns him. He takes him to the industrial sections to torture him to death. Na'Toth searches for G'Kar in his quarters and finds some glass shards on the ground. She has little problems of finding them and tells the assassin that she's his backup. She goes to beat up G'Kar but the assassin doesn't buy it. But he doesn't have to because she managed to disable G'Kar's restrains, who gets up and knocks out the assassin.

When he wakes up he's at the departure area for passenger ships and G'Kar and Na'Toth tell him they had him sedated for three days and transferred a lot of money on his private account. Which the assassin's guild should have noticed by now.

Sinclair is taking Sakai to her ship and tells her he's waiting for her to be back next week.

--

I rate this episode as okay, but I have to say it's still quite boring. Some goofing around and we get introductions for Na'Toth, Lennnier, and Sakai, but there isn't any decent story there.

[factotum]

I always thought this episode was pretty OK, myself--it was nice to see G'Kar starting to get some meat on his character, if nothing else, and that continues in the next episode. In fact, of the five episodes starting with this one, I'd say only one (The War Prayer) is a bit of a clunker.

[Rodin]

I quite like this one personally. It's the first episode where we really start to get the cast together, and it has a lot of fun moments. It's a very quotable episode, with my favorite being the reaction to Londo passing out at the feast:

"Ah! He has become one with his inner self!"
"He's passed out."
"That too."

It's the first episode that truly feels like a Babylon 5 episode, instead of the larval state it was in for the pilot and first few episodes.

Spoiler: Season 2 stuff

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I'm quite sad that losing Sinclair also meant we lost Catherine Sakai. I quite like what little we see of her, and she would have been an interesting cast member to have around. She's also notable by being one of the only cast members to leave prematurely without an obvious replacement. The only other I can think of is Na'Toth.

[HandofShadows]

Spoiler: Real life stuff about an actor

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Sadly, the actor that played Sinclair, Michael O’Hare, developed a major mental health issue which led to him leaving the show. He stayed on the show for the full season because he felt that a large break in filming would destroy the series. A real professional. We didn't find this out until after his death in 2012.

[LibraryOgre]

Spoiler: Real life stuff about an actor

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Sadly, the actor that played Sinclair, Michael O’Hare, developed a major mental health issue which led to him leaving the show. He stayed on the show for the full season because he felt that a large break in filming would destroy the series. A real professional. We didn't find this out until after his death in 2012.

Spoiler: Actors interactions

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Somewhat related, Jerry Doyle, who played Garibaldi, really did not like Michael O'Hare; possibly a result of manifestations of his mental illness, he didn't like working with him, and that's part of why, in a later episode, the two characters never directly interact, despite being good friends in the show

[Rodin]

Spoiler: Actors interactions

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Somewhat related, Jerry Doyle, who played Garibaldi, really did not like Michael O'Hare; possibly a result of manifestations of his mental illness, he didn't like working with him, and that's part of why, in a later episode, the two characters never directly interact, despite being good friends in the show

Spoiler

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That's very interesting, I didn't know that. I always wondered why they had to be kept separate. All these years, and still I learn things!

[Thufir]

Spoiler: Season 2 stuff

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I'm quite sad that losing Sinclair also meant we lost Catherine Sakai. I quite like what little we see of her, and she would have been an interesting cast member to have around. She's also notable by being one of the only cast members to leave prematurely without an obvious replacement. The only other I can think of is Na'Toth.

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Catherine Sakai's replacement was Anna Sheridan - if Sinclair had stuck around, Catherine Sakai would have gone on a survey mission to Z'Ha'Dum and not come back, leading to the equivalent plot thread.
Na'Toth ultimately was kind of replaced by Ta'Lon, but they did go through a lot of the series with G'Kar just not having an assistant.

[Olinser]

Spoiler: Actors interactions

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Somewhat related, Jerry Doyle, who played Garibaldi, really did not like Michael O'Hare; possibly a result of manifestations of his mental illness, he didn't like working with him, and that's part of why, in a later episode, the two characters never directly interact, despite being good friends in the show

Actually Garibaldi had problems with multiple cast members.

Spoiler: Actors leaving

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He couldn't stand the actor who played Sinclair (by several accounts if the Sinclair actor hadn't quit the show it was highly likely that Garibaldi was going to be fired) and the actress that played Talia Winters was dating him at the start of the show, they got married during filming of Season 2, but by the end of the year the marriage went so sour that they got divorced and they couldn't work together, leading to her departure and replacement with Lyta Alexander.

[Droid Tony]

I rate this episode as okay, but I have to say it's still quite boring. Some goofing around and we get introductions for Na'Toth, Lennnier, and Sakai, but there isn't any decent story there.

This is yet another mostly filler epsiode: they need the Arc to last all season, but have to fill a 40 minute show....so they fill that spot up.

It's intresting to note, as a stand alone epsiode it's very boring. Even if your a fan of B5, this is not exactly an epsiode where you'd just watch it. But....when you bingle watch season 1, even say like four epsiodes a day, it does become 'ok' .

[Yora]

S1E6: Mind War

A group of Earth Alliance fighters is trying to stop a stolen frighter, which suddenly disappears into nothing. It then appears near Babylon 5 and asks for permission to dock.

Two PsiCorp officers also arrive at the station who don't even bother to speak when communicating with the customs officer, who doesn't seem to notice anything off.

Captain Sakai gets hired by a company to confirm reports about very valuable deposits of a mineral needed to build hyperspace jump gates. Before she can go, the company first has to clear it with the government that has a claim on the system.

The PsiCorp officers are brought to Sinclair's office, and he quickly realizing they are talking to him telepathically, which he doesn't find funny. Officer Bester tells Sinclair that they are here to hunt a very dangerous escaped telepath and they will have to talk with both Talia and Garibaldi.

The pilot from the stolen freighter is renting quarters on the station and seems to have some kind of headache attack that makes the whole room shake.

Bester tells Sinclair and Talia that the man they are hunting is Jason Ironheart, who was one of Talia's the instructors at PsiCorps. They claim he has very sensitive knowledge and is assumed to try selling it to hostile government. Talia says she hasn't seen him in years, but the officers do a deep mind scan of her anyway. Talia leaves and immediately runs into Ironheart.

G'Kar tells Sakai that he won't give her permission to go to the planet and scan it for commercial potential. He tells her its a very dangerous place and nobody should ever get close to it. She insist that she can get permission from someone else, and G'Kar is not going to stop her. But he warns her that with this situation, nobody is what they seem. Neither Londo, nor Delenn, nor Sinclair, and also not himself.

Ironheart explains to Talia that he was part of an experiment to upgrade telepaths, to give them an edge over the telepaths of the other species. It actually worked, and since he was already rated P10 to begin with it changed him very significantly. With his new powers he figured out that the real purpose of the experiments was to create people with true telekinetic powers and use them as unstoppable and untraceable assassins. He thinks that power is too dangerous and won't let PsiCorp get their hands on him to figure out what the drugs actually did to him. He has another attack and tells Talia to leave quickly, and the entire section has to be evacuated and sealed off.

Sakai leaves to explore the planet, so G'Kar calls the Narn military to tell them someone is snooping around there.

Bester tells Sinclair and Ivanova that Ironheart has turned into something superhuman and they have to capture him before he falls in the hands of a foreign government. As two P12 telepaths, he and his assistant should be able to defeat him.

Talia sneaks into the sealed off section and calls for Ironheart to let her through the telekinetic barrier he created. He warns her that PsiCorp has been working to quietly break out of all control the government has over them and they are getting very dangerous. She goes to Sinclair to ask him to help Ironheart escape.

Sakai sends a probe down to the planet which causes a space anomaly next to her ship through which a giant weird alien ship appears. As it disappears again in a flash, it drains almost all power from Sakai's ship, causing it to fall towards the planet.

Sinclair goes to talk with Ironheart who explains that PsiCorp is trying to take over the world. With his new psychic powers he learned that it is possible to transform matter and energy, which PsiCorps never should have access to. He destroyed the research data and killed the PsiCorp researcher to make sure they can not replicate the procedure. If Sinclair can help him get off the station he can complete his transformation and then will disappear forever. Sinclair calls Garibaldi to quietly clear a path for Ironnheart, but Bester runs into a security officer and immediately figures out where they can catch Ironheart. Ironheart is able to block Bester and Sinclair knocks him out, but the other PsiCorp officer tries to restrain him long enough to pull a gun, but he manages to complete disintegrate her with his powers first. They manage to get him to his ship and off the station, which soon after explodes and turns him into an energy being with the most cringy CGI. He says he is going to disappear but first puts something into Talia's mind.

Sakai is rescued by a Narn ship that was send by G'Kar to save her. When she's back to the station she goes to G'Kar to thank him. She asks him what that thing was she encountered and in one of the show's great monologs, G'Kar explains to her that there are very strange and ancient beings with powers far beyond the comprehension of people like them, and that the Narn have never been able to communicate with them. He thinks its best to just stay very clear of them and not accidentally get crushed in their path.

--

Oh, well. I guess this one is pretty okay. Probably a lot more interesting when watching it the first time when you don't know how much space magic and hyper advanced aliens there are on the show. Everything with Ironheart didn't feel terribly interesting to me, but both the introduction of Bester and the PsiCorp conspiracies, and Sakai's encounter with the ancient aliens are quite major plot development. And when you see it the first time, they both should be really quite fascinating.
In all the episodes the worldbuilding exposition snippets are very well done, but unfortunately the plots that are used to carry them don't hold up as good stories in their own right.

[Cikomyr]

S1E6: Mind War
Sakai is rescued by a Narn ship that was send by G'Kar to save her. When she's back to the station she goes to G'Kar to thank him. She asks him what that thing was she encountered and in one of the show's great monologs, G'Kar explains to her that there are very strange and ancient beings with powers far beyond the comprehension of people like them, and that the Narn have never been able to communicate with them. He thinks its best to just stay very clear of them and not accidentally get crushed in their path..

Spoiler: Season 4

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G'Kar's speech is great, but becomes sad when you realize that by the end of the 4th season, all of G'Kar's fears have become true.

These.. Mysteries of the galaxie, these ancient giants have left us for good.

[Olinser]

It's a serviceable episode that does some good world building, even if the Ironheart actor is a hideous overactor.

Also unfortunately some terribly unused foreshadowing.

Spoiler: Talia Winters

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The Psi Corps upgrades of both Ironheart and her husband, Ironheart's 'upgrade' of her, her later overpowering of Bester himself, why both Ironheart and her former husband were so interested in her, and the data crystal Kosh made with her and the cyborg, sadly all pretty much unused due to her leaving the show after being unable to work with Garibaldi anymore.

JMS had said that the intention was that the data crystal Kosh had made was a backup of Talia's real personality, and that when she came back that was going to serve as information on the inner workings of Psi Corps and the Vorlons, revealing that the Vorlons were the ones that were 'modifying' Psi Corps telepaths like Ironheart and Talia's husband, more information on exactly how the Vorlons and Shadows were BOTH manipulating humans, and that Talia was special and sought after by the Vorlons and Kosh was essentially protecting her from them.

Unfortunately that all fell by the wayside and they had to play catchup with Lyta.

[factotum]

G'kar's speech to Sakai at the end is fantastic, even if the road to get there was a bit bumpy.

Spoiler

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But yes, most of the main plot in this episode is wasted due to Andrea Thompson leaving the show--the superpowered telepath role had to be given to Lyta Alexander, and every other reference just ended up going nowhere.

[Droid Tony]

In all the episodes the worldbuilding exposition snippets are very well done, but unfortunately the plots that are used to carry them don't hold up as good stories in their own right.

This is an arc buliding epsiode that introduces us to a lot of things: telepaths, PsiCore, Ancient Aliens and such. Though the story does not really work.

The Sigma plot is made to introduce the First Ones, but it falls a bit flat. There is a bit too much talk about the ''something" strange and when we see it, it's just a couple seconds of CGI spam. It just does not invoke any sense of wonder or mystery.

It is nice to see the ''good guy" side of G'Kar and he says his iconic line "No one here is what they appear to be".

Carolyn...is just not a very interesting character. And it feels like way too much of a set up: Do people in the B5 verss REALLY just head off into far off unknown space with just crossed fingers ''nothing will happen''?

It is a bit interesting that we see a bit of a proto- Bester. He is not quite the The Guy we know and love here...but he is close. He feels like Psicop #2 here, not THE psicop guy. One wonders if that Lady Psicop was holding him back a bit? We never again see him with an ''equal" Psicop. The end...where the main characters force Bester to lie..is interesting. Bester never objects, so you wonder if he agrees....or maybe he just never tried such a lie. One does wonder IF he got away with the lie? Did the Psicop bosses fall for it? Did Bester get scanned? Maybe he got caught...but still got out of it somehow (most likely by taking care of psicop boss guy).?

One does wonder........IS Kosh on the station during Mindwar? It would seem not....

[factotum]

Carolyn...is just not a very interesting character.

We didn't get to see enough of her to make that assessment, IMHO. She only appears in 3 episodes in this season. If Michael O'Hare hadn't left I imagine she'd have got a larger role to play in season 2, but we'll never know for sure.

[Olinser]

This is an arc buliding epsiode that introduces us to a lot of things: telepaths, PsiCore, Ancient Aliens and such. Though the story does not really work.

The Sigma plot is made to introduce the First Ones, but it falls a bit flat. There is a bit too much talk about the ''something" strange and when we see it, it's just a couple seconds of CGI spam. It just does not invoke any sense of wonder or mystery.

It is nice to see the ''good guy" side of G'Kar and he says his iconic line "No one here is what they appear to be".

Carolyn...is just not a very interesting character. And it feels like way too much of a set up: Do people in the B5 verss REALLY just head off into far off unknown space with just crossed fingers ''nothing will happen''?

It is a bit interesting that we see a bit of a proto- Bester. He is not quite the The Guy we know and love here...but he is close. He feels like Psicop #2 here, not THE psicop guy. One wonders if that Lady Psicop was holding him back a bit? We never again see him with an ''equal" Psicop. The end...where the main characters force Bester to lie..is interesting. Bester never objects, so you wonder if he agrees....or maybe he just never tried such a lie. One does wonder IF he got away with the lie? Did the Psicop bosses fall for it? Did Bester get scanned? Maybe he got caught...but still got out of it somehow (most likely by taking care of psicop boss guy).?

One does wonder........IS Kosh on the station during Mindwar? It would seem not....

When you say Carolyn I assume you mean Catherine Sakai? And yeah, she's a really bland character that has very little development and serves no purpose in the plot other than to just be Sinclair's Designated Love Interest. They were kind of trying to portray her as the Intrepid Independent Explorer, but she just departs for a planet that she was explicitly warned was dangerous with no real plan, no assistance, no backup. She just comes off like an impulsive idiot.

She was initially set UP to be

Spoiler: Future Season 2-3

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The reason that Sinclair would go to Z'Ha'Dum. She was supposed to go on a survey expedition of the planet, disappear, then reappear in Season 3 to lure him to Z'Ha'Dum.

PRESUMABLY she would have gotten a lot more character development in Season 2, but with the departure of the Sinclair actor, Catherine no longer had any point in the series so she just disappeared from the show with no comment, and her role in the plot was transferred to Anna Sheridan, who was just a huge DXM because she didn't even show up until it was time for Sheridan to go there.

Which honestly I think is a good thing. I was really unimpressed with the actress for Catherine Sekai, and her character was incredibly bland.

[Yora]

S1E7: The War Prayer

Delenn is visited by a Minbai musician who is passing through to a tour to Earth. When she leaves Delenn's quarters to go to her own, she's stabbed by a human and gets a symbol of a racist group burned on her face. Delenn is outraged and considers that a major diplomatic incident and an attack on Minbari culture. When G'Kar hears about it, he tells Sinclair to do something about it, because when Narn will be attacked they will not be waiting for security to find the attackers.

A human man arrives on the station and greets Ivanova, who isn't too happy to see him again but does her best to stay polite before she makes a quick exit.

Londo and Vir are called to Sinclair's office because two young Centauri have been arrested on a transport to the station for stealing from other passengers. Since one of them is Vir's cousin, Sinclair is handing them over to Londo until a punishment for them is decided. It turns out that the two fled from Centauri Prime because they want to marry but their families have already arrange other marriages for them. Londo thinks they are being silly and tries to explain to them the proud ancient traditions of Centauri customs, but they don't want to hear about it.

Garibaldi arrests a man who was found carrying a big knife by security, and who makes no attempts that he's all in support for the Home Guard group that is attacking aliens so they leave humans alone. But he turns out to have nothing to do with the attack. Garibaldi lets him go, but decides to keep tracking him because he's just the kind of guy who Home Guard is trying to recruit.

Sinclair is visiting Kosh to warn him about the attacks. Kosh thanks him, but says the Vorlons have no interest to get involved with the conflicts of others. Sinclair asks about a screen showing various images from Earth and Kosh says that he is studying. But when Sinclair asks what he is studying, Kosh falls strangely silent.

Ivanova's acquaintance keeps trying to have a conversation with her, but while she's never really shooting him down, she's clearly not comfortable to talk with him either.
When she goes to work she has a conversation with Sinclair, who has noticed that Kosh is always wearing his suit, so it should have been impossible to poison him. Ivanova thinks that perhaps the suit is more a disguise than actual environmental protection. Sinclair also thinks it's odd that the only two people who have seen into Kosh's suit were both transffered to Earth soon after.

Londo decides he has no time to deal with the two young Centauri and tells Vir to put them on the next transport to Centauri Prime. When he goes to get them, they are attacked by humans and Vir's cousin gets severely shot.

G'Kar is starting a riot about the humans not being able to protect the aliens on the station and Garibaldi takes him into custody. Meanwhile the men he had under observation gets attacked and beaten up by two Drazi who had heard him talking about his views.

Ivanova is going to a restaurant with her friend and starting to warm up to him, but called away to Sinclair's office to plan how to deal with the security situation.

While the man who was beaten up by the Drazi is in the hospital, he gets visited by Ivanova's friend who wants to recruit him for the Home Guard. Sinclair and Garibaldi think it's probably best to tell her immediately. Sinclair has a plan to use this as an opportunity to have Ivanova recommend him for the Home Guard so he can infiltrate them.

Vir goes to talk with Londo and tell him he is wrong about how he is treating the young Centauri. Londo had a lot to think about recently and tells Vir he regrets where his life has taken him, but Vir doesn't understand what his anecdotes mean.

Sinclair's plan works out as intended and Ivanova's friend wants to put him in contact with his bosses, but first they need some help from him. The next day Sinclair announces that the attackers have been identified and have already returned to Earth where they will be taken into custody. Their identities are also classified. Which none of the ambassadors buy.

Vir's cousin gets back on his feet and Londo tells the two that he has arranged for them to be hidden away at the estate of one of his cousins.

Sinclair and Ivanova are invited to meet the rest of the Home Guard group on the station and are told to come unarmed. The attackers come out of their hiding place wearing optical camouflage suits, which are protoypes they got from friends in the military research department. They put up a jammer that blocks the surveillance systems and Garibaldi orders his men to get their weapons and get ready to save Sinclair and Ivanova. They tell Sinclair that their next plan is to assassinate all four ambassadors of the other major powers, and they need him to get them into the diplomatic section and then off the station when they are done. But before that Sinclair needs to prove his loyalty by killing one of the minor ambassadors they have kidnapped.
One of the assassins detects security arriving and there is some fighting that ends with Ivanova arresting her friend.

--

Allright, this is better. Still not great, but pretty solid. Ivanova's friend looks creepy from the start, and even though I didn't remember the plot of this episode, it was immediately obvious that he's one of the villains.

A bigger issue is that the whole racist uprising doesn't really seem to make sense. The group is called Home Guard and apparently based on Earth. At this point this hasn't really been established yet, but from what I remember from the world as a whole, the various species don't usually mix. There isn't any migration of aliens to the worlds of other species. Babylon 5 is a complete exception, having been build deliberately to be a shared space. Now not everyone working on the station volunteered for it, and I guess there's a good number of people who got assigned there by the Earth military or various companies. But when you go to live on Babylon 5, you know exactly what you can expect of that place.
So why is there a very powerful and influential racist group who want to free Earth of alien influence. It just doesn't make any sense. I have a vague recollection of the Home Guard actually being orchestrated by a bigger conspiracy and not having come into existence by itself. But it still feels very flimsy. It seems like the show wanted to say something smart and important about racism but doesn't actually understand how real racism works. Which is kind of an issue with these early episodes in general. These social issues always seem very by the numbers and terribly forced, making them cringy to watch.
And speaking of cringy, Sinclair playing at being a blatant racist to fool Ivanova's friend is just really bad. Londo is not much better written, but his scenes have much better acting that manages to mostly sell it.

Garibaldi arresting a guy with a big knife reminded me of something I had forgotten to mention in the previous episode. Right at the start Garibaldi is arguing with a Drazi priest who failed to declare a big knife at customs. That's totally in Mass Effect 2! "You humans are all racist."

[Cikomyr]

Oh boy, Ivanova has the rottenest of luck in love.

Old flame arrives and want to reignite, just like Sakai/Sinclair? Turns out to be a xénophobe sociopath

Spoiler

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Starts having romantic relationship for Talia ? Turns into a Psi corps deep mole

Discovers Marcus has feelings for him? Turns into a dead body

[Daimbert]

A bigger issue is that the whole racist uprising doesn't really seem to make sense. The group is called Home Guard and apparently based on Earth. At this point this hasn't really been established yet, but from what I remember from the world as a whole, the various species don't usually mix. There isn't any migration of aliens to the worlds of other species. Babylon 5 is a complete exception, having been build deliberately to be a shared space. Now not everyone working on the station volunteered for it, and I guess there's a good number of people who got assigned there by the Earth military or various companies. But when you go to live on Babylon 5, you know exactly what you can expect of that place.
So why is there a very powerful and influential racist group who want to free Earth of alien influence. It just doesn't make any sense.

I'm not sure whether you're asking why the Home Guard is on Babylon 5 or why it exists, so I'll try to answer both.

The push was that there was at least a perception of greater alien influence in Earth's political affairs. Babylon 5 was a symbol of that because it was only built with the aid of the Minbari and they had a great influence over it and, as we'll see, its command staff. So Home Guard developed out of that fear, and a strike at Babylon 5 is very symbolic in opposing that alien influence. The conspirators mostly came from Earth, remember, and so weren't people who came to Babylon 5 knowing that they'd be living with aliens and accepted it. Moreover, the people on Babylon 5 were often people who came there to build the station and stayed on to work, or just came there to work, and so weren't as accepting of the aliens that they were suddenly thrust into close contact with (the guy with the knife is an example of that).

[factotum]

You have to think, though: whatever else they are, these Home Guard guys are *idiots*. Do they really think Earthforce are stupid enough to assign a human supremacist to command Babylon 5? I mean, the whole point they're targeting the station in the first place is because it's the most obvious symbol of alien interference in human affairs.

Oh, plus there's the whole "We'll just kill the ambassador of the alien species that kicked our butts seven ways from Sunday last time we got into a tangle with them"...

[Yora]

One thing I really liked in this episode and also a previous one is how Ivanova deals with people who want her do things for other departments. On Deep Space Nine, Kira sometimes had some administrative documents to work through, but was otherwise always available for anything Sisko wanted her to do, or someone needed help with.
Ivanova clearly has her own work, and while we don't see much of what exactly she is doing all the time, the show does a great job to get across that she's constantly directing a whole army of workers that requires her permanent attention and concentration.
It might change when she becomes more familar with Garibaldi over time, but you can really see the huge difference between them when he comes into the command center to talk about things he wants to coordinate with her.
And then Ivanova tells him politely but directly to get out of her hair.

Ivanova: "Why do you want me to do it, it should only take you a minute."
Garibaldi: "Yes, but I don't have a minute!"
Ivanova: "Neither do I, so do it yourself."

[Fyraltari]

Home Guard is hardly a surprising phenomenon considering the humans lost an important war in recent years. Especially since the Minbari stopped for no reason rather than conquer Earth ; this would help the rhetoric that the Minbari would have lost in the long run develop in a manner akin to the ‘knife in the back’ conspiracy theory that fueled the rise of nazism.

The lack of alien presence on Earth helps to distance them from the citizen making them seem both haughty and, well, alien this would allow any ambitious political group to use them as a boogeyman and a scapegoat for whatever issues are plaguing Earth in 2258. ‘If we’d kept fighting and taught these damn Minbari a lesson, we could have conquered their worlds and X wouldn’t be so prevalent’.

None of that makes sense but prejudice is by its very nature irrational, the perceived threat counts, not the real threat.

That said, it’s an interesting mark they chose to brand the Minbari poet with. Any word on why that symbol specifically?

[Cikomyr]

I really found funny the "we will kill the Minbari, Centauri, Narn and Vorlon Ambassadors"

My reply would be: "ok start with Vorlon"

[GrayDeath]

I really found funny the "we will kill the Minbari, Centauri, Narn and Vorlon Ambassadors"

My reply would be: "ok start with Vorlon"

A little later, and Sinclair or Sheridan might actually have SAID that too^^

[bguy]

A bigger issue is that the whole racist uprising doesn't really seem to make sense. The group is called Home Guard and apparently based on Earth. At this point this hasn't really been established yet, but from what I remember from the world as a whole, the various species don't usually mix. There isn't any migration of aliens to the worlds of other species. Babylon 5 is a complete exception, having been build deliberately to be a shared space. Now not everyone working on the station volunteered for it, and I guess there's a good number of people who got assigned there by the Earth military or various companies. But when you go to live on Babylon 5, you know exactly what you can expect of that place.
So why is there a very powerful and influential racist group who want to free Earth of alien influence. It just doesn't make any sense.

Spoiler

Show

The very next episode will have a character say, "Look at Earth: Alien civilization. Alien migration. Aliens buying up real estate by the square mile", so there does appear to be some alien migration to Earth happening. We'll also see a little later in the season that President Santiago is trying to enact legislation to allow for more trade and immigration (and is facing substantial opposition to these bills in the Senate), so alien immigration definitely appears to be a hot button issue in the Earth Alliance at this point in the story.