"Babylon Squared" discussion [spoilers]

[ruuger]

This is the discussion post for the episodes 1X20, "Babylon Squared". Spoilers for the whole of the series, including the spin-offs and tie-ins, are allowed here so newbies beware.

Summary:

Babylon 4 reappears.

Extra reading:

The article for "Babylon Squared" at Lurker's Guide.

Comments

[vjs2259.livejournal.com]

Love this episode, love the Grey Council, love time travel, love Zathras the first Ranger.

[kitoky.livejournal.com]

Love the story time warp plot that's going to fuck my brain up again come WWE I & II.

Let's do the Time Warp Again

[selenak.livejournal.com]

Back when news got out that Sinclair would be replaced as lead by a new character in the s1 hiatus, my first thought was "damm, now we'll never find out what Babylon Squared was all about!" It was definitely one of the s1 seasons that most impressed me and had me hooked. Rewatching it is impossible without keeping War without End in mind, so I won't even try. So, observations:

1) The opening sequence with Sinclair and Garibaldi pranking Ivanova and later the fasten/zip conversation between Garibaldi and Sinclair reminded me again of one of the key differences in senior command staff dynamics from the first season compared to the later ones. In s1, Ivanova is very much the junior member, both in the sense that it's noticable she's younger than Sinclair and Garibaldi (who tend to treat her like a younger sister they're very fond of), and in the sense that Garibaldi and Sinclair are closer friends than either Sinclair and Ivanova, or Garibaldi and Ivanova. Meanwhile, Sheridan and Ivanova knew each other pre-B5, so from s2 onwards, Ivanova is the one closer to the captain, and Garibaldi is the one a bit on the outside at first. And while Garibaldi and Sheridan do become friends, they never share the easy intimacy Garibaldi and Sinclair do, which is why the big "Judas" comparisons later in s4 don't have the wished for emotional resonance for me.

2) War without End does a great job of retconning and papering over the problem the change of lead leaves, but at two points it's really noticable: Sinclair and "the One" in the suit touching, since if this is Delenn (who has already swapped with Sheridan) it makes no sense, and Babylon Squared obviously is going for a "the same person from different time periods" effect here; and Sinclair's flash forward to Garibaldi fighting off unnamed invaders, which is something that never happens. (Yes, you can declare it never happened because Sinclair prevented Garibaldi from returning to B4 in War without End, but every other flash forward on that station does happen. So it glares.) There is also the blooper of Delenn's sleeve at the end scene not matching what she's wearing in War without End, but that's just a production screw-up. *g*

3) Otoh, what was clearly already planned is Delenn's transformation (hence us not seeing her face when older Sinclair takes off his helmet, and she talks to him); one of the great things about Babylon Squared is that when you first watch it you think the Delenn subplot is not connected to the Babylon 4 main plot, when in fact it is.

4) The Minbari are at their most (Tolkien) Elves in Space here, with JMS making it really evident where he got his inspiration from. It occurs to me that this is already where Delenn refuses to diminish and go into the West, and chooses a mortal life, to quote Galadriel and Arwen. More seriously, Delenn not accepting the leadership position within the Grey Council but choosing to remain on B5 and fulfill that prophecy herself is typical for her mixture of altruism and ego. Though you can argue that she might also have in mind what happened the last time she was in a sort of leading position within the Grey Council. (To wit, a genocidal war.)

5) "Either way, is bad for Zathras." Tim Choate cracks me up.

6) "You've met this Sinclair character twice." This assertion that Sinclair and Garibaldi didn't really know each other very well - only from two meetings - pre B5 is something that regularly gets chucked out in fanon, and I must say it also goes against the impression given in canon in other episodes, where it's "old friend" all the way.

Re: Let's do the Time Warp Again

[vjs2259.livejournal.com]

It's just a step to the right...

1) Franklin also knows Sheridan from before, and becomes more part of the gang in S2. And I agree about Garibaldi; he never becomes tight with Sheridan and it's more sad than surprising at the end.
2)Both my husband and I initially thought the 'end of B5' flash was something that happened back on Mars, oddly enough. And so missed the connection with the message at the beginning of WWE.
That sleeve bugs the hell out of me. It's not even like something she ever wears!
3)I had even forgotten the Minbari subplot, much less how it tied in. This re-watching is fun.
4) I thought it was the Vorlons who let Dukhat, and then Delenn, know of the importance of the humans. Here it is Valen. Which begs the question of why kill them all if you know they're that important, or did this come up later? *is confused*
5) Zathras is wonderful. And the first Ranger. 'We live for the one...'
6) As to the two meetings and 'old friend'; he's known Sinclair two years plus two times, and Delenn's known him two years plus (at least) one time, and both use the 'old friend' construct. Maybe two years on B5 is like dog years; it feels like much longer. I think the 'only met him twice' makes Garibaldi seem more impulsive and desperate for approval/validation, which feels right. Plus of course, I was under the misapprehension he and Sinclair had been under fire on Mars and so their 'meeting' was more memorable.

Re: Let's do the Time Warp Again

[selenak.livejournal.com]

I thought it was the Vorlons who let Dukhat, and then Delenn, know of the importance of the humans. Here it is Valen. Which begs the question of why kill them all if you know they're that important, or did this come up later? *is confused*

*handwaves* Valen didn't name the humans by name but talked about them in general terms; it was the Vorlons who told Dukhat, then Delenn, that the people Valen had been talking about were the humans. Damm that Sinclair for being so cryptic!

I think the 'only met him twice' makes Garibaldi seem more impulsive and desperate for approval/validation, which feels right.

Hm, yes, and presumably Sinclair was the first one to believe in him after the disaster with Frank What's his name dying. Of course this now makes me curious about Sinclair's pov on this as well - if he only met Garibaldi twice, then the level of trust he has in him is really remarkable. And how does this square with Garibaldi knowing all about Catherine Sakai and her history with Sinclair when she first shows up early in s1?

Though I think you're right that two years on B5 are great for bonding and feel like dog years.*g*

Re: Let's do the Time Warp Again

[vjs2259.livejournal.com]

*hand waves back* Perhaps it was all hidden away in those musty dusty scrolls of Valen that they are always finding things in (like the video of Babylon 4 being stolen, and the evidence that Delenn is a child o'Valen...)

Maybe The Vorlons were deliberately cryptic and then got busy and forgot to intervene in the Earth-Minbari War until, whoops, they were almost out of humans. Then the Naranek brothers told D&D, which netted them Sinclair for testing. After the war, the Council had scores of Temple librarians go thru the scrolls to find Valen's hints at important ape descendants who would show up eventually. To shore up their story...this isn't working, is it? Sigh.

As for Catherine, Sinclair and Garibaldi meet once a week at Earhart's to hang out, and guys really, really do discuss these things. The trust thing is just Sinclair. He's like that with people; jumping to conclusions, going on gut instinct (I'm making all this up, you do realize that?) Although I think he does have good instincts actually. Two years is a long time, on an intense project like that. You could get pretty close.

[shapinglight]

I managed to watch this episode last night, and hope I can watch the remaining two of season 1 this week. I'd forgotten an awful lot about it, and about how it dovetails rather uneasily into the two parter from season 3 (the name of which I'd forgotten, so thanks to selenak for the reminder. I can see that the later episode does struggle to cope with Sinclair's change of role, though of course it helps that Zathras keeps insisting that Sinclair is 'not the one.'

The Minbari stuff I'd completely forgotten, but seeing it, I was impressed all over again by how well JMS set up Delenn's transformation right from the start of the season.

The whole B4 time travel thing does my head in (as time paradox stories usually do), but it's pretty well handled for all that. Also, the reappearance of Lise Hampton is welcome, because it shows once again that B5 doesn't really do throwaway characters.

As always, the interplay between the characters is a joy to behold.

[vjs2259.livejournal.com]

Oh, and I forgot. Love Sinclair talking to the pilots, and as you go down the line, half are women. Sheridan makes the same speech to the StarFury pilots (before the liberation of Proxima?), and again as Evil Sheridan in Deconstruction.

[4thofeleven.livejournal.com]

Babylon Squared is one of those arc-heavy episodes that’s really hard to discuss in hindsight – it really doesn’t have much standalone value independent of “War Without End”.

Taking the two stories as a single unit, JMS did an incredible job tying everything together, considering how much of the storyline had changed between the two episodes. There are some oddities – Sinclair’s flash-forward really doesn’t make any sense… apparently it was actually a vision of an alternate future timeline in which B4 didn’t go back in time but, somehow, he still ended up commander of B5. Alright, whatever, can’t fix everything perfectly. Hell, I’m going to go with vjs2259‘s idea, that it’s actually a flashback to some untold adventure of Jeff and Mike on Mars…

Babylon Squared was one of the first episodes that really hooked me on the series – it’s the first episode I saw where it was really clear that there was a bigger plot planned out (I think I missed “And The Sky Full of Stars” the first time around… assuming it even got shown in the first place. Channel Nine was… not good about consistently showing episodes) – so it’s got a lot of nostaligia value just for that. It’s a damn creepy episode even with full knowledge of what’s going on – by the end of the episode, Sinclair and Garibaldi haven’t really learned anything…

The Grey Council scenes are interesting, though there’s some odd elements. Delenn was to be the new leader? Well, I guess as Dukhat’s protégé it makes sense – still, she’s presumably the youngest person on the council… and the other councillors seem to shift very quickly from “You will be our supreme leader!” to “Your interpretation of everything is wrong and you’re an idiot to try and work with humans.” Can’t help but feel it’d work better if they just wanted her to return to full time Grey Counciling rather than wanting her as the new leader.

Minor notes:

- Does anyone zip then fasten? That’s just weird…

- Delenn’s strapped into her seat in her transport. Just a safety precaution, or do even the Minbari not have artificial gravity on their small ships?

- Intentional design decision or not, having the spacesuit so closely resemble the ones from 2001 really adds to the surreal feel of The One’s appearance.

- So, B5’s mainly blue – and C&C has a lot of blue lights. B4 was green and has sickly green lighting. B1, as seen briefly at the end of “In the Beginning” was red, and thus presumably had an evil red glow all through its interiors…

- It occurs to me that if Garibaldi was originally going to die in a last stand against invaders, as Sinclair’s flash-forward implies, then Ivanova screaming “You’re a dead man!” at him in the first scene could count as foreshadowing...

- So, why can the B4 personnel leave safely, but Zathras would die if he stayed in 2258? Just because he’s in his own past, while they’ve travelled forward to their future? I guess it makes sense that it’s easier to permanently move forwards than backwards, since that’s the direction we normally travel through time…

[vjs2259.livejournal.com]

Actually I think the flash forward was supposed to be the destruction of Babylon 5, where Sinclair and Delenn and baby David escaped at the last moment. From the original storyline. I think the shuttle the Centauri prophetess saw escaping the station's destruction was their shuttle too.

But I really like Jeff and Mike bonding over the Food Riots on Mars.

That's a good point about Zathras. I'm trying to work it out, but it's making my head ache. All good time travel stories do...

[4thofeleven.livejournal.com]

Oh, I realise what it's meant to be - but since that ended up not happening, and the explanation in War Without End doesn't make much sense (If they fail to send B4 back in time, there's no Valen, in which case Sinclair shouldn't have ever been commander, assuming B5 would exist in the first place...), I think an alternate explanation is needed.

[vjs2259.livejournal.com]

It's one of the challenges of writing AUs in this verse. Everything is so tightly wound that pulling one thread out tends to take you on a wild ride, especially if you're trying to pull it back together at the end.

Also do you think the problem with Zathras going back to 2258 would be that there would be two of him outside the time distortion? I don't think that applies to anyone else (Sinclair and his double are inside the distortion).
Except for Sheridan in WWE, who seemed to 'go' to the future where he already existed. You can use the 'Sheridan is a Nexus and a Special Case' out, of course. The one time I tried to explain it in a story, I invoked the 'Vorlon ex Machina' clause instead.

[4thofeleven.livejournal.com]

Well, Sheridan's time travel seems to be a closed loop, same as Valen - Delenn warns him not to go to Z'ha'dum, but he went there because he was warned not to go there by Delenn. I'd go with just it's a lot easier and safer to ensure closed loops remain stable than to cause changes - and Zathras leaving B4 in 2258 would be altering the timeline, not keeping it as it was.

(For that matter - Zathras could be involved in a closed loop himself. It could be the only reason anyone thinks he'd die if they left B4 ahead of schedule is because Sinclair heard Zathras say that here - and maybe he warned Zathras of that later, and Zathras had no reason to doubt the One...)

[widsidh.livejournal.com]

- Does anyone zip then fasten? That’s just weird…

Precisely - that is the level of conversation they have reached.
It's not only irrelevant, it doesn't even make sense any more.
For me this is the best illustration of the size of space that I have seen in SF (even though it is a relatively short trip, all things considered).

Alhough yesterday I started wondering why there wasn't a jumpgate in the immediate vicinity of B4, assuming it re-appeared in its original position (which "jms speaks" on the LG seems to confirm). After all the station was supposed to be fully functional.
Or maybe the gate was moved when B5 was built?

[beatrice_otter]

Gates are really expensive. It would make sense that if they could salvage the B4 gate, they would.

[devilc.livejournal.com]

This is one of my all time favorite episodes of anything.

I know a lot of people HATE timetravel, but I love it and this is a great example of it being done right.

[lazulidragon.livejournal.com]

And as usual, everyone else has said the important things already. Perhaps I should actually start watching these episodes on Sunday, instead of waiting around until Monday. Anyway.

Oh, Zathras! He's one of those characters, once you see him once, every subsequent appearance is an occasion to celebrate. Or maybe that's just me. His talk about warning everyone is interesting, and I assume means that, originally, Zathras himself was supposed to try and warn Sinclair and company before B5 blew up. I wonder how that would have played out?

I wonder what happened to all the people they rescued from B4? Obviously they've been presumed dead for the last several years. That probably makes it difficult to re-integrate into society. Still, I suppose it sucks less than being stuck a thousand years in the past.

The time travel thing worked out all right... personally my favorite way to handle time travel is a Many Worlds Theory sort of thing, but from a storytelling perspective, I can see why most people don't go that rout. The way this ends up, with Sinclair going back to complete the loop between him and the Minbari, I like. I'm not sure how I owuld have felt aobut the original plan.

[alexcat.livejournal.com]

When I first began watching B5 years ago, my friend who urged me to watch didn't tell me anything but that things got very interesting at the end of Season 1. This epeisode blew me away. I knew that it was all important but at the time, had no idea why. Even with its time problems and the fact that Sinclair left the show, this one still makes me shiver in places, in realtion to the arc.

Zathras and his 'Not the one' had me reciting the Ranger code. Zathras was wonderful. He got all the best lines, Londo and G'kar not withstanding.

This is probably my favorite episode in Season 1.

[widsidh.livejournal.com]

I've only just got round to watching this.
Not much to add, though.
Paired with War Without End, I think this si my favourite, too.
I saw WWE first, and actually had to draw the timelines on a piece of paper to get my head round it :-)

As for the little things
I have always loved the breakfast scene - I thoroughly agree with Ivanova about mornings! it only occurred to me yesterday, that this was also about time, and time not quite being what it seems.
Not a true foreshadowing of course, but maybe a little nod and wink towards the subject of the episode...

And yes, I too started receiting the Ranger Code...

[imhilien.livejournal.com]

I'm a bit late to the discussion so I can't really add much.

- One of my favourite S1 episodes.

- Even though the zip/fasten conversation was odd, it did illustrate how it can take a while at times to travel through space in B5, and what people will do to try and fill the time. No handy transporters here.