Babylon 5 Reviews H

Years ago I did what you might call “reviews” of Star Trek episodes. I mostly just briefly noted what progressive politics were involved and sometimes used that as an excuse to talk about similar situations in reality.

Last year I finally watched all five seasons of Babylon 5, another sci-fi show, one I had thought of watching once in a while stretching back a couple decades. It isn’t as political or as progressive as ST but there’s some good stuff there- in fact, on one issue, a progressive take on the working-class and/or labor movement, B5 is better than ST. Because there is so little progressive material, I’m going to do one post for every four episodes reviewed, and only mention the episodes that have some progressive political stuff. I might ignore some of the more minor and/or less unique stuff about conflict resolution because from what I remember, it’s very common in this series. Also, although less so than is the case with Star Trek, multiculturalism is a big part of Babylon Five and I will also only be commenting on that when it goes further than usual. There are issues raised about telepaths- I’m going to completely ignore stuff about telepaths when reviewing these episodes. I also will probably say nothing about the conflict with the evil race the Shadows- sure, I could say Trump is as evil as they are or compare them to Nazi Germany, but that’s kind of silly (I’m sure there is nothing political about the Shadows, they’re just evil, like the Borg or the Empire). And I might skip most of the stuff about the conflict between B5 and the Earth government- I don’t remember it involving stuff like a strong capitalist agenda or racism or something.

**Sesason 3 Episode 12 “Sic Transit Vir”** See this for a plot summary.

Although the details were a bit unclear, part of this episode is about a Centauri, Vir, operating something like an underground railroad for Narns. Apparently he gets them off the Centauri-occupied Narn Homeworld and sent to better places. Speaking of which, we get more details of what the occupation is like. It’s even more genocidal than we knew earlier. Entire villages are wiped out. In fact, what Vir did might be more comparable to what was done by some people who helped Jewish people survive the Holocaust. The widespread and extreme racism of the Centauris towards the Narn is also illustrated some more.

**Season 3 Episode 19 “Grey 17 is Missing”** See this for a plot summary.

There is one political thing. After Delenn, the minbari Ambassador to B5, agrees to lead the anti-Shadow force the Rangers, her rival in the minbari gov’t tells her he won’t accept that. He’s military and thinks his caste should lead the Rangers. He says that is the tradition on Minbar, but Delenn (a member of the religious caste) points out that he violated that tradition when he took her seat after she was expelled from the leadership (a leadership that is supposed to have three members from each of the three castes (religious, warrior, and worker)). I almost didn’t review this episode but in season 4 there are a few episodes about minbari politics. Also, the military leader says something interesting about Delenn. He says: “a religious zealot propelled by prophecy into a position of military and political power? Always a bad idea”

In general of course I agree with that. But in this fictional case, if she’s representative of the religious caste, it must be a pretty good religion- better than Christianity in general, for example. I am trying to remember some specifics but in general minbari society seems a lot better than many very religious societies in real life. Delenn has expressed no bigotry, has undergone a transformation to strengthen relations between the minbari and humans, ends up marrying a human, attended a Christian religious service, is a strong advocate for peace, etc. She IS religious enough that she might be close to a zealot, but I think she doesn’t go that far with her religious beliefs.

On a related note, I am a little disappointed that the religious and warrior castes each have 1/3 of the leadership. That’s a lot. The military shouldn’t have that much power especially since it’s formal and they can recruit allies from the other two castes to win votes on policy, etc. And even though I am sort of religious, I don’t like the idea of the officially religious sector of society having that much power either. On the other hand, the idea of the workers having 1/3 of state power is better than most societies in reality.

**Season 3, episode 21 “Shadow Dancing”** For a plot summary see this.

There is one thing that I think is worth mentioning even though it’s sort of been mentioned before. While in a very poor part of B5 a tourist says to her husband: “President Clark says that people like this are the result of social problems, not economic problems.” First it confirms that Clark is a class warrior. Also, I imagine that he meant “bad morality” when he said “social problems.”

**Season 3 Episode 22 “Z’ha’dum”** For a plot summary, see this.

As I explained above, I was pretty sure there was nothing about the conflict with the Shadows that was political enough for me to mention. This episode is probably the only exception. (Part of why I say the Shadows are non-political is that they appear to be: without the societal divisions we see in reality; without ANY tradition of (or struggle for) democracy; without any recognizable capitalist or socialist tendencies; without any bigotry similar to what we have in reality; without any dissidents; and perhaps without imperialism as we know it in reality)

Sheridan travels to the Shadow Homeworld and listens to their human allies explain the philosophy of the Shadows. Here are some of their statements:

“[they] believe that strength only comes from conflict.”

“you bring two sides together, they fight. A lot of them die. But those who survive are stronger, smarter, and better.”

In response to Sheridan mentioning the destruction of entire races, one says “a few get lost along the way.”

They say similar things about the history of humanity, and attribute early space exploration and the development of atomic fission to war. They also say that Sheridan’s coalition building with the other races is getting in the way of their plans.

It’s incredibly darwinian, genocidal and fascist. Although war can encourage experimentation and invention, A) at least one thing developed in that context (splitting the atom) shouldn’t have been pursued and B) I’m certain that humanity could have invented the rocket without the help of Nazi Germany and could have pursued space exploration without the the Cold War. Although I wouldn’t expect this transformation to happen overnight or anytime soon, if we took all the money spent on “Defense” and invested it in research for things like medicine, we could save a lot of lives and improve a lot of lives.