lurkers-guide/guide/099

<!-- TITLE Phoenix Rising -->

<h2><a name="OV">Overview</a></h2>

<blockquote><cite>
The telepath situation becomes critical and Bester attempts to take control,
triggering a strong reaction by Garibaldi.
</cite>

<a href="http://us.imdb.com/Name?Downes,+Robin+Atkin">Robin Atkin Downes</a> as Byron.
<a href="http://us.imdb.com/M/person-exact?+Koenig,+Walter">Walter Koenig</a> as Bester.
Leigh J. McCloskey as Thomas.
</blockquote>

<pre><a href="/lurk/p5/intro.html">P5 Rating</a>: <a href="/lurk/p5/099">8.25</a>

Production number: 512
Original air date: April 1, 1998
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00019071C/thelurkersguidet">DVD release date</a>: April 13, 2004

Written by J. Michael Straczynski
Directed by David Eagle
</pre>

<p>
<hr size=3>

<h2><a name="BP">Plot Points</a></h2>
<ul>

   <li>@@@891500932 Byron grew up in the Corps.  He was rated a strong P12,
	so was inducted into the Psi Cops and served as Bester's protege.
	During one mission, Bester ordered Byron to destroy an unarmed ship
	full of mundanes who were helping smuggle telepaths out of Psi Corps'
	reach.  Byron followed the order reluctantly, but shortly thereafter
	fled the Corps, convinced that telepaths could build a society based
	on nobler principles than violence.

   <li>@@@891500932 To avoid being taken by the Psi Corps, Byron and the
	militant faction of the telepath colonists have killed themselves.
	The other members of Byron's group have been allowed to go free,
	despite Bester's objections.

   <li>@@@891500932 The Psi Corps headquarters on Earth has been bombed.
	The bombers haven't been found, but they did leave the message,
	"Remember Byron."

   <li>@@@891500932 During Garibaldi's conditioning, Bester implanted a
	modified version of one of Asimov's Laws of Robotics: Garibaldi is
	incapable of harming Bester, or through inaction, allowing Bester
	to come to harm.  (See
	<a href="#NO.asimov">Notes.</a>)
	As far as Garibaldi knows, the prohibition doesn't apply to all
	telepaths, just Bester.  His inability to exact revenge has driven
	Garibaldi back to drinking (but see
	<a href="#AN.drinking">Analysis.</a>)

   <li>@@@891500932 Lyta's powers include sending her senses far away from her
	body, scouting ahead for danger.  Bester is able to project himself
	into someone's mind from a distance, similar to Byron's projection to
	Lochley in
	<a href="089.html">"No Compromises."</a>

</ul>

<h2><a name="UQ">Unanswered Questions</a></h2>
<ul>

   <li>@@@891500932 What involvement will Lyta have with the telepaths
	now that Byron is gone?  Will she take his place?

   <li>@@@891544383 Do the telepaths still hold all the alien ambassadors'
	secrets?  Will they be hunted by the alien races?  For that matter,
	will the Corps actively pursue them once they're offstation?

   <li>@@@891500932 Who bombed the Psi Corps headquarters?  Garibaldi didn't
	appear surprised by the news; was he involved somehow?

</ul>

<h2><a name="AN">Analysis</a></h2>
<ul>

   <li>@@@891500932 The militant telepaths made poor use of their talents in
	combat.  They appeared to rely on verbal communication.  Granted, none
	of them had military training (or at least, it wasn't stated) but for
	a group whose stated purpose was being able to make free, unrestrained
	use of their telepathic abilities, it's odd that they didn't do so
	when it would have been of some tactical advantage.

<p>
   <li>@@@891544985 Were all the militant telepaths really killed?  Sheridan
	had only Byron's statement that the identicards and confessions 
	represented all the militants.  Byron didn't have any reason to want
	to lie, but was he able to extract confessions from all the parties
	responsible for the violence?  All the confessions and cards were
	probably those of violent telepaths, but Sheridan had no way of knowing
	that it was a complete set, despite Byron's promise that Sheridan would
	have everything he needed to be sure.

<p>
   <li>@@@891544383 Bester had more than one reason for wanting to take the
	telepaths alive.  Had he gained custody over them, he might well have
	been able to extract whatever information they gained from the alien
	ambassadors.  He would also have discovered the information Lyta
	broadcast to the group while making love to Byron in
	<a href="095.html">"Secrets of the Soul."</a>
	Of course, he might already know all about the Vorlons' actions by
	other means, such as the Corps' previous association with the Shadows.

<p>
   <li>@@@891546144 The theme of suicide as redemption for past sins has
	appeared before, most notably in
	<a href="048.html">"Passing Through Gethsemane,"</a>
	in which Brother Edward allowed himself to be killed to atone for his
	murderous past.  Byron's self-immolation had a different twist, though:
	after he killed Thomas, he may have come to believe that the noble
	lifestyle he wanted was an impossible dream.  Edward, though no
	choice of his own, had given up his past tendencies but
	still came to believe he needed to die to atone for them.

	<p>
	Byron's personality shift after being asked to fire on an innocent
	vessel also echoes David McIntyre's transformation into Arthur in
	<a href="057.html">"A Late Delivery from Avalon."</a>

<p>
   <li>@@@891545739 Byron's experience with Bester echoed Lyta's experience
	with the Psi Cops: she was made to do something traumatic (in her
	case, helping to plant images in a murderer's mind to drive him
	insane, as she described in
	<a href="083.html">"The Face of the Enemy"</a>)
	and decided that she had to leave the Psi Cops.  She left by
	transferring to another division of the Corps rather than running
	away entirely, but the similarity of experience begs the question of
	how many <em>other</em> former employees of the Psi Cops have left
	under similar circumstances.

<p>
   <li>@@@891544383 Why didn't Lyta already know Byron's secret?  If Talia's
	description is to be believed
	(<a href="006.html">"Mind War"</a>)
	lovemaking between telepaths involves dropping all defenses and diving
	deeper and deeper into each other's minds.  Given how central Byron's
	experiences in the Corps were to his personality, and that, by his own
	admission, he hadn't hidden his past from other members of the group,
	why wouldn't Lyta have come across his memories while they were
	together?

	<p>
	It's possible that Lyta was so much more powerful than Byron that her
	memories drowned his out; she did warn him that the experience might
	be overwhelming.

<p>
   <li>@@@891500932 If Lyta does take Byron's place and become a champion
	of rogue telepaths, she may be vulnerable to blackmail by Bester.  In
	<a href="073.html">"Epiphanies,"</a>
	he claimed to know secrets about her that she wouldn't want revealed.
	Whatever those secrets are, they may still hold some sway over her.

	<p>
	On the other hand, Lyta implied she'd received secrets from Byron, so
	she may be able to counter-blackmail Bester just as easily.

<p>
   <li>@@@891544985 Bester claimed that all races dealt with telepaths
	through laws, religion, or extermination.  That contradicts Garibaldi's
	assertion in
	<a href="091.html">"The Paragon of Animals"</a>
	that Centauri telepaths "can do whatever they want."  The Minbari
	treatment of telepaths
	(<a href="017.html">"Legacies"</a>)
	might arguably be religious, but it's really more cultural: telepaths
	are treated with respect and are expected to devote themselves to
	serving others.  It's unclear how other races treat their telepaths,
	though, so Bester might be right in most cases.

<p>
   <li>@@@891545421 What does the departure of the telepath colony do to
	Garibaldi's plan to use some of its members as Alliance spies
	(<a href="091.html">"The Paragon of Animals?"</a>)
	They only helped Garibaldi at Byron's behest, and with Byron gone,
	it's not clear they'll feel any obligation to make good on the promise.
	If Garibaldi does lose his telepathic spies, the whole exercise was
	largely a waste of his time; the only piece of information he's
	received from the telepaths was the warning about the Drazi fleet in
	<a href="091.html">"Paragon,"</a>
	and that happened before he started spending time training operatives.

	<p>
	It's possible, in fact, that Garibaldi's training sessions will end
	up working against him: if his two trainees were among the telepaths
	who left the station, and they're working on their own now, their
	training makes them more dangerous to everyone involved.

<p>
   <li>@@@891500932 Does Garibaldi's conditioning prevent him from revealing
	its presence to people who might be in a position to either remove
	it or take revenge on Bester for him?  He appeared to be having some
	difficulty asking Franklin about circumventing it.  Could he, for
	example, tell Lise about it?  If not, how will he explain his return
	to the bottle?

<p>
   <li>@@@891536018 <a name="AN.drinking">Garibaldi's return to the bottle</a>
	might not be quite what it seems.  It's possible that "alcohol" is the
	answer to his question, "Are there any drugs that can suppress a
	telepathic block?"  In that case, Garibaldi faces a choice between
	confronting his alcoholism once again and being powerless to take
	revenge on Bester.

	<p>
	Using alcohol to nullify mind control has precedent: Londo used it to
	evade his Keeper in
	<a href="061.html">"War Without End part 2,"</a>
	and the Regent, also Keeper-encumbered, was said to have taken up
	drinking in
	<a href="097.html">"In the Kingdom of the Blind."</a>
	Alcohol only puts the Keepers to sleep, though; it doesn't actually
	stop them from taking control while they're awake.  So the precedent
	is an imprecise one at best.

<p>
   <li>@@@891709896 While he was describing Asimov's Laws to Garibaldi, Bester
	said that "pre-ban cyberneticists" on Earth had built them into their
	machines.  That implies that at one time, Earth had intelligent robots
	or machines of some kind, but later decided to put an end to them.
	Why?  Was there a problem with the machines?  What happened, and when?

</ul>

<h2><a name="NO">Notes</a></h2>
<ul>

<p>
   <li>@@@891500932 The hostage scene was foreshadowed in
	<a href="088.html">"The Deconstruction of Falling Stars,"</a>
	but it wasn't previously clear who was shot.

<p>
   <li>@@@891501107 Byron's song was the same one sung by the telepaths in
	<a href="094.html">"Strange Relations."</a>

<p>
   <li>@@@891536018 <a name="NO.asimov">Asimov's Laws of Robotics are:</a>
	<ol>
	   <li> A robot may not injure a human being, or, through inaction,
		allow a human being to come to harm.

	   <li> A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except
		where such orders would conflict with the First Law.

	   <li> A robot must protect its own existence as long as such
		protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.
	</ol>

	<p>@@@891715464 
	Garibaldi's programming only includes the first law, not the first two
	as Bester claimed (though arguably Bester was referring to the two
	rules contained in the first law.)

	<p>
	It's also possible Bester implanted the second law but didn't
	quote it to Garibaldi.  In that case Garibaldi would have to follow
	Bester's orders.  There's a slight hint of that possibility in Bester's
	mocking request that Garibaldi turn out the lights when he leave (though
	that could just as easily be simple baiting.)

<p>
   <li>@@@891544383 The phoenix of the title probably refers to the birth
	of a new telepath movement following Byron's death by fire.

</ul>

<h2><a name="JS">jms speaks</a></h2>
<ul>

   <li>@@@902864748 <em>How would the Byron story have been different if
	Claudia Christian hadn't left?</em><br>
	It's no secret that I would've had Ivanova becoming somewhat
	linked to Byron romantically (she would see him as a character like
	Marcus, which is why there are certain similarities, and she would take
	a chance only to find it wrong this time, underlining that she'd missed
	her one major opportunity thus far for a good relationship).  This was
	expressed to Claudia toward the last part of S4, so she knew at that
	time that her latent ability would be coming out, and that she'd have a
	big part in S5.

	<p>
	In this scenario, Lyta would have become a devoted follower of
	Byron's, much as she has, but it would have been more love from afar:
	protective, somewhat unrequited but hoping for more...so that when he
	met his fate, Lyta would end up right where she is now, just by a
	different road.

</ul>