Season One began with
"Midnight on the Firing Line,"
about 6 months later.
Lt. Cmdr Susan Ivanova replaced Lt. Cmdr. Takashima as second-in-command;
her dislike of the Psi Corps became evident when Talia Winters arrived.
A Centauri agricultural outpost was attacked without provocation by the Narns.
(In broad strokes, this episode portrayed the Narns as the "bad guys"
and the Centauri as comic relief.) Luis Santiago was reelected
President of the Earth Alliance.
A "Soul Hunter,"
a member of an order which collects and preserves important
souls, found himself on the station, and attempted to collect Delenn's soul
prematurely. The Minbari, it was revealed, greatly value souls; they
prevented a soul hunter from taking the soul of their great leader Dukhat,
so that his soul would be reborn into the next generation. Delenn was
called Satai by the soul hunter, which prompted Sinclair to wonder if
something was going on, as Satai is the title used my members of the Grey
Council, the Minbari ruling body and highest religious authority.
In
"Mind War,"
two Psi Cops -- P12 level telepaths, including Bester
(played by Walter Koenig) -- came to the station in search of telepath
Jason Ironheart, who had achieved telekinetic abilities and was transforming
into something more than human. Ironheart warned Sinclair that the Psi Corps
is starting to pull the strings in the government back on Earth. When Bester's
partner was killed, Sinclair made a new enemy. Before departing, Ironheart
gave Talia a gift: telekinesis, and maybe other abilities as well.
"The War Prayer"
introduced members of the Homeguard, an anti-alien
organization back on Earth.
"And The Sky Full of Stars"
explored what happened to Sinclair on the
Battle of the Line, 10 years before in the Earth-Minbari War. Interrogated
and forced to relive the battle, we saw Sinclair ram a
Minbari Cruiser, only to wake up on board, interrogated by the Grey
Council. He recognizes Delenn as one of the Grey Council. After escaping
from his interrogators, he chose not to reveal to Delenn that he remembered
part of his missing 24 hours.
"Deathwalker"
was a notorious war criminal from the Dilgar War, fought by
Earth and others several decades earlier. She had a substance she claimed
granted immortality -- but only at the cost of another's life. The Vorlons
destroyed her ship to prevent Earth from gaining the secret of immortality.
"Survivors"
pulled Garibaldi back into his alcoholism amid accusations of
sabotage. The real culprit was the Homeguard.
"Signs and Portents"
deals with an attack by raiders on the station. The B-story, in which
Londo acquired the long-lost symbol of his empire, the Eye, was more
important. A mysterious, polite man named Morden inquired, "What do you
want?" of the alien ambassadors, and seemed to like Londo's response --
for the Centauri to reclaim their lost empire -- the
best. The Eye was captured by the raiders, who were destroyed by a
mysterious ship that appeared out of the shadows. Morden returned the Eye to
Londo, "from friends you don't know you have."
In the two-parter,
"A Voice in the Wilderness,"
it was discovered that the
planet below B5 is not as dead as was thought. The
Mars colony broke out in rebellion. A dying alien was found controlling
vast, tremendously powerful machinery on the planet below.
In "Babylon Squared,"
Babylon 4 -- the biggest of the Babylon stations, which
dissapeared 24 hours after coming online, suddenly reappeared.
Delenn was chosen by the Grey Council to be their new leader, but
declined because a Minbari prophecy told her that her destiny was on
Babylon 5. She left with a powerful device called a triluminary. On
Babylon 4, as time disturbances flashed back and forward to other times
(including a scene where
something was coming through the walls of the station, being fought off by
Garibaldi, as Sinclair was pushed into the crowds), the crew attempted to
evacuate the crew of B4. A mysterious alien, Zathras, appeared and told
of a great, terrible war, and the attempt to pull B4 through time to use it
as a base of operations. Zathras was looking for "The One" -- the great leader
of an effort to bring peace to the galaxy. Babylon 4 was evacuated, but
Zathras, trapped, was rescued by "The One" -- who turned out to be a much older
Sinclair, aided apparently by Delenn.
"The Quality of Mercy"
revealed a clinic run by Dr. Franklin in the
downbelow sections, as well as an alien healing machine that transfers
"life force" from one person to another.
"Chrysalis,"
the season one finale, referred to the cocoon that Delenn began
to build using a mysterious crystalline machine and the triluminary.
Garibaldi uncovered a plot to assassinate the Earth President, but was shot
in the back by his right-hand man, left for dead. Morden reappeared and
offered to take care of a problem for Londo, dealing with a region contested
with the Narns. Delenn spoke to Ambassador Kosh, who revealed something to
her that verified her interpretation of a prophecy. She confronted
Sinclair about his knowledge of his interrogation, but entered into her
cocoon before they could talk. Londo was horrified to find that a Narn
outpost was utterly destroyed by mysterious forces.
The president was assassinated, and the vice
president was sworn in immediately. G'Kar left to investigate the
destruction of the Narn base.
Season two
opened in
"Points of Departure"
with the reassignment of Sinclair
to ambassadorial duties on the Minbari homeworld and the assignment of
Captain John Sheridan to command Babylon 5. Sheridan's
connection to the Minbari War was revealed; he had one of the few victories
over a Minbari warship. Lennier revealed why the Minbari surrendered;
when Sinclair was captured, it was discovered that Minbari souls were being
reborn in humans. Because Minbari do not kill other Minbari, the religious
caste called off the war to stop harming their own souls.
In
"The Geometry of Shadows,"
Refa, a high-ranking Centauri noble, asked
Londo to pledge his help in seizing the throne at some point.
In
"A Distant Star,"
Lt. Keffer saw a Shadow ship in hyperspace and vowed to
find out what it was.
"A Spider in the Web"
revealed a mysterious "Bureau 13" operating out of the
San Diego wastelands. An assassin, controlled by the Bureau, attempted to
thwart a peaceful settlement of the situation on Mars. Scanning his mind,
Talia saw a Psi Cop present at the operation that programmed the assassin,
but she didn't tell anybody else. Sheridan's interest in conspiracy theories
was revealed as he attempted to solve the puzzle, and the existence of a
plant among the B5 crew, code-named Control, was hinted at.
In
"Soul Mates,"
Londo's three wives came to the
station; one, who knows G'Kar, tried to murder him. He divorced her and
one of the others. Talia's ex-husband, from an arranged marriage courtesy
of the Corps, tried to woo her back.
In
"A Race Through Dark Places,"
Bester returned to Babylon 5. He believed
an underground railroad was smuggling unregistered telepaths
outside of Psi-Corps' control. Talia was captured by the rogue
telepaths and told gruesome stories of the Corps' true nature: forced
breeding, murder, and coercion. She and the others tricked Bester into
thinking the railroad was stopped. Dr. Franklin was revealed as one of
the railroad's participants. Talia discovered another part of Ironheart's
"gift" -- she is apparently now immune to telepathic scans.
At Refa's behest, as the Centauri emperor lay dying, Londo asked Morden to
destroy a major Narn colony in
"The Coming of Shadows."
The Narns, believing
the Centauri military responsible, declared war. Sinclair sent a message to
Garibaldi via a network of "rangers," spies, a group he apparently heads.
In
"All Alone in the Night,"
Delenn was removed from the Grey Council, and
a member of the warrior caste replaced her. We learned that Sheridan had been
secretly evaluating the loyalty of the station's command staff, and is in
league with a group (headed by General Hague, a member of the Joint Chiefs
of Staff) out to expose what they believe is an attempt by the Psi-Corps and
others to control the government. Of special note is a densely-packed
dream sequence
in which Sheridan is visited by Ambassador Kosh.
President Clark's personal physician fled to the station in
"Hunter, Prey"
with files proving that Clark wasn't sick as he claimed when he left
Earth Force One just before it blew up and killed President Santiago. Sheridan
gave the files to a representative of General Hague. Kosh agreed to teach
Sheridan until he is ready "to fight legends" -- at which point it was implied
Kosh would reveal himself to Sheridan.
The Narn-Centauri war hit close to home during a reporter's visit to Babylon 5
in
"And Now For a Word"
-- the Centauri were using B5 as a transfer point
for military equipment, prompting a Narn attack. Back on Earth, the Clark
government formed the Ministry of Public Morale and the Office of Public
Information.
"In the Shadow of Z'ha'dum"
revealed Morden's secret to Sheridan: he was on
the vessel carrying Sheridan's wife, whose crew accidentally reawakened the
Shadows four years earlier. The Shadows, Sheridan learned, are an ancient
race, "old when even the ancients were young," defeated in the last Great
War 10,000 years ago by a coalition of other ancient races known as the First
Ones, of whom the Vorlons are the last remaining member. The Shadows,
Sheridan learned, won't
risk an all-out frontal assault as long as their existence is a secret.
Earth's
new Ministry of Peace sent a recruiter to Babylon 5 to enlist people in its
citizen-vigilance program, the Nightwatch.
The entire population of the Markab, a non-aligned race, was wiped out by a
virulent disease in
"Confessions and Lamentations."
Talia's
"Divided Loyalties"
were revealed when former station telepath Lyta
Alexander, now a member of an anti-Corps underground movement, visited the
station and discovered that Talia was a spy, probably Control. Talia's
personality was destroyed and she was shipped off the station. Ivanova
admitted the reason she's so reluctant to be scanned: she's a latent telepath.
The Narn-Centauri War came to an abrupt end in
"The Long, Twilight Struggle"
with the help of the Shadows, who eliminated the entire Narn fleet while
Centauri ships decimated the Narn homeworld from orbit. Sheridan granted
G'Kar asylum on Babylon 5. Draal, on the planet below the station, put the
great machine at Sheridan's disposal. Delenn introduced Sheridan to the
Rangers.
Earth signed a non-aggression pact with the Centauri in
"The Fall of Night."
Unfortunately, Sheridan's sheltering of a Narn warship brought the station
under Centauri attack, and Sheridan was forced to destroy a Centauri cruiser.
When two Centauri attempted to assassinate Sheridan, Kosh intervened, revealing
himself in the process: he appeared as an angelic being of light, a religious
figure from legend -- but a different figure to every race who saw
him. Keffer located a Shadow ship. It shot him out of space,
but his recording was broadcast on the news, making the Shadows known to all.
"Matters of Honor"
brought Marcus Cole, a Ranger, to the station; he led Sheridan and Delenn to
a new ship, the White Star, a combination of Minbari and Vorlon technology.
Pushing the White Star to its limits, Sheridan destroyed a Shadow cruiser.
Londo attempted to sever his ties with the Shadows. Morden met with a Psi
Cop, apparently far from the first such meeting.
The Centauri sent a replacement for G'Kar to the station in
"A Day in the Strife"
and threatened to persecute the families of G'Kar's supporters unless he
gave up his exile and faced trial. Meanwhile, Ta'Lon, a Narn whose life
Sheridan saved some months earlier
("All Alone in the Night")
pledged to act as Sheridan's bodyguard. Londo arranged to have Vir
sent off to Minbar as the new Centauri diplomatic liaison.
In
"Passing Through Gethsemane,"
Lyta Alexander, the station's first telepath and the person who unmasked
Talia's Bureau-13-implanted personality, returned from a stay on the Vorlon
homeworld to become Ambassador Kosh's attache. The Vorlons appear to have
modified her, possibly even enabling her to carry one of them inside her.
The conspiracy of light made its move against President Clark in
"Voices of Authority"
by releasing a recording of Morden and Clark planning
Santiago's assassination. Ivanova located another race of First Ones and
secured a promise of help in the fight against the Shadows.
G'Kar learned of Londo's involvement with the Shadows in
"Dust to Dust."
He was sentenced to prison for assaulting Londo, and was visited in a
dream by Kosh, who posed as the Narn deity G'Lan.
In
"Point of No Return,"
President Clark declared martial law on Babylon 5 after dissolving the Senate
back home. An attempt by the Nightwatch to take over the station was foiled,
barely, but Sheridan was forced to accept G'Kar's help and begin using Narn
as station security personnel.
Despite his temporary victory, Sheridan was soon forced to cut the station's
ties with Earth in
"Severed Dreams,"
following in the footsteps of several secessionist colony worlds after the
bombing of civilians on Mars.
Delenn, meanwhile, confronted the Grey Council about its unwillingness to
intervene in the spreading Shadow-initiated conflicts among the nonaligned
worlds; the confrontation led to the shattering of
the Council. A losing battle for control of the station was resolved only by
the arrival of Minbari cruisers under the command of Delenn and other former
Council members, who declared Babylon 5 under Minbari protection.
In
"Ceremonies of Light and Dark,"
Sheridan admitted his growing affection for Delenn. Londo threatened Refa
with death unless the Centauri broke off their relationship with Morden and
the Shadows.
Vir returned to the station after being demoted for running an underground
railroad for Narn refugees in
"Sic Transit Vir."
Realizing that the station would be better off with more protectors than just
the Minbari, Sheridan and Ivanova negotiated with several minor races to
supplement the station's defenses in
"A Late Delivery From Avalon."
Bester delivered a
"Ship of Tears"
to the station: a Shadow-bound cargo ship with hundreds of cybernetically
enhanced human telepaths. Telepaths, the crew soon discovered, can disrupt
the link between Shadow ships and their pilots.
Franklin resigned his post as chief medical officer in
"Interludes and Examinations."
Morden tricked Londo into vowing to crush Refa, and asking for Morden's help
to do it. Sheridan convinced Kosh to mount a Vorlon attack on a small
Shadow fleet. The Vorlons won the battle, but in retaliation, the Shadows
killed Kosh.
In
"War Without End,"
Ambassador Sinclair received a personally addressed letter from 900 years in
the past. The note brought him to Babylon 5, where he led Delenn, Sheridan,
and others in an expedition to pull Babylon 4 a thousand years into the
past, when history recorded its role in the defeat of the Shadows. Draal,
in the Great Machine, opened a time rift, and sent his aide Zathras with
time-travel equipment and the chrysalis machine Delenn would eventually
use to become
half-human. During the time shift, Sheridan was pulled forward seventeen
years to find himself in Londo's throne room on a ruined Centauri Prime.
The forces of light, with the help of Lyta and some Minbari telepaths,
emerged victorious from a direct confrontation with Shadow war cruisers in
"Walkabout."
A new Vorlon ambassador, also named Kosh, arrived on the station.
Shortly thereafter, in
"Grey 17 Is Missing,"
Sheridan and his allies began openly recruiting telepaths of all races for
use as soldiers against the Shadows.
Fearing a power struggle in the royal court, Londo had Refa eliminated in
"And the Rock Cried Out, No Hiding Place."
Meanwhile, Sheridan discovered the next likely target of the Shadows.
With the telepaths deployed among the races of the Army of Light, Sheridan
assembled a strike force in
"Shadow Dancing."
His first direct confrontation with the Shadows
was a success, if a costly one; the Shadows were beaten back. Franklin,
meanwhile, returned to his duties after a brush with death.
Their defeat prompted the Shadows to send an emissary to Sheridan, inviting
him to meet with them on their homeworld,
Z'ha'dum:
his wife Anna, presumed dead. There, they tried to convince him to stop
leading the Army of Light, and revealed their purpose: to encourage
accelerated evolution among the lesser races by provoking conflict and
weeding out the weak. Unconvinced, Sheridan fled his hosts and, leaping
into a gaping abyss, summoned the White Star to self-destruct over a
huge Shadow city in a huge thermonuclear blast.
G'Kar set out in search of Garibaldi, who was taken by a Shadow ship during
Sheridan's confrontation with the Shadows, in
"The Hour of the Wolf."
Londo took up a position in the royal court, but soon discovered that the
Emperor was insane and had made a deal with the Shadows in the belief that
they would elevate him to godhood. A rescue mission was mounted to Z'ha'dum,
but Sheridan was nowhere to be found. Somehow, though, he survived, and found
himself at the bottom of the chasm accompanied by an enigmatic alien.
The alien, Lorien, claimed to be the first of the First Ones, the reason the
Shadows always return to Z'ha'dum. G'Kar never found out
"Whatever Happened to Mr. Garibaldi,"
and was captured by the Centauri. Londo promised G'Kar the freedom of the
Narn homeworld if G'Kar would help him unseat Emperor Cartagia. Meanwhile,
back on Babylon 5, the League of Non-aligned Worlds splintered thanks to
Sheridan's disappearance, and Delenn summoned the Rangers to organize a
final strike on Z'ha'dum.
Garibaldi was recovered from a mysterious ship in
"The Summoning,"
while Ivanova and Marcus set out in search of more First Ones. What they
found instead was a vast Vorlon fleet on a mission to destroy any world
touched by the Shadows. Lyta turned against Kosh. Sheridan returned with
Lorien, just in time to thwart an attempt by the frightened Non-Aligned
Worlds to break up the Army of Light.
In
"Falling Toward Apotheosis,"
Londo learned of Cartagia's plan to allow the Vorlons to destroy Centauri
Prime, thus propelling him to godhood in a glorious explosion of fire.
Londo convinced Cartagia to first go to Narn and try G'Kar for crimes
against the Centauri; even so, Cartagia had a guard pluck out G'Kar's left
eye in a moment of pique. As the Vorlon fleet proceeded with its plan,
destroying world after world and sending refugees streaming to Babylon 5,
Sheridan and Lorien battled and killed Kosh. Delenn learned that Sheridan's
resurrection is only temporary; he has no more than twenty years left.
During
"The Long Night"
before the Army of Light's planned confrontation with the Vorlons, the
Shadows unleashed their own planet-killer, prompting Sheridan to lure them
into direct battle with the Vorlons to settle the conflict once and for all.
With G'Kar's help, Londo and Vir assassinated Cartagia; the royal court,
most unaware of the plot, elected Londo prime minister to quickly rid Centauri
Prime of Shadow influence and stave off the impending Vorlon attack. Londo
ordered the withdrawal of Centauri forces from Narn.
The Shadow War came to an abrupt end in
"Into the Fire."
Confronted by a united fleet of the younger races they were supposed to be
shepherding, the Vorlons and Shadows attempted
to force Sheridan to choose one of the two approaches to growth
and evolution. Sheridan rejected both choices; the younger races didn't need
shepherding any more, and would never again act as pawns. The Shadows and
Vorlons, convinced that their battle for philosophical dominance could no
longer continue, departed for the Rim, accompanied by Lorien and the last of
the remaining First Ones. Londo, meanwhile, destroyed the Shadow base on
Centauri Prime, earning a promise of retribution by the Shadows' allies.
Postwar euphoria was brief; with the departure of the Shadows, President
Clark turned his attention back to Babylon 5, launching a propaganda war
in lieu of a futile direct attack. In
"Epiphanies,"
Sheridan was alerted to the first phase of the war by psi-cop Bester, who
demanded to be taken to Z'ha'dum in exchange for the information. The crew
arrived in time to see the Shadows' dark servants escaping with unknown
quantities of Shadow technology, just before the sudden self-destruction of the
entire planet. Their first target: Centauri Prime, where they planted a Keeper
("War Without End, part 2")
on the body of the newly-appointed Regent. After receiving a mysterious
coded message, Garibaldi resigned his post.
Delenn returned to Minbar to begin
"Atonement"
for her cross-species relationship with Sheridan, strictly forbidden by
traditional Minbari beliefs about racial purity. Under the influence of a
mind probe, the first days of her membership on the Grey Council came to
light, including the fact that she ordered the start of the Earth-Minbari
War. More importantly, she discovered that she was a direct descendant of
Valen, and thus wasn't a racially pure Minbari to begin with -- and neither
were untold millions of other Minbari descended from Sinclair's children of a
thousand years ago.
Garibaldi, now operating as a private investigator, grew tired of the cult
of personality surrounding Sheridan. In
"Racing Mars,"
he agreed to help a group that claimed to be concerned about Sheridan's
personality becoming a danger to the cause.
Tensions on Minbar continued to rise. In
"Lines of Communication,"
the warrior caste began purging major cities of religious and worker caste
members. In response, Delenn was asked to enlist the aid of the Drakh, one
of the Shadow's servant races, now at large with looted Shadow technology.
No bargain was struck.
Garibaldi was offered a job on Mars, and Sheridan devised a plan to deploy the
White Star fleet as a police force to protect border areas from raiders and
the Drakh, in
"Conflicts of Interest."
Garibaldi's new employer, a medical-research magnate, came into possession of
a substance that allegedly cures a deadly genetic flaw in telepaths.
Delenn and a high-ranking warrior caste member, Neroon, tricked the warrior
caste's leader into bringing the civil war to an end in
"Moments of Transition,"
forming a new Grey Council under the majority control of the worker caste.
Meanwhile, Bester struck a deal with Lyta, giving her the appearance of
rejoining the Psi Corps. Earth forces attacked a convoy of unarmed refugee
ships, causing Sheridan to declare war.
Sheridan's forces liberated the colony at Proxima 3 in
"No Surrender, No Retreat."
Disgusted with Sheridan's guns-blazing approach to unseating Clark,
Garibaldi left the station to meet with his new employer on Mars.
Dr. Franklin benefited from
"The Exercise of Vital Powers,"
in this case Lyta's ability to reawaken the frozen Shadow-implanted telepaths.
Garibaldi arrived on Mars, where Mr. Edgars, his new employer, convinced him
to try to lure Sheridan into a trap.
Garibaldi's trap was sprung, and Sheridan was captured by Clark's forces in
"The Face of the Enemy."
Edgars revealed his plan: to enslave telepaths by infecting them with a
lethal virus. Unfortunately, Bester scanned Garibaldi -- who had all along
been acting as Bester's agent, personality altered so he'd be more
susceptible to betraying Sheridan -- and discovered the plot. Edgars was
promptly murdered and the virus stolen.
Continuing the fight in Sheridan's absence, Ivanova was mortally wounded in
"Between the Darkness and the Light."
Shortly thereafter, Sheridan was rescued by Franklin, Lyta, and Garibaldi,
who submitted to a scan by Lyta to prove he was manipulated by Bester.
The League of Non-Aligned Worlds, at the urging of G'Kar and Londo, committed
forces to aid Sheridan's fleet.
Using the implanted telepaths' ability to merge with computer systems,
Sheridan's forces defeated the defenses of Mars and Earth with few casualties in
"Endgame."
Clark committed suicide rather than face capture. Marcus used the alien
healing device
("The Quality of Mercy")
to sacrifice himself to save Ivanova's life.