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								    ### GUIDE ### [3][Background] [4][Synopsis] [5][Credits] [6][Episode

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								   _Contents:_ [9]Overview - [10]Backplot - [11]Questions - [12]Analysis

								   - [13]Notes - [14]JMS


								     _________________________________________________________________


								Overview


								     An archaeologist smuggles ancient artifacts onto the station,

								     unleashing a living weapon. [15]David McCallum as Dr. Vance

								     Hendricks. [16]Marshall Teague as Nelson Drake.


								Sub-genre: Action

								[17]P5 Rating: [18]6.33


								Production number:  101

								Original air date:  February 18, 1994


								Written by J. Michael Straczynski

								Directed by Richard Compton


								     _________________________________________________________________


								Backplot


								     * Ikarra 7, now a dead world, was a thousand years ago home to a

								       highly advanced space-faring society. Their technology was

								       organic: tools and artifacts made of living tissue yet immune to

								       decay. Invaded over a dozen times, they finally built 12

								       devastating organic warriors to protect them. Programmed to

								       destroy any but "pure Ikarrans", those warriors repelled the last

								       invasion and went on to kill any Ikarran who deviated from the

								       ideal (ie all of them). A [19]transcript of the scene in which

								       this is discussed is available.

								     * Organic technology is, according to archaeologist Vance Hendricks,

								       "The one trick Earth hasn't been able to crack. The ability to

								       create living ships that thrive in the vacuum of space, to create

								       weapons that produce their own power through internal generation,

								       like a firefly lights up at night."

								     * The Vorlons have organic technology, and it's suspected that the

								       Minbari do as well.

								     * _Sinclair:_ "The last time I gave an interview they told me just

								       to relax and say what I really felt - ten minutes after the

								       broadcast I got transferred to an outpost so far off the star maps

								       you couldn't find it with a hunting dog and a Ouija board." It's

								       not clear whether or not this was a joke.

								     * _Garibaldi:_ (to the reporter) "...and after walking 50 miles, we

								       finally made it out of the desert. Later when he was put in charge

								       of Babylon 5, Commander Sinclair asked if I'd come work security.

								       I said yes - it's been a great time..."

								     * Garibaldi has been fired from 5 different jobs for "unspecified

								       personal problems". His assignment on Babylon 5 is probably his

								       last shot in Earth Force.

								     * Garibaldi was in Earth Force during the E/M war, but not on the

								       Line.


								Unanswered Questions


								     * Who invaded Ikarra so many times? What was so valuable about it?

								     * Why is Sinclair so prone to heroism (read: suicidal bravery)? He's

								       deliberately put his life on the line three times now in the past

								       year (cf [20]"The Gathering", [21]"Soul Hunter"). Garibaldi

								       suggests an answer: when the war ended it took away the direction

								       it gave his life, as happened to many veterans. So now he's

								       "looking for something worth dying for because it's easier than

								       finding something worth living for." Sinclair's not entirely

								       satisfied with that answer, and resolves to give it more thought.


								Analysis


								     * A "Bio-weapons" supplier backed Hendricks' original expedition to

								       Ikarra - they must have had advance information about what was to

								       be found there.

								     * Ivanova has little faith in the ethics of big government

								       organizations (cf [22]"Mind War", [23]"Deathwalker").

								     * Franklin appeared to seriously ponder the image of great wealth

								       Hendricks offered, before the guards took him away.

								     * A team from Earth Force Defense, Bio-weapons Division confiscated

								       the Ikarran artifacts just as the dust from the weapon-chase was

								       settling. Earth now has bio-tech of its own to study.


								Notes


								     * _Garibaldi:_ "The commander's a hands-on kind of guy, he'll grab

								       any chance he can get to take out a ship - he's like that."

								     * This episode occurs right around the 2nd anniversary of Babylon 5

								       going on-line.

								     * In a poll, 75% of "Interstellar Network News" said B5 wouldn't

								       last 5 minutes. Lloyd's of London put the odds at 500 to 1 against

								       it lasting one year.

								     * The "Narn-Centauri negotiations" are to occur in the near future.

								     * _Sinclair:_ "How sharper than a serpent's tooth." (His reply to

								       Garibaldi's joking guess that Sinclair's interview would get him

								       shipped off the station and himself promoted into Sinclair's

								       position.) This is a quote from Shakespeare (King Lear.)

								     * Dr. Hendricks says to Franklin, "There's a Martian war machine

								       outside, and it wants to speak to you about the common cold."

								       That's a reference to H. G. Wells' "The War of the Worlds," in

								       which the Martian invaders are killed by common microbes.

								     * _Sinclair:_ "When you become obsessed with the enemy, you become

								       the enemy."

								     * At the last, the Ikarran begs forgiveness from the "Great Maker".

								     * _Franklin:_ "I'm starting to wonder if what we just saw is a

								       preview of things to come" (re: Pro-earth groups).

								     * _The Interview_

								       _Reporter:_ "After all that you've just gone through, I have to

								       ask you the same question a lot of people back home are asking

								       about space these days. Is it worth it? Should we just pull back,

								       forget the whole thing as a bad idea, and take care of our own

								       problems, at home?"

								       _Sinclair:_ "No. We have to stay here, and there's a simple reason

								       why. Ask ten different scientists about the environment,

								       population control, genetics - and you'll get ten different

								       answers. But there's one thing every scientist on the planet

								       agrees on: whether it happens in a hundred years, or a thousand

								       years, or a million years, eventually our sun will grow cold, and

								       go out. When that happens, it won't just take us, it'll take

								       Marilyn Monroe, and Lao-tsu, Einstein, Maruputo, Buddy Holly,

								       Aristophanes - all of this. All of this was for nothing, unless we

								       go to the stars."

								     * Ikarra may be an Australian Aboriginal word.

								       The Australian DSTO (Defence Sciences and Technology Organisation)

								       developed the anti-submarine weapon "Ikara" in the 1950's. It is

								       no longer in use in the Australian Navy, having been fired for the

								       last time in 1990. The Brazilian Navy may still use a variation of

								       it.

								       Since the DSTO has a tradition of naming its products after

								       warlike Aboriginal animals, it's plausible that the word refers to

								       an animal.

								     * A slight visual gaffe: When the bioweapon self-destructs and falls

								       to the ground, its head is facing to the left (away from the

								       camera.) But when Sinclair watches him turn human again, Nelson's

								       head is facing to the right (toward the camera.)


								jms speaks


								     * We'll definitely be dealing with the aspects of how fighting in a

								       war can affect you. And this isn't just a vague promise: watch the

								       end of the third (currently) scheduled episode, "Infection," for a

								       scene between Sinclair and Garibaldi that really deals very

								       straightforwardly with this issue. It's a conversation you

								       wouldn't expect to see in a show like this.

								     * [Infection] has a lot of action, which you'd expect, and a big

								       conclusion, which you'd expect. What you *won't* expect, I think,

								       is what happens afterward, in a conversation no one generally has

								       in TV after big action stuff has gone down. And it's something to

								       chew on, I think....

								     * Thanks. Sinclair's final speech there is the simplest truth about

								       space exploration that I can think of...and the most

								       compelling..and the most overlooked. As Henry Kissinger once said,

								       "It has the added benefit of being true."

								     * Sorry; there's no one more critical of my work than me, and when

								       it comes to "Infection," I'd just kinda prefer it if it kinda

								       vanished in the night. I feel that way about only two episodes out

								       of 22, so that's not too bad, I suppose.

								     * "Infection" is definitely not indicative of the season overall;

								       that is, in my view, one of our weaker, possibly weakest episodes.

								     * And like I said...I have problems with "Infection" as well, so

								       there is no flame from me. I guess part of it is knowing what was

								       in the script that should've been carried off better, but wasn't.

								       And part of it is my fault; I tried to use the Nelson/machine as a

								       metaphor; it wasn't supposed to be about the Nelson/machine, but

								       about the kind of people who would create it, the kind of people

								       who would sell it, and the kind of people who would confiscate it

								       even KNOWING what it was (and of course the kind of people who

								       would *use* it). Unfortunatly, when you put somebody in that kind

								       of suit, that *becomes* the story, and from that point on you're

								       pretty much doomed. It was also in places too much an obvious

								       metaphor, and the "hand of the author" is showing too much. It was

								       the first script written for this season, after the long break

								       after the pilot, and I think I was trying to find the characters'

								       "fingerprints" and getting into the flow of the series, which took

								       a script or two.

								     * The problem with "Infection" from a writing POV is that it was the

								       FIRST one written for this season, and I was having a hard time

								       finding the "fingerprints" of the characters again after so much

								       time had passed after the pilot (it was nearly a year between the

								       revising/ shooting of the pilot, and the writing of the first

								       series script). As on *any* show, it takes a while to get up to

								       speed once you hit series. That was the real problem, and there

								       wasn't any real way to get past it except to write it, re-acquaint

								       myself with the characters, and move on. I probably would have

								       opted out of doing it had we had more scripts on hand, but we

								       didn't. And oddly, many on the production team *liked* the script

								       quite a lot, and kept saying it had to be done.

								     * I'd slice this a little finer and suggest that it wasn't so much

								       the *stupidity* of racism and the whole genetic purity aspect, but

								       the IMPRACTICALITY of such ideas. If you follow the idea to its

								       logical conclusion, *nobody* is pure. Which was kind of the point.

								       And oddly enough, there's a pro-genocide discussion in

								       "Deathwalker."

								     * I allow a small smile...in the course of any given script, I put

								       in little things that I figure nobody will ever notice, but which

								       for me help just a bit to keep on track with the character, and

								       which may resonate to anyone paying attention. You cite Sinclair's

								       line about joining Garibaldi "on the LINE," and Garibaldi noting

								       that Sinclair keeps putting his life "on the LINE," and the

								       similarity to the phrase "the Battle of the Line."

								       It was a throwaway...but a conscious one.

								       He's still fighting the same battle. He's never stopped. In one

								       way or another, he keeps putting himself out there, caught in a

								       loop....

								     * Actually, the reporter's question was *not* (from a 2258 point of

								       view) stupid. Earth is far enough from the other major races not

								       to have to worry about iminent invasion. At the time of the story,

								       there is a VERY strong isolationist movement growing back home,

								       which you'll hear more about as we go in. Space travel is

								       *expensive*, even in 2258, and there are still a lot of problems

								       to be resolved back home. While the Earth administration in

								       Earthdome keeps pressing to go further and further, various

								       nation/states in the Earth senate are taxed further to finance

								       explorations which they don't always share in equally, the Mars

								       Colony is threatening secession...things are falling apart by

								       degrees. So in light of all that, the question is *absolutely*

								       valid.

								     * The ONLY reason that they were able to pick up the blasts in

								       "Infection" was because they were SO powerful that they registered

								       on the station's sensors. Ordinary PPG blasts don't show up.

								     * I have nothing to do with the description applied to the show by

								       others. In that episode, the affected person isn't "turned into" a

								       machine. It is sort of a living armor-like compound that grows

								       over the person's body, and begins to influence the person in

								       question. That is the sum and substance of it; he isn't

								       transmuted, his biology isn't changed, his brain isn't replaced,

								       and so on.

								       My suggestion: judge the episode based on the episode, not on what

								       choice of words someone else used in trying to synopsize the

								       episode. Because Moby Dick can be summed up as, "A nut chasing a

								       big fish." But there's obviously more to the story than that, and

								       it's not entirely accurate.


								     _________________________________________________________________


								   Originally compiled by Matthew Ryan _matt@uhs.uchicago.edu_


								   [29][Next]


								      [30]Last update: January 9, 1998


								References


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								  15. http://us.imdb.com/M/person-exact?+McCallum,+David

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								  17. file://localhost/lurk/p5/intro.html

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