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								   Midnight on the Firing Line, as well as the Babylon 5 series, starts

								   out at the Ragesh 3 colony, a Centauri agricultural colony. The colony

								   finds itself suddenly under attack. As the station in orbit around the

								   colony is about to contact its home world, Centauri Prime, the station

								   is destroyed.


								   [INLINE] The attack on Ragesh 3.


								   Meanwhile, on the Babylon 5 station. Lt. Commander Susan Ivanova, the

								   new officer who is second in command of the station, interrupts the

								   only quiet, restful part of Commander Jeffrey Sinclair's day--a time

								   when he shuts off his comm-link and "escapes" from the rigor of his

								   life. "There's a problem," she tells him.


								   Elsewhere on the station, Centauri Ambassador Londo Mollari is having

								   a pleasant conversation with Security Chief Michael Garibaldi when

								   Londo receives word that the Ragesh 3 colony has been attacked. He's

								   informed, however, that nobody knows who the attackers are.


								   Londo and Sinclair meet concerning the incident. Sinclair tells Londo

								   that Earth doesn't know anything more about the incident--the identity

								   of the attackers is still a great mystery. Ambassadors Delenn (of the

								   Minbari) and G'Kar (of the Narn), offer their condolences and also

								   claim to know very little about the attack. Sinclair suggests that an

								   emergency meeting of the Council be called to discuss the matter and

								   lend aid to the Centauri colony.


								   Shortly after, on the bridge, Ivanova informs Garibaldi that they've

								   received a distress signal from a trading ship near the station. She

								   says that at first, she thought the incident might have had something

								   to do with the Ragesh 3 incident, but that, instead, the ship claims

								   to have been attacked by "raiders." Garibaldi takes a fighter out to

								   try to come to the aid of the ship that was attacked. Right after

								   Garibaldi leaves the bridge, Talia Winters--the commercial telepath on

								   the station--enters the bridge and wants to speak with Ivanova. She

								   says that because of Psi Corps regulations, she must report with the

								   second in command, but that she hasn't been able to find Ivanova for

								   quite a while. Ivanova rudely dismisses Talia, saying that she's

								   rather busy right now.


								   Meanwhile, Sinclair is in his office, watching on "television" the

								   latest news about the upcoming presidential election. Ivanova enters,

								   and Sinclair informs her that there is not yet any further information

								   on the Ragesh 3 incident. Ivanova notices the telecast and finds out

								   from Sinclair that the presidential race is very close at the moment.


								   Londo is in his room when Vir, his gawky assistant, rushes in and

								   tells him that a coded broadcast has just been received. As Vir shows

								   the broadcast to Londo, Londo sees the incident that we saw at the

								   beginning of the episode. He freezes the image of the broadcast and

								   enhances the image of one of the attacking ships. He immediately

								   recognizes it as a Narn warship, and heads out to confront his enemy

								   G'Kar with this newly-found evidence.


								   Meanwhile, Garibaldi has found the ship that was attacked by the

								   raiders. He finds it very badly damaged--and realizes that the weapons

								   that were used to attack this ship must have been much stronger than

								   the weapons the raiders have previously had.


								   Londo finds G'Kar and accuses him of deceit--since G'Kar said he

								   previously knew nothing of the attack. G'Kar, somewhat surprisingly,

								   tells Londo that he has just found out about the attack--but he

								   confirms that it was indeed Narn forces that attacked Ragesh 3. "I'm

								   sure there's some reasonable explanation," he adds. Londo asks what

								   reasonable explanation there could be for attacking a defenseless,

								   agricultural colony. G'Kar refers Londo to a similar attack that the

								   Centauri made years ago against Narn holdings--and expresses his

								   indignity at the former Centauri subjugation of the Narn. One insult

								   leads to the next, and a fight breaks out between the two ambassadors.

								   The fight is eventually broken up by security personnel, but not

								   before G'Kar threatens Londo that the Narn will eventually rise and

								   destroy the Centauri.


								   [INLINE] "The wheel turns, does it not, Ambassador?"


								   After the fight, Londo meets with Sinclair. He apologizes for his

								   actions and says that he won't repeat the incident--but that he _will_

								   eventually kill G'Kar. He explains that Centauri have strange

								   premonitions of how, and even when, they will die--and that Londo has

								   had a dream in which he will eventually die 20 years from now, with

								   his hands wrapped around G'Kar's throat and vice-versa. Londo also

								   explains that he had a nephew on Ragesh--a nephew for whom he deeply

								   cares and is deeply concerned about. He vows that if his nephew has

								   been harmed, there will be war--at any cost. He dismisses Sinclair's

								   "galactic peace" arguments as nothing but silly paperwork and "games."

								   "Only one thing matters: blood," says Londo.


								   Ivanova and Garibaldi are discussing the raiders' methods. Garibaldi

								   says that trade routes are normally kept secret--to prevent the kind

								   of attacks that recently happened--and Ivanova and Garibaldi come to

								   the conclusion that there must be some leak of information from the

								   trading companies.


								   Meanwhile, Sinclair goes to meet with Ambassador Kosh, the mysterious

								   Vorlon representative who must wear an environmental suit at all times

								   because of extreme differences between the Vorlons and the other

								   races. Sinclair wants to know Kosh's position on the Ragesh incident,

								   and asks Kosh if he will support sanctions against the Narn. "They are

								   alone. They are a dying people; we should let them pass,"

								   enigmatically responds Kosh. "Who?" asks Sinclair. "The Narn or the

								   Centauri?" Kosh's simple and almost humorous answer is merely "Yes."


								   [INLINE] Sinclair visits Kosh


								   Garibaldi is meanwhile sitting at Ivanova's station on the bridge,

								   researching the flight paths of the trading vessels. All incoming

								   ships are tracked through Ivanova's console.


								   Londo is lying down in his quarters, rather drunk. He is rather

								   depressed, and tells Vir, his assistant, that he has received word

								   from the Centauri government saying that they will do "nothing" about

								   the attack on Ragesh. Londo is enraged--he feels that the Centauri

								   government is made up of cowards, and he nostalgically pictures the

								   former grandeur of his people--a grandeur that has all but evaporated.

								   He suddenly gets the idea to ignore his government's message, and he

								   forces Vir to comply with this. He tells Vir not to mention that the

								   message was ever received--that if they can get the other powers to

								   force sanctions against Narn, they can force their own government into

								   cooperation. He says that he will go ahead with the emergency session

								   of the Council--a session that will be used to decide on the actions

								   to be taken against the Narn regime.


								   Talia Winters, in the meantime, finds herself in the elevator with

								   Garibaldi. She tells him that she's upset that Ivanova is basically

								   ignoring her, and she wants to know what she's done wrong. Garibaldi

								   says that Ivanova takes a while to get to know people--especially

								   while at work--and advises Talia to catch Ivanova in the casino after

								   hours.


								   G'Kar and Sinclair meet in the station's arboretum. They have a sharp

								   conversation where G'Kar tries to gain support for his people by

								   telling Sinclair that the Narn race and humans are very much

								   alike--and that, in fact, the Narn were one of the only people that

								   were willing to supply weapons to the Earth in the Earth-Minbari war.

								   Sinclair dismisses G'Kar's claim by saying that the Narn will simply

								   supply weapons to anyone who can afford them--not out of any sense of

								   brotherhood or similarity between cultures. Sinclair further

								   criticizes the Narn cowardice because of their "sneak attack" on

								   Ragesh. G'Kar is enraged.


								   Garibaldi presently finds that one trading company--which sold access

								   to the "jump gates" that provide interstellar travel--seems to have

								   had its information concerning the trade routes stolen from it. He

								   informs Sinclair about these findings, and tells him that there's one

								   ship which had bought routes from the company that was broken into and

								   which still hasn't been attacked. Garibaldi says that they have only a

								   few hours to come to the rescue of this ship.


								   Sinclair is meanwhile speaking with a representative of the government

								   of the Earth Alliance--a superior of his. The representative is

								   advising Sinclair to either delay the emergency session of the Council

								   or to abstain from the vote; Earth cannot get involved in any type of

								   war so soon before an election. Sinclair protests that this will hurt

								   the Centauri case--that if Earth doesn't lend aid, others might not

								   either. The representative doesn't seem to care, and closes the

								   communications channel. During the conversation between Sinclair and

								   the Earth official, Ivanova has arrived at Sinclair's room and has

								   been standing outside of the door, waiting for Sinclair to finish. She

								   has come to inform him that Garibaldi is going to leave on his mission

								   to rescue the ship that was supposedly about to be attacked by the

								   raiders. Suddenly, Sinclair seems to realize something about the

								   allegedly-powerful raider weapons. He says that he will be replacing

								   Garibaldi on the mission to rescue the ship. He orders Ivanova to

								   continue the meeting; further, he tells her that she "never" heard the

								   conversation that he had with the Earth official--and that as far as

								   she last heard, Earth was voting for the sanctions, rather than

								   abstaining.


								   As Sinclair leaves, the session of the Council is begun. G'Kar stands

								   up and announces that the Narn regime has a valid claim to Ragesh 3

								   because the planet was originally Narn territory before it was invaded

								   by the Centauri. Delenn succinctly rebuts this argument, saying that

								   if the Narn hold a grudge for so long, peace will never come, and an

								   endless cycle of wars will result. G'Kar claims that he doesn't want a

								   war--he's only exercising a valid claim to the planet. Further, he

								   claims that the Ragesh colony invited the Narn there--that the Narn

								   never invaded the colony. To support this claim, he opens up a live

								   link with Ragesh. Carn Mollari, Londo's nephew, appears on the screen

								   and recites a message--clearly forced--saying that the Ragesh colony

								   did indeed invite the Narn regime in to restore order in the colony.

								   After the message is completed, Londo says that the message was

								   clearly forced at gunpoint and is of no validity. However, G'Kar

								   silences Londo by revealing that he knows that the Centauri government

								   has taken the position that they will not intervene--he asks Londo why

								   he is using the Council to enact a personal vendetta. G'Kar proceeds

								   to call a vote to dismiss all charges against the Narn regime.


								   Sinclair is meanwhile pursuing the raiders. After successfully saving

								   the trading ship, he outwits the raiders and finds their command base.


								   [INLINE] The battle at the trading ship


								   If Londo was desperate before, he's certainly desperate now. He is

								   entirely outraged at the preceding events in Council, and has decided

								   to take matters into his own hands. He assembles a gun from parts that

								   he's hidden around his quarters and proceeds to attempt to kill G'Kar.

								   As he's walking toward G'Kar's quarters, however, he bumps into Talia,

								   who, despite her training, accidentally senses Londo's intense,

								   emotional thoughts. She quickly informs Garibaldi, who intervenes and

								   stops Londo from committing the murder of G'Kar.


								   Sinclair has returned to Babylon 5 and carries evidence with which he

								   immediately confronts G'Kar. Sinclair has found a Narn agent on the

								   raiders' base; it seems that the Narn were supplying weapons to these

								   raiders, and when Narn supply weapons, they always include a Narn

								   agent to instruct their customers on how to use the weapons and to

								   make sure that the weapons are not resold to a third party. Further,

								   this Narn agent had been found with logs of the communication between

								   the attacking force on Ragesh 3 and the Narn homeworld. The logs of

								   this communication confirm that the attack was, indeed, uninvited and

								   unprovoked. Faced with this evidence, G'Kar is forced to tell Narn to

								   withdraw the forces from Ragesh.


								   Talia meanwhile has found Ivanova in the casino, just as Garibaldi

								   advised. Talia asks Ivanova if she had done anything to offend her.

								   Ivanova apologizes to Talia and admits that the acted rude. Ivanova

								   explains that her mother was a telepath--however, she had kept this as

								   a secret to herself and had never joined the Psi Corps. On her

								   mother's 35th birthday, the Psi Corps caught up with her and gave her

								   three alternatives: to either join the Corps, go to prison, or take

								   telepathy-inhibiting drugs. She chose the latter; however, as Ivanova

								   explains, the drugs were very strong and destroyed her mother's will

								   and personality. After 10 years, after her family thought her mother

								   could no longer survive, her mother took her own life. Ivanova

								   explains that she doesn't blame Talia as an individual for what

								   happened to her mother, but says how these types of events are part of

								   every member of the Psi Corps. However, Ivanova explains to Talia that

								   Talia is just as much of a victim as Ivanova's mother was. When Talia

								   responds that she does not feel like a victim, Ivanova rejoins that

								   she hasn't yet figured out if that feeling is good or bad. When Talia

								   suggests that they might start off on better terms the next day,

								   Ivanova says that she very much doubts it.


								   In the meantime, Garibaldi is sitting in his quarters, showing Delenn

								   his "second favorite thing in the universe"--old "Duck Dodgers in the

								   23rd-and-a-half century" cartoons.


								   Sinclair is resting in his quarters, watching with what appears to be

								   disappointment that Santiago, the incumbent president, has been

								   declared the victor of the election. As he is about to retire for the

								   night, he receives a call from Ivanova: "Commander, there's a

								   problem." It seems that a commander's job is never done ... in fact,

								   it has just started.


								   Shawn Bayern _bayern@minerva@cis.yale.edu_

								     _________________________________________________________________


								   Copyright 1994, Shawn Bayern. All rights reserved. Permission is

								   granted to distribute this synopsis _noncommercially_ as long as the

								   synopsis and this copyright notice remain intact. Babylon 5 is a

								   copyright of the PTN Consortium; no infringement of that copyright is

								   intended by writing these synopses.


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								      [15]Last update: December 20, 1996


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