brennen
/
lurkers-guide


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


								<blockquote><cite>

								Sinclair fights two turf battles at once as alien invaders claim the planet

								the station orbits, and an Earthforce captain disagrees with him about how

								to deal with the situation.

								</cite>


								<a href="http://us.imdb.com/M/person-exact?+Canada,+Ron">Ron Canada</a> as Capt. Ellis Pierce.

								<a href="http://us.imdb.com/M/person-exact?+Turenne,+Louis">Louis Turenne</a> as Draal.

								<a href="http://us.imdb.com/M/person-exact?+Lowens,+Curt">Curt Lowens</a> as Varn.

								<a href="http://us.imdb.com/M/person-exact?+Gentile,+Denise">Denise Gentile</a> as Lise Hampton.

								<a href="http://us.imdb.com/M/person-exact?+Aleong,+Aki">Aki Aleong</a> as Senator Hidoshi.

								</blockquote>


								<pre>

								Sub-genre: Action

								<a href="/lurk/p5/intro.html">P5 Rating</a>: <a href="/lurk/p5/019">8.49</a>


								Production number: 121

								Original air date: August 3, 1994

								<a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00006HAZ4/thelurkersguidet">DVD release date</a>: November 5, 2002


								Written by J. Michael Straczynski

								Directed by Janet Greek

								</pre>


								<p>

								<hr size=3>

								<p>


								<h2><a name="BP">Backplot</a></h2>

								<ul>

								<li>

								In his youth, Londo led the Centauri raid on a planet called Frallis 12.

								<li>

								Five hundred years earlier, the last of Varn's race died, entrusting him

								with a legacy, the guarding and caretaking of Epsilon 3.  Some time prior

								to that, a violent, cruel faction of the race was cast aside by the rest,

								and since Varn took over Epsilon 3, they have been searching for it.

								<li>

								Some Earth citizens feel they're heavily subsidizing the Mars colony, and

								that may in fact be true.

								<li>

								The Centauri contributed a substantial amount of money to the construction

								of Babylon 5.

								</ul>


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

								<ul>

								<li>

								What is the intended use of Epsilon 3?

								<li>

								What needs to happen before it will be deemed ready for consumption by the

								rest of the galaxy?

								<li>

								Was Takarn's ship the only one of its kind, or are more outcasts from Varn's

								race still out there, searching (or heading) for Epsilon 3?

								<li>

								Are there any other planets like Epsilon 3 waiting to be discovered?

								</ul>


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

								<ul>

								<li>

								The station potentially has a powerful new ally in Draal.  It remains to be

								seen if he will prove willing to come to the station's defense in the future,

								but the threat of retaliation by Epsilon 3 might be enough to keep any

								would-be attackers at bay.

								<li>

								Garibaldi's tentative hopes of one day getting back together with Lisa have

								now been dashed.  This might make him that much more likely to hit the

								bottle again. (cf.

								<a href="011.html">"Survivors"</a>)

								<li>

								Assuming Earth is successful in putting down the revolt on Mars, a continued

								presence will likely be necessary to keep things from flaring up again.

								This is bound to have political consequences back on Earth, and possibly

								on Babylon 5, as Earth has a harder time claiming the moral high ground

								if it's occupying one of its own members with soldiers.

								<li>

								Londo's sense of adventure, now reawakened, might lead him to go even further

								in his quest for the "good old days."  Between this and his possession of

								the Eye (cf.

								<a href="013.html">"Signs and Portents"</a>)

								he may be a much more influential figure than he appears.

								<li>

								Delenn's assessment of Sinclair jibes with the hints in

								<a href="015.html">"Grail"</a>

								that she considers him a "true seeker," someone whose life is devoted to

								a cause.

								</ul>


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

								<ul>


								<li>@@@858798423

								The heavy cruiser EAS Hyperion was named after the Babylon 5 Internet archive

								(and home of the Lurker's Guide) originally located at Hyperion.COM.


								<li>

								Ivanova seems to enjoy saying "Boom!" (cf.

								<a href="../synops/015.html#boom">"Grail"</a>)


								<li>@@@839744251

								When Capt. Pierce is going to launch fighters to land on the planet and

								Sinclair threathens to destroy them, Pierce argues for a moment and then

								backs down.  When he turns briefly to the screen and a computer graphic is

								displayed showing him calling down the ships, one of the ships in the top

								left corner of the screen has the flight number THX-1138, the name of one of

								George Lucas' first films.


								<li>@@@867349958

								More SF references can be found in the list of words being downloaded from

								the station's language files by the aliens.  For instance, "ORAC" is a

								computer from the British series <cite>Blake's 7,</cite> and "Skynet" is

								from <cite>The Terminator.</cite>

								The phrase "I am not a number, I am a free man" (from the title sequence of

								<cite>The Prisoner</cite>) can also be seen on several consecutive frames.


								</ul>


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

								<ul>

								<li>

								BTW, have named an Earth Alliance Cruiser Hyperion, in notation of

								the library....


								<li>

								<em>Does the Earth Alliance have capital ships?</em><br>

								Of course there are capital ships.  We never said otherwise.

								There's one later this season, for instance, the EAS Hyperion, a heavy Earth

								cruiser.  There aren't as many as they'd like -- the majority having been

								wiped out in the war -- but they're building 'em as fast as possible.  (The

								Hyperion, though it's never mentioned, is one of the leftover capital ships,

								not one of the newer ones.)


								<li>

								<em>Will we see other ships like the Hyperion?</em><br>

								That design will never be seen again.


								<li>

								Correct; the Hyperion didn't have a gravity-positive section.


								<li>

								Of course, insofar as I recall, it wasn't stated in the episode that

								Varn's people actually *built* the Great Machine; after all, if they

								could build it, why would the others have been searching for it so

								frantically for the last several hundred years?


								<li>

								Actually the Hyperion is one of the few surviving heavy cruisers from

								the Earth/Minbari War period; after we lost a LOT of our ships, there

								were some new ones commissioned, which we haven't seen yet, which are

								far cooler than even the Hyperion (though we'll see them next season).


								<li>

								The captain of the Hyperion specifically states that he was already

								IN hyperspace, en route to another system, when he was ordered to

								stop here.  His ship was already in the area.  Also, there is a fair

								amount of time between the actions on the planet initially, and the

								arrival of the Hyperion...enough to know there's some kind of tech

								there, based on the initial attacks.  The Hyperion continued to

								monitor reports as they came in.


								<li>

								And there we get into the contradiction; Ivanova and Sinclair down on

								the planet would be mainly more run-and-jump...Draal talking about his

								feelings, Delenn showing she is upset that her friend is going away

								and will never be seen by her again, their obvious friendship, that to

								me is characterization.  And not just throwaway stuff, either, but

								important down the road.

								<p>

								But hey, what do I know....


								</ul>