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lurkers-guide


								<!-- TITLE Racing Mars -->


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


								<blockquote><cite>

								Franklin and Marcus arrive on Mars to begin their undercover mission.

								Sheridan confronts Garibaldi about his behavior.

								</cite>


								<a href="http://us.imdb.com/M/person-exact?+Schneider,+Mark">Mark Schneider</a> as Wade.

								<a href="http://us.imdb.com/M/person-exact?+Scott,+Donovan">Donovan Scott</a> as Captain Jack.

								<a href="http://us.imdb.com/M/person-exact?+Landey,+Clayton">Clayton Landey</a> as Number Two.

								<a href="http://us.imdb.com/M/person-exact?+Monaghan,+Marjorie">Marjorie Monaghan</a> as Number One.

								</blockquote>


								<pre><a href="/lurk/p5/intro.html">P5 Rating</a>: <a href="/lurk/p5/076">7.73</a>


								Production number: 410

								Original air week: April 21, 1997

								<a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B0000DGBEY/thelurkersguidet">DVD release date</a>: January 6, 2004


								Written by J. Michael Straczynski

								Directed by Jesus Trevino

								</pre>


								<p>

								<hr size=3>


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

								<ul>


								   <li>@@@862331870 Mars has been subjected to a news blackout and an embargo

									for at least as long as Babylon 5 has, likely as far back as their

									refusal to submit to martial law in

									<a href="054.html">"Severed Dreams."</a>

									People on Mars have heard little more than vague rumors about the

									Shadow War.  They also appear to know nothing about the Rangers.


								   <li>@@@861606952 Someone has begun planting Keepers

									(<a href="061.html">"War Without End, Part Two"</a>)

									on members of the Earth resistance movement with the apparent intent of

									wiping it out.


								   <li>@@@861606952 A Keeper can be partially removed, but portions remain

									embedded in the victim, and the rest of the organism grows back,

									sometimes within hours.


								   <li>@@@861606952 Garibaldi has pledged to support a group that claims to

									feel the Army of Light has become a cult of personality centered

									on Sheridan, and that this will ultimately damage the cause.

									Garibaldi feels the same way, he says, and that's why he said what

									he did during the ISN interview.


								   <li>@@@861658172 Ivanova has begun setting up amnesty deals with smugglers

									to keep the station supplied with food and spare parts.


								</ul>


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

								<ul>


								   <li>@@@861606952 Who planted the Keeper on Captain Jack?


								   <li>@@@861606952 How did they know about his involvement with the

									resistance?


								   <li>@@@861606952 Who are the people Garibaldi promised to help?


								   <li>@@@861606952 What was the large ship being escorted toward Mars by

									a group of Starfuries?


								   <li>@@@861606952 "Woo hoo?"


								</ul>


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

								<ul>


								   <li>@@@861606952 The head of the group that recruited Garibaldi may have

									betrayed his true intentions with a slip of the tongue.  When he

									first spoke to Garibaldi, he said Sheridan's actions weren't good

									for Earth, weren't good for business, and weren't good for the

									President -- not something likely to come from the mouth of someone

									opposed to Clark.


								<p>

								   <li>@@@861954426 The second time Garibaldi met with the mysterious group,

									the leader made a point of saying, "Are you with us?" several times.

									Could that be some kind of key phrase related to whatever was done

									to Garibaldi while he was captured

									(<a href="068.html">"Whatever Happened to Mr. Garibaldi?"</a>)


								<p>

								   <li>@@@861982136 That phrase, or one like it, was used by someone else:

									Sheridan, who shouted, "Are you with me?" to the assembled crowd in

									<a href="069.html">"The Summoning."</a>


								<p>

								   <li>@@@862331634 If "Are you with us?" was indeed a key phrase, Sheridan

									inadvertently foreshadowed it earlier in the episode, when he told

									Delenn that he could make Garibaldi come around "if I could just find

									the right words."


								<p>

								   <li>@@@861954426 Since Garibaldi knows the group is planning to move

									against Sheridan at some point (they told him as much,) perhaps his

									acceptance of their offer is, instead of a rejection of Sheridan,

									actually part of a plan to root out possible threats to Babylon 5's

									security.  If so, a natural question is, does Sheridan know about

									that plan, or is it Garibaldi's doing?  Was the confrontation

									between Sheridan and Garibaldi just a premeditated ploy to help

									Garibaldi gain the trust of the new group?  Sheridan's conversation

									with Delenn after the first confrontation argues against that idea,

									but it's still plausible.


								<p>

								   <li>@@@862331634 It's also possible the Brakiri woman was a setup, sent by

									the group to fawn over Sheridan at just the right time and push

									Garibaldi over the edge.


								<p>

								   <li>@@@862331634 Garibaldi's rejection of Sheridan parallels Judas'

									rejection of Jesus.  Both were part of their leader's inner circle.

									Sheridan's warning to Garibaldi to stop undermining him can be read

									as analogous to Jesus' warning to Judas at the Last Supper

									(<a href="http://www.gospelcom.net/cgi-bin/bible?language=English&version=KJV&passage=Matthew+26:24">Matthew 26:24</a>:

									"woe unto that man by whom the Son of man is betrayed! it had been good

									for that man if he had not been born.")

									<a href="http://www.gospelcom.net/cgi-bin/bible?language=English&version=KJV&passage=John+13:2">John 13:2</a>

									says the Devil caused Judas to betray Jesus; Garibaldi has also

									been influenced in some way, in his case by Psi Corps

									(<a href="068.html">"Whatever Happened to Mr. Garibaldi?"</a>)


									<p>

									Many scholarly analyses ascribe motives similar to Garibaldi's to

									Judas.  Tim Rice's lyrics for Andrew Lloyd Webber's

									"Jesus Christ Superstar," while perhaps not scholarly, put it

									succinctly:


									<blockquote>

									My mind is clearer now.<br>

									At last all too well I can see where we all soon will be.<br>

									If you strip away the myth from the man,<br>

									You will see where we all soon will be.<br>

									Jesus!<br>

									You've started to believe<br>

									The things they say of you.<br>

									You really do believe<br>

									This talk of God is true.<br>

									And all the good you've done<br>

									Will soon get swept away.<br>

									You've begun to matter more than the things you say.

									</blockquote>


								<p>

								   <li>@@@864846302 When Marcus discovered Jack aboard the transport ship,

									he had his arm around Jack's neck.  Why didn't he feel the Keeper?

									Does it have some way of hiding itself, or was it simply that Jack

									was wearing heavy clothing to cover his lower neck, and Marcus

									couldn't feel anything through the fabric?


								</ul>


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

								<ul>


								   <li>@@@862818754 Marcus' comment about hating parasites is probably a

									reference to

									<a href="051.html">"Exogenesis,"</a>

									in which his friend Duncan was taken over by an alien parasite.


								   <li>@@@862817570 Minbari have 52 rituals related to relationships.

									Sheridan and Delenn have now completed the first three.  One is the

									female watching the male for three nights, and the third (according to

									Delenn, who called it the Third Movement of Love and Mutual

									Understanding) is the mutual exploration of pleasure centers.


								   <li>@@@862332082 Garibaldi's hair loss is due to something a smuggler brought

									aboard the station.


								   <li>@@@862188956 The Pope is a woman in 2261, according to Garibaldi.

									During his second confrontation with Sheridan, he said, "He's not

									the Pope.  He doesn't look anything like her."


								   <li>@@@861606952 The subcommander and head of the resistance cell called

									themselves "Number Two" and "Number One," a nod to the cult classic

									"The Prisoner."  Another reference to "Number One" can be found in

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


								   <li>@@@862332082 The name "Captain Jack" is a nod to the Billy Joel song

									of the same name.


								   <li>@@@866747394 A slight glitch: When Captain Jack ripped open the

									insta-heat pack, Franklin said, "That's beef and potatoes."  But his

									lips don't match those words; apparently the original line was

									something different.


								   <li>@@@867570393 Marcus and Franklin were playing "I Spy" when they

									discovered a spy.


								</ul>


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

								<ul>


								   <li>@@@851545085 <em>Is B5 about the Shadow War?</em><br>

									Not just that, but events back on Earth, Mars and elsewhere that

									are either not touched by the shadow war, or barely touched by it.  (In

									one upcoming episode, where a couple of our characters have gone to

									Mars, they find that very few on Mars know anything even *happened*.)


								<p>

								   <li>@@@856689448 Not everyone back home even knows

									there *was* a war.  Which our characters will find rather annoying....


								<p>

								   <li>@@@862818920 <em>About the Pope</em><br>

									Yeah, you heard the "her" line.  Got a fair amount of flack for

									that one, btw.


									<p>

									And it's Woo Hoo.


									<p>

									If Yahoo wants a reference they should call me....


								<p>

								   <li>@@@863020881 From some extremist Catholics...and also got some flack from

									Born Again Rightists over my comments in TV Guide about being an

									atheist.


								<p>

								   <li>@@@862989835 I don't think Earthforce cares about sexual orientation; the

									reason we just set it out there without comment is that, having come

									through the realization of other non-human races...a little thing like

									sexual orientation, nobody even cares about anymore.  It ain't an

									issue.


								<p>

								   <li>@@@864920072 <em>Why didn't Ivanova ask Lyta to oversee her

									negotiations with the smugglers?</em><br>

									Because telepaths only function in very limited ways due to

									privacy laws.  You couldn't just use them broad-based as lie detectors

									in the way you suggest, because it first requires getting the

									*permission* of those involved, and you can be reasonably sure that

									smugglers aren't going to want people poking around in their heads;

									second, there was a large group there, and a midrange teep can usually

									handle only one or at most two people with any degree of accuracy; it

									goes down dramatically after that.


									<p>

									I specifically set up rules for telepaths to avoid letting them

									become the deus ex machina, the easy solution to any problem.


								</ul>