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lurkers-guide


								<!-- TITLE The Well of Forever -->


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


								<blockquote><cite>

								Galen convinces Gideon to take the Excalibur deep into hyperspace to find a

								mythical place of power.

								</cite>


								</blockquote>


								<pre>

								Production number: 106

								Original air date: June 23, 1999

								<a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00061QJSK/thelurkersguidet">DVD release date</a>: December 7, 2004


								Written by Fiona Avery

								Directed by Janet Greek

								</pre>


								<p>

								<hr size=3>


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

								<ul>


								   <li>@@@930294581 The Well of Forever is a mausoleum deep in hyperspace,

									where various races have left shrines and monuments to their honored

									dead over the millenia.


								   <li>@@@930294581 Technomage ships have extremely sensitive sensors that

									allow them to navigate much further from hyperspace beacons than

									Alliance races can.  As a result they're able to travel through

									hyperspace without encountering others.


								   <li>@@@930294581 At least one race of creatures lives in hyperspace, huge

									jellyfishlike creatures called the Fen.  The technomages have

									encountered them before and consider tham harmless.


								   <li>@@@930294581 Matheson is the first telepath since the abolition of the

									Psi Corps to achieve a high-ranking military position.  He's thus

									a well-known role model among younger telepaths.


								   <li>@@@930294581 The Psi Corps has been abolished by the Senate and

									replaced with an organization called the Bureau of Telepath Integration,

									which, like the Corps, sends watchmen

									(all named "Mr. Jones") around to probe the minds of other telepaths

									and make sure the new telepath regulations aren't being violated.

									The new regulations are aimed at integrating telepaths into society.


								   <li>@@@930294581 When he was younger, Galen and a technomage named Isabelle

									were in love.  She devoted her life to finding the Well of Forever,

									and when she died, he promised to bring her there.


								</ul>


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

								<ul>


								   <li>@@@930294581 What personal significance does the question "Why?" have

									to Galen?


								   <li>@@@930554687 What was Gideon's question?


								   <li>@@@930294581 What answer would Matheson have found had he ventured

									into hyperspace at the Well?


								   <li>@@@930554445 What were Matheson's minor violations of the telepath

									rules?


								   <li>@@@930294581 Who created the Well of Forever?  How long has it existed?


								</ul>


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

								<ul>


								   <li>@@@930294581 In the montage at the end of the episode, Gideon is holding

									a photograph titled "EAS Cerberus."  That, combined with his

									comment to Galen that he's already made a promise to honor the

									memories of 300 people, suggests that he was the only survivor

									when his ship was destroyed nine years earlier

									(<a href="501.html">"War Zone"</a>).


								<p>

								   <li>@@@930294581 The Psi Corps may have vanished in name, but its spirit

									appears to be alive and well if Mr. Jones is any indication; he

									was just as willing as any Psi Cop to abuse his authority.  It's

									even possible he <em>was</em> a Psi Cop when the Corps was still

									around.


									<p>

									The new rules regarding telepaths are presumably the result of

									the Telepath War, and it can be deduced that after the war, the

									Senate decided that keeping telepaths segregated in their own

									shadow society was partly to blame for the conflict.


									<p>

									The fact that there are watchmen like Mr. Jones suggests that

									telepaths are probably still required to register with the

									government.


								<p>

								   <li>@@@931244313 Who was Gideon playing chess with?  He made his move from

									the side of the board, rather than the front or back; perhaps he's

									playing solo.  If so, an obvious question is whether the board is

									a metaphor for something.


									<p>@@@931542158

									The game may relate to his answer to Galen's final question ("Who do

									you serve and who do you trust?")  Gideon may not be sure whose side

									he's on.


								</ul>


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

								<ul>


								   <li>@@@931244235 Mr. Jones was played by Michael Beck, who played Abel

									Horn in

									<a href="028.html">"A Spider in the Web"</a>.


								<p>

								   <li>@@@930554445 Galen's elegy for Isabelle is a quote from Act 4, Scene 2

									of Shakespeare's "Cymbeline".


									<p>

									Galen also makes a reference to Elizabeth Barrett Browning's

									"Sonnets from the Portugese" (#43):


									<blockquote>

									How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. <br>

									I love thee to the depth and breadth and height <br>

									My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight <br>

									For the ends of Being and ideal Grace. <br>

									I love thee to the level of every day's <br>

									Most quiet need, by the sun and candle-light. <br>

									I love thee freely, as men strive for Right; <br>

									I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise. <br>

									I love thee with the passion put to use <br>

									In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith. <br>

									I love thee with a love I seemed to lose <br>

									With my lost saints- and, if God choose, <br>

									I shall but love thee better after death.

									</blockquote>


								<p>

								   <li>@@@930554445 As Galen describes the Well's answers to Dureena,

									the game "Pong" can briefly be seen on the monitor behind Eilerson

									at the very start of his scene.


								<p>

								   <li>@@@930295794 Possible continuity error: Gideon quotes Galen as

									saying that the crew of the Excalibur is like a family to him.

									While it's possible that Galen said that offscreen, also possible

									is that the comment appeared in an episode that was produced

									before this one but comes after it in chronological order.  The

									jury will be out on whether this is a glitch until after the

									first 5 produced episodes have aired.


								<p>

								   <li>@@@931244235 Galen's ship has a front landing wheel.


								<p>

								   <li>@@@931244650 "Fen" is often used as a plural form of "fan", as in

									"science fiction fan."  Galen's comment is a tongue-in-cheek poke

									at SF fandom: "They're barely sentient.  They're attracted to bright,

									shiny objects, but they lose interest quickly."


								</ul>


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

								<ul>


								   <li>@@@930554746 <em>Why two Galen-centered episodes in a row?</em><br>

									The original air order would have spread out the Galen episodes,

									so that he would appear every second or third episode...that changed

									with the short order, and they all got bunched together.


								<p>

								   <li>@@@933009474 "Can (will) you tell us about Fiona Avery's connection

									to B5 and Crusade? I just picked up the first PsiCorp novel and she was

									in the dedication. Got me to wondering..."


									<p>

									We brought Fiona aboard during the last part of S5 as a

									reference editor to keep the continuity straight, and for Crusade

									(about which more in a bit). There was a growing problem keeping the

									licensees and licensed material accurate; stuff slipped through the RPG

									books and elsewhere (this was before she got here).  She was brought on

									to stop the problem, and to annoy the licensees in the sense that it's

									often easier not to get things right, and she has to stay on top of

									them and make them crazy in order to ensure that the accuracy the fans

									(and I) expect is maintained.


									<p>

									She was also brought on with an eye toward Crusade because she

									has a degree in Archaeology and Crusade's an archaeological SF series.

									Along the way, she began writing spec scripts for Crusade which ended

									up being good enough to buy, and we bought 4 of which 2 were produced,

									Well and Patterns. The last one she did, Value Judgments, was probably

									the best of the bunch; it's a Bester script that Walter considered one

									of his best roles, and would tie in directly with the Psi Corps books.


								</ul>