Latest / LAST BEST HOPE: A Babylon 5 Podcast for Our Uncertain Age / #7 – What Did We Do Wrong? (POINT OF NO RETURN)

Transcript

#7 – What Did We Do Wrong? (POINT OF NO RETURN) · LAST BEST HOPE: A Babylon 5 Podcast for Our Uncertain Age

• 0:12
  JOHN: My big focus is gonna be on. On the delay of the seemingly inevitable. Everything's a delay tactic.
• 0:17
  JOSH: Yeah, no, I wrote that down too. That doesn't make you feel good. No, doesn't make you feel good at all. Especially as I'm sure we'll get into day. We're recording. This is April 25, 2025. I just read as I was leaving my house before that they arrested a judge.
• 0:36
  JOHN: Yes, they arrested a county judge, essentially an obstruction of justice charge. But I believe what she had done is she had allowed individuals who were before her in court who ICE wanted. She allowed them to use a alternate or private exit out of the courtroom that would have bypassed the hallway where the ICE agents were waiting. And so they were able to leave the court proceedings without running into the ICE officers and thus thwarting their attempt to detain these individuals. So it's a real interesting case because she's clearly was, was standing up. She's known, she's known as a progressive judge. She won in a landslide her last election and is quite outspoken about being fair minded and exclusive to justice, but obviously has a very particular moral code. And that's something that judges have had a lot of leeway with, is that in their courtroom. You know, that's sort of sacrosanct and historically meaning up until recently, the policy of the non Trump administrations had been to, or at least the last administration was to not utilize the courts as a gotcha for ice. In other words, you would be going to like pay a parking ticket for a civil reason that had nothing to do with. It was unclear to me whether this was a criminal case or not. But that the moment you stepped on any land that was, you know, accessible by law enforcement or obviously you're participating in the public sphere that they would, you know, almost lay a trap for you. But historically, yeah, there was a little more leeway in courtrooms that that was considered. Well, we can't have a function justice system if people are too afraid to go to the justice system and therefore they will become, you know, more likely to go underground and evade our laws in the first place. So it's an interesting back and forth, but wow, arresting a judge, like arresting a judge for that. Not just, you know, starting a suit up or slapping with a fine or sending some nasty letters. This is the actual arrest by the FBI and trumpeted by the new director of the FBI. It's a big move. It's going to be understated. I mean, there's a lot of back and forth going on today. I mean, Bloomberg has a headline that the administration is reversing a course on terminating the status of international students. So how far that actually goes is going to be interesting. But the pushback is real and it's happening. Whether it's strong enough is a question for another podcast. But it's definitely a pushback. And that is something that, when you see enough of it, it tends to gain momentum, which is why usually they try to nip something like this in the bud. That was the feeling I just had watching the episode you have. Okay, I remember General Smith's. But the general before him who says, you know, it's all gone to hell, is relaying the message from General Haig, and he.
• 3:14
  JOSH: Yeah, General O'Reilly is his name.
• 3:16
  JOHN: General O'Reilly. That's it. So that moment is one of those moments you say, oh, there's a major pushback happening. Like, look at this. And there's a lot of talk from Dr. Franklin throughout the episode. Well, you know, if the Senate gets his act together and if there are enough people to side General Haig, and they're basing that on. On the fact that General Haig broke away already, that he got away with some ships, that there are obviously active senators calling for human chain, that there are generals communicating with Captain Sheridan to say, you know, this is. You know, we're under assault, but we're trying to resist. So there. So there's definitely the feeling that, oh, there's a counterweight here. There's a real counterweight happening here. And that's something that leaves the viewer sort of with. With an element of hope, like, oh, well, they'll. They'll get it together. That's the sense. So. But I do think that if there was more of that, it tends to very quickly turn against the person declaring martial law. So tactically speaking, they got to nip it in the bud. They're gonna. If they're gonna maintain their iron grip on power.
• 4:15
  JOSH: Yeah. You know, what was striking to me was what you're referring to, that hope that they have about, you know, if the Senate can get its act together and, you know, all these little pockets of resistance, and they're like, you know, General Haig can get enough support and blah, blah, blah. Because I know where this goes in the next episode. It doesn't make me feel great about our real world situation, because this is literally the kind of stuff that you hear all the time. Well, if enough senators, like, rally enough support and if, you know, so and so can show that they won't stand for this, and then if this happens and that happens, then, like, altogether. But, you know, again, knowing what happens in this fiction, those things don't happen and it doesn't prevail. And Clark steamrolls over everybody and, you know, that's that. So the resonances here are real. And JMS writing this in 1995 or 96 was not making it from whole cloth. He was relying on historical examples. And that's why so many of these striking parallels exist. Because this is what happens. This is how it happens. I think it's a testament to JMS's understanding and fidelity to history. You know, he got it right, I think, as right as you can, given how the particular details are unique for every country and every period where this happens. Something that I usually do, and I've been doing this for years, is I watch an episode of Babylon 5 and then I go to the Lurker's Guide to read the entry on it. For listeners who may not know what I'm talking about. The Lurker's guide to Babylon 5 was like the wiki before there was such a thing as a wiki. Like, it was the depository of all information about every episode of Babylon 5. That was unique because we're talking about, like, you know, 1992, 1993 is when the site was founded. And it collected all of JMS's statements and posts on Usenet. Specifically, you know, talking about the relevant episode and responding to questions. He used this as a way to directly interact with fans and viewers of the show. So I watched Point of no Return and then I went to the Lurker's Guide page for it which, you know, over the last 30 years, I'm sure that I scrolled through the same page many, many times. But something that struck me in the JMS Speak section were several responses he had to fans who were essentially saying, like, isn't this a bit much? Aren't those Night Watch posters a bit much? Wouldn't the people object? Somebody said, I don't believe a conservative Night Watch would be tolerated. Someone said, the House on UN American Activities Committee wasn't that powerful. Somebody said, even in the Soviet Union, the military would not support an attempt of martial law. JMS reply to that one was like, you mean like when Yeltsin called up the military, dissolved the Senate and had military tanks open fire on the Senate to keep from being ousted in a coup? You mean like that? But he says some really prescient, sadly things in these responses. I'm not gonna read the whole thing. Because if you're interested, you can visit the page and read it yourself. I'll put a link in the show notes, but just a couple of choice excerpts. You know, he's basically justifying the fictional situation that he's created in the show. He says a bunch of stuff, and then he says, could it happen here, right now? Here right now? Meaning the United States in 1995 or 96?
• 7:52
  JOHN: Yep.
• 7:53
  JOSH: Could it happen here right now? No, because the surrounding climate isn't right. Could it happen? If the conditions were right, of course it could. We're not genetically irrevolutionarily different from the Germans or the Russians or the Cubans or the Iraqis. If we think we'd never fall for that, we place ourselves in exactly the position of guaranteeing that we will fall for it. Because we won't recognize it when it happens. We can justify and rationalize it as something else. Yes, the people back on Earth still have guns. What of it? Right now, with martial law, the streets are quiet. The news is more positive than usual. For a change, the quarrelsome jerks in the Senate have been given a good kick in the butt. The President's getting things done. We've all still got our jobs. The muggers are hiding out. Life goes on. Except for the lawbreakers. You going to go out on your own and start shooting at Earth Force troops that are armed with vastly more advanced weaponry? On whose behalf?
• 8:40
  JOHN: The.
• 8:40
  JOSH: The aliens, the troublemakers. What are we rallying for or against? This will blow over soon. It always does. It never lasts. Right now, just ride it out. Wait and see what happens. Who knows? Maybe Clark's right. Who wants to be perceived as a traitor? Those are the thoughts of any populace in this situation. Just as when Yeltsin declared martial law in Moscow. As when Mayor Daley sent in the shock troops in Chicago. On and on. Here's the number one rule. A population will always stay passive for as long as they perceive that they stand to lose more by opposing the government than by staying quiet. It's when they have little or nothing left to lose that they rise up. The politicos first, then more reluctantly, the general population.
• 9:21
  JOHN: Yeah. Wow.
• 9:22
  JOSH: Yeah. And like, it goes on and on. You know, it's funny, like, when I read this, I remember what I had been saying about. In my memory, I started to think, you know, maybe that was a little on the nose. You know, it was a little heavy handed in some places. You know, did we really need another parable warning us about something like this? And then I read what people were saying to him on the Internet contemporaneously. And that's what they thought too. You know, they were essentially like, come on. Like, who would really go along with this?
• 9:50
  JOHN: You know, we kind of. Between the eyes, we tell ourselves. We tell ourselves a lot of stories every day in our everyday lives to make our life go on as normal. So, you know, something. Something happens that's really uncomfortable. You find a way to rationalize it. You incorporate it into your normal expectations in the future. And that can happen on a lot of different levels. This is one of those things that's like the frog boiling in the pot. You add one thing on. You say, well, okay, but yeah, it's not worth fighting for that. It's not that bad. And you escalate it more and more, day by day. It's interesting because looking at those comments from him, this episode has almost more comments than any episode I've seen so far. I'm gonna have to review this. There's a ton of comments that they gathered on this. That's really an amazing thing. A lot of shows, this is a unique commonplace. Quick side note, when the Internet was awesome. I say that as an old fogy. At this point, the Internet of. Right. This is right around, you know, it's on use. Net, which had been around before, but this is 96, 95 is when the world wide web is released for public access. 1995. So this is a year after that. The show starts before the. The web is available. You know, so people were out there talking, engaging, and it was a very. Generally speaking, they were dark corner, but it was a very civil place, a very excited place. You're like, look what we get to do. And JMS is one of these first writers and artists who. Who really decides to use this platform to directly engage with fans of the show. I've never seen anything like that before. We were always mediated through magazines, through conventions. There was never a direct line to the writer of your show, and certainly not one that. Where he would respond in such detail about what he was thinking and what. What his perspective on it is. How many of us get the chance to go back and ask. You don't get to ask Shakespeare what he was thinking. You don't get to ask any writers. Even the 20th century, they were largely cordoned off. And, you know, you weren't going to run into them and have a conversation with them. You certainly wouldn't encounter them in any digital platform because they didn't exist. And it doesn't happen much anymore. It's More one directional. You have Twitter, a few other things that people interact on, but it tends to be more of just a publicity machine than anything else.
• 12:02
  JOSH: Yeah, well, there was a brief window for a few years, I think, in the late 2000 teens, where showrunners and writers and creatives were more accessible on things like Twitter and social media. But then I think they very quickly realized that that was a bad idea for many, many reasons. And a lot of them have sworn it off. And now with Twitter having gone the way that it has, there's no, like, one platform that's the equivalent of a digital public square where, like, everyone is there. So. But yeah, I mean, JMS was engaging in that kind of interaction in real time 30 years before all that. And I do want to do an episode at some point about the connection between Internet fandom and the show. I want to reach out to Stephen Grimm, who's the. We used to call them webmasters. He was the.
• 12:55
  JOHN: Love that title. I missed that.
• 12:57
  JOSH: Yeah. The Lurker's guide to Babylon 5 was his. His baby. And I've. I've actually had some interactions with him online in the past, and I think he'd be a fascinating. If he's willing, a fascinating person to bring on. You know, the original domain name for the Lurker's guide was@hypertion.com or. Or.
• 13:18
  JOHN: Yeah, yeah.
• 13:19
  JOSH: They had to change it for a trademark reason. But JMS named a ship the first Earth Force cruiser we saw in season one of Voice in the Wilderness. He named the ship the Hyperion because of the Lurker's Guide.
• 13:32
  JOHN: Wow. Wow. So there really is this, like, you know, back and forth relationship between JMS to show and the Internet. I think it's an extraordinary thing. And it's funny you use that term like when you were the web master or mistress, as I've seen the title or whatever was, what that really connotated was it was somebody's brainchild. It was their baby. It was, as you said, like, it is something that you created. It's also a zone that's yours. It's not like you were on somebody else's platform. You were on the web, which was an open protocol, htp, everything else. But you weren't on somebody else's platform per se, outside of, you know, who's hosting your data or the web itself. So having a website that is yours on an open protocol. No one controls the World Wide Web. That was the idea. Completely decentralized. It's your site. You give it life. You create a community around it. And whatever it is it is today, it's a very different environment. The World Wide Web still exists. There's no stopping it. But most of us consume our information from a major platform, social media platform. Typically you're on one of the meta platforms, you're on Twitter X and all this other stuff, and they're gatekeeping. They're controlling algorithms that show you the data, everything else. That's such a different relationship with other, you know, fellow digital travelers than it used to be. And it was really easy. There were so many sites like this back then that you put in a search for your interest thing and you usually come up with an amateur website. Somebody created some really cool information, maybe had a message board, maybe had a ways of interacting, you know. You know, that's not the case any anymore. And I really, I miss that it was. Cory Doctorow has a phrase that's become more widespread called insidification. Now, all these different platforms start off really great and ideal for the user, but that's just because they're flush with venture capital money. Then when they have to make a profit, they squeeze the users, shove ads down onto us, and dramatically change the algorithm. This is a really unique time. And to get this perspective, and this is what I was just reading and I think this captures why we're doing this podcast. He says, too little of TV these days is about anything. It's all context, no subtext. This show is about a lot of things, but never in the mode of telling you what to think. We'll ask that you think that you consider the world around you and your place in it, but defining that is your business, not ours. That's really cool. I mean, I think that is, that is something. And that's how I said the show gets perfectly preachy. But it's not the message of like, well, take, you know, this, this is all there is and you must accept it. There's so much back and forth there. It is asking and it's a big ask when you watch the show, especially when you rewatch it and you're, you're in seasons two, three and four. It's not passing time television. Somebody I recently recommended the show to, you know, says, well, you know, there are a lot of shows I have on his background noise and that's the type of thing. This is not one of them. I couldn't, I couldn't. This I have to commit to and I have to completely engage with. And that's true. So that's why we have so much to digest Here. But I think that's such an interesting point, is bringing up all the comments that fans had and that JMS had about could it happen here? And even he's hedging himself a little bit with saying, not right now. And that is 30 years ago. But it was only 20 years later from that 1896 to 2016, mere two decades that President Trump wins the first election, you know, and is running for that entire year like that. That is only two decades. 96 is four decades from the end of World War II. Double that period of time. So it didn't take that long before mindsets shifted just enough to begin that sort of idea. And yeah, feels like, well, he hasn't called this. He hasn't called for that yet. Well, as we said before, his history rhymes. We've actually already seen this. Jamis refers to that. He says that was during the Red scare and the 1950s and the House in UN American activities and McCarthy. So we are dreadfully familiar with this othering of people, this fear and the alien. What is happening right now is the use of the Alien and Sedition act and the insurrection. When do those come from? Not the 1950s, not the 1980s, not the 20th century, not the 19th century. They come from the very end of the 1700s. Most of them do, under President John Adams, our second president, you know, who lived in, who became obsessed with fear. And he's vaunted as a great, great president or great man, architected so many of our ideals. And then once in power, in my amateur historian analysis, loses his shit and passes all these laws, terrified that somebody's going to challenge his newfound power and that there are these others constantly out to get this newly formed country because they might be of a different ethnicity or from a different country or something like that. And it goes absolutely wild. Laws that were not used very often, really. I mean, the last time, the Alien Sedition act, the Insurrection Act, I mean, you got FDR on the internment of the Japanese. Horrific act. So it's built into our history that fear depends on who our leader is, depends on what the the climate of population is. You know, fear is part of it. That's what JMS's warning's about. And B5 deals with how does one talk about fear? And jumping right to the end of this episode. It is fear. I can't go back in time and remember what I was thinking watching this episode the first time. Because again, we didn't know what was coming. We didn't know Severed Dreams was next. We didn't know that it was going to be a long slog before we returned to Earth in the story. So even at the end of this episode the fear and the palpable sense of, okay, it's coming here next, as in, like, tomorrow. Not a month from now, not a year now. It's coming tomorrow. We bought ourselves hours or days at most, and that's fear. But the characters, they're afraid. They have a bit of mourning, but they're not losing their minds, necessarily. But you see other characters. How do they deal with fear? They go right into the arms of Night Watch. They go right into the arms of all the propaganda they can possibly consume and then regurgitate it back out. And these episodes leading up to this were beginning to show us how that was shaping up. Whereas, just like JMS is asking of this show at asking you to think these characters are asked to think. They don't necessarily have a foregone conclusion yet but they haven't abandoned the ability to think. And that's. That's Ivanova, that's Sheridan. I was. I was actually really impressed by. I'm actually really impressed by Claudia Christian in the show overall. I think she gets underrated in some ways. This episode. You know, the whole episode where, you know, you just see she. She knows this is happening. She doesn't want to confront it. But going back to the beginning just to, you know, sort of chronologically go through some of this. The episode begins, as we sort of discussed in some recent episodes. We've noticed it's a lighter feel to it. So you're coming off of the previous episode. Messages from Earth. And again, the train's coming at full speed. And it starts with a very, very comical interaction between Londo Malari and Veer. But it's relevant nonetheless. It's about him correcting his report about the Minbari to the Centauri government. And Londo is just making all these corrections, driving Veer crazy. He's like, oh, no, no, don't say that. They respect other cultures and like this. Say. Say that they are, you know, decadent and enjoy dubious pleasures. The word dubious is very important. It doesn't mean anything, but it scares people every time. And Veer's, like, losing his mind but you get the sense. Yeah. He's trying to make it this political speak. Warp the truth for somebody else. But. But that moment can go by you real quick because you think it's more of a. Of. Of a. It's just their relationship. It's just Londo being Londo being kind of Crazy, but it's really relevant to this notion of how propaganda is communicated.
• 21:27
  JOSH: Veer says something like, I thought the purpose was to provide accurate intelligence. And Londo has that classic line, politics has nothing to do with intelligence.
• 21:37
  JOHN: If that's not a prescient line, I don't know.
• 21:40
  JOSH: The other thing too is that like, so when they're talking about the Royal Court and the, the emperor, the emperor right now is Cartesia. Right. Who we haven't met yet. Right. So they have their own situation sort of brewing. I don't know if Londo's aware of how just completely mad their leader is yet, but it really struck me like this is exactly. And not to single out the Trump administration. I think this dynamic exists in most, if not all administrations. I think it's several orders of magnitude worse in this White House with these personalities, they literally are only presented with information, information that affirms their existing beliefs and their existing plans. So the information, the real information about whatever is going on never reaches them because he's not interested in it. He's not interested in actually knowing things, evaluating them honestly, thoughtfully and completely so that he can make a course of action that is smart and calculated and thoughtful. He's not interested in that at all. So you can't say something that he doesn't like because he'll just blow up and do something crazy, might fire you. He might, you know, sic his social media followers on you. And you don't want to risk that because there is literal. It sounds crazy to say, but there is a non zero risk of physical consequences if you don't tell the President what he wants to hear.
• 23:10
  JOHN: You're right. And it's not the threat that he's seeking the Secret Service after you or the military or even the FBI, though that's becoming increasingly possible. You're right. The most dangerous tool he has up until now had at his disposal is the social media boards that will go nuts. And while that has existed now for a while, it's really come into a sharpened point now. One sentence from his account can send people into a frenzy, going after, going after an individual and freaking out. So at the very least, you lose. You know, you might find your business ruined, you might find your ability to hold a job in those areas ruined, but you very well might run into one of the followers and the crazies number of threats that come in against people. So it's really a scary time in that sense because, yeah, you want to remain silent. We think of the tools historically as, okay, well, you'll be blacklisted or you'll be thrown in jail, you'll be threatened. There are more tools available today than I think they imagined when this show was written in terms of how to, how to coerce people into toeing a line. And that's to me what social media has really become about. Because again, who was before had that kind of reach to spend all day tweeting and target somebody and say something? And that's not limited to the President. Elon Musk has done it time and time and time again, sick his followers on people and made absolutely obscene claims about an individual and effectively ruined their lives. You saw that a few times with him just in the last year. So it's a good reason for people to remain silent. People say, well, how could that happen Here the question asked by Lt. Corwin.
• 24:44
  JOSH: I was going to single that out.
• 24:46
  JOHN: Because what a moment. He has the deer caught on headlights look innocent deer. He's very innocent looking. Like, how did this happen? They'd already tried to size him up and he had given very to glasses. Like, oh, you just follow the chain of command. Everything will work out. You got to trust people who are in charge. Used very much like things are normal, things are great. And when things are normal, things are great type individual. And he's shaken out of this and he becomes a very important mid tier officer. The operation of the station remains loyal to the captain and the crew of Avalon 5. But that shock, he communicates this shouldn't have happened. How could this happen? This isn't the world the way it was going. And it's that kind of surprise. I don't know, it sort of sucks to know something is coming in one sense and then just have to watch it unfold. And hey, this episode is that too. You have Migelle Roddenberry as Lady, Lady Marella. Lady Marella, a seer and prophetess. And it's brilliant. This is her role in the show is to see the future. But it doesn't give. You can tell it doesn't give her comfort. It's not like, oh cool, this is so neat. It's like, well, I'll tell you this, you do have some choices left, but you may not once you exhaust those options. And it's not fun what comes, what comes next. And that's the sense of this is like, oh God, if you know things are coming. Like the crew of the station, they know what's coming. They know it and they have to deal with, we're talking about with fear. They have to deal with that somehow and then still hold themselves up to their ideals, still hold up their lives, and it's not a position I ever wanted to be in. And now I feel like so many of us are in that we're sort of. We're in that position of being. Oh, well, this is a good comparison. I feel like many of us now are like g' Kar in season one and two. You're trying to warn people. You know, in his case, the shadows have returned, but he's trying to warn people this has happened. Just looks crazy as things unfold. And how do you live with that? Well, the answer is, very often you don't. You just say, things are fine. You put your head down again. And then when it really hits the fan, you're able to be shocked.
• 26:49
  JOSH: Right.
• 26:49
  JOHN: I don't know. I don't know which is better, Cassandra, or to be ignorant. Hmm. That's a question I have to ask ourselves.
• 26:56
  JOSH: There's certainly one that's less stressful, but.
• 26:59
  JOHN: Yeah, this is a stress, and this is a stressful episode. And now that, you know. Now that we know what's coming in the show, rewatching it, I actually find it more stressful because you don't have that, like, that idea of, yeah, they'll just. They'll just wrap it all up. It'll be fine.
• 27:13
  JOSH: You know, there's a line. There are a lot of lines in the first 10 minutes of this episode that hit me on this watch. There was that line from Corwin that you singled out. And then in the very next scene, Garibaldi says to Sheridan, this is bad. And Sheridan says, I've never seen it any worse. And, you know, that's the kind of thing where, I don't know, one is tempted to put, like, your drama hat on and be like, okay, well, that's the kind of line that you have when things are about to get better. Right. You know, it's like you're sort of.
• 27:48
  JOHN: Like, yeah, I think you're right.
• 27:49
  JOSH: Setting things up. You set up your worst situation possible in order to give your characters something to overcome. And again, the logic of TV at this time would have you in that frame of mind where you're like, I mean, they have to work this out. Because, I mean, this is a TV show. It's like, they can't. Where is this gonna go if they don't fix it? Right. And the answer is, it turns into a whole different show.
• 28:13
  JOHN: Mm. Mm. It is how we get the really cool new uniforms.
• 28:17
  JOSH: Yes. I thought it was really cathartic. Watching Garibaldi march into the night watch meeting and knock the tables over. Because he is pissed. Yeah, he is pissed, you know, because these are his guys and they've been through it together. And all of a sudden you guys are wearing these armbands and turning against everybody and talking nonsense like you guys are destroying everything we have together. You know, it's like how I feel sometimes, frankly. I mean, less so, more recently, because it's just. It's just sort of the way things are. But, you know, there have been so many moments over the last several years where somebody says something or is doing something that is just plainly the exact self evidently wrong headed, stupid, dangerous thing. And you just want to grab them and shake some sense into them, like, what is wrong with you? So it was very. I use the word cathartic because I loved seeing Garibaldi. And he just. He barges in there, security guard number one says, don't make a scene. And Garibaldi's like, who, me?
• 29:25
  JOHN: What are you crazy? Make a scene. Boom.
• 29:27
  JOSH: Table. He throws the table over. And I'm like, ah, yes, thank you. Somebody. Somebody is doing what I feel. But.
• 29:34
  JOHN: And. And nobody better than him and Jerry Doyle to do that. But no, he. He is on. We were talking about, like, how everybody deals with their fear and their frustration and the insanity that is happening in the show. He just goes, right. He just lets it all out.
• 29:48
  JOSH: He turns tables over.
• 29:49
  JOHN: He turns tables. You know what? He quicks on it. He almost needed to have done that because when only two or three episodes later, when he said he confesses to, you know, Delaney that he's afraid of losing control all the time. He does lose control in this moment, but he also needed to blow off some steam, you know, but it's that whole notion of, like, him losing control. This. This could drive you way over the limit because this, this is his family, because he goes to every one there. I set you up with your wife. I got you out of a tough spot. We've been working together. I always have your backs. And for him, he's. He wasn't on Babylon 5 for the larger ideals.
• 30:26
  JOSH: He.
• 30:26
  JOHN: He was there because Jeffrey Sinclair, his friend and person he looked up to, asked him to come on the station. He debated staying until he learned to, you know, that they really trusted and respected Sheridan. He doesn't. You know, it's not that he doesn't care. He has a code. But his focus is on his chosen family. Yeah.
• 30:47
  JOSH: He's not a political animal.
• 30:48
  JOHN: Right, right. So to see that family, you know, being ripped Apart and being ripped from him because they have to. Because now they have to transfer their loyalties over to this night watch group. What a loss for him. What, what a sense of like betrayal from all those people. And they literally betray him. They literally betray him. And he has to learn to trust again after that. Not an easy thing, right? I think we're experiencing it right now is people, people who will fall in line very quickly with what, you know, where they may have said something one day, but because the message is coming down from the administration, that's different. All of a sudden I've encountered this in my life, somebody saying, parroting that. And I said, but you didn't believe that last week. And they'll look at you like, oh, that's, this is what I've always believed. It's a matter of convenience. It's a matter of necessity for some people.
• 31:37
  JOSH: Yeah, you know, maybe this was the point that you were making, but I didn't realize it until you just said it. But it's interesting that Garibaldi's fear is losing control because he's an alcoholic and he doesn't have, you know, the emotional tools to handle things like this, setbacks or a crisis. He has them, but they're stunted because for most of his life he self medicated with alcohol. And you know, now he's sober, he doesn't have that as a crutch. So what does he do? He lets out his anger, he gets destructive. He goes out and, you know, he gets involved, he gets physical, you know, which is a connection that I didn't make until you mentioned the thing about he's afraid of losing control. He really feels betrayed because these guys are his support system, his team. The sober Garibaldi created all of this. He created this life. So when it's all falling apart and when it's these people who are making it happen, it's not, it's not a force of nature. It's not a, it's not an ancient enemy from a thousand years ago. It's these guys that he thought were his friends, thought were his family. They're doing it, they're doing it, they're making it happen. And he's not having it. He's pissed.
• 32:56
  JOHN: They quite literally turn their backs on him and pretend he doesn't exist. Yeah, they, they, when he was confronting the people, they simply, because what are they going to say? Yeah, they know what the deal is, but they've made their decision. They've made their decision, they've made that, you know, it's a matter of self interest. That's why it's so understandable. That's why everything that happens with the Night Watch that happens this episode. It's what JMS says in his comments. He makes a comment that, you know, and this is really uncomfortable people to hear. He says, we are not genetically different than the Germans, than the Russians, than any group that has fallen under the sway of this type of thinking and this type of authoritarian thinking. So it can happen to us. And here's a character seeing it happen to all the people or so many people he cared about. I mean, Garibald Baldi really gets the shit kicked out of him in this series. Obviously, with what happens at the end of season three and all of season four, my God, you know, and he's almost primed by these types of events. Further be vulnerable to what happens to him later. But wow. I mean, yeah, you get it. You say, yeah, these are just regular people. And most people don't have it in them to stand up. One of JMS's other comments that I think I saw a while ago, though, maybe it was. Maybe it was about this episode, but something about, like, the House on an American committee that even, even Truman wouldn't stand up to that, you know, and he was. And he was the president who, you know, dropped the bomb, ended World War II. You know, it's easier to stay silent, and we'll all be tested for that. And most of us, for most of our lives will stay silent to some degree or another when. When that. When the conflict comes right to our doorstep. And that's why it's important not to, like, demonize those characters. And that's what JMS is saying. Like, they're not different than you or I. They're not different than Americans Today or Americans 40 years ago. The circumstances around us do change and they open up, build more dangerous possibilities. But there are a few who are going to be like, nope, there's no limit. There's that one officer, and I don't. I forgot his name. He's in a couple episodes here. There. There's a big security officer. He comes in and he just takes his PPG and his badge and puts it on the table. And Zach goes, oh, come on, come on. And, you know, security guy number one says, suit yourself. And it was that, smar me. Suit yourself. You know, which. The proper response from his perspective, but that other officer is like, no, no, this is not what I signed up for. This is not acceptable. I know what this leads to. I'm not going to sign on, even though it's the easiest thing to do. And he walks away. And there are a number of officers who do. And they form, you know, the remnant human population of the security forces after this episode. But most people don't do that. And what's the difference? What do we do in those moments? I don't know. That's the question necessarily asks of us.
• 35:42
  JOSH: Well, yeah, obviously I've been thinking a lot about that too, and I just had a thought once again. I used to think, or I used to wonder how necessary it really was to tell this story again and again and again, you know, because like a lot of these commenters in the mid-90s, I naively thought that, okay, like, we all know, we all know how it happens, so we won't do that again, you know, can't happen here, etc. Etc.
• 36:10
  JOHN: Yep.
• 36:11
  JOSH: So I've obviously changed my mind around that. But now what I'm realizing is that another reason why it's important to tell this story over and over again is to make it as clear as possible what's going on when you see it. Because, yeah, like, I have all the same impulses that everyone else has. It's like, you see the news. Trump yesterday said, I'm reading this from the New York Times on social media. Trump wrote, we cannot give everyone a trial because to do so would take without exaggeration 200 years. We cannot give everyone trial. It's like, you see something like that, you read something like that and it's pretty clear cut, but the impulse is to equivocate, be like, well, he's talking about criminal immigrants and the terrorists and like, that's who he's talking about. So, like, he doesn't mean you and me, right? Like you, you, you start to really split hairs. But what examples like Babylon 5 and other cautionary tales. I would throw the Star wars prequels in there, such as they are, like, having it reinforced, seeing it again and again, the parallels, the similarities, you have been sort of inoculated. When you see something like that, you know what that is. You know, left unchecked, where this will go. So in those moments where your personal safety or the safety of your loved ones is at stake, it is really easy to come up with any number of justifications for why it's not your place to do something. But then there's that little voice in the back of your head that's like, yeah, but remember what Sheridan did? He stood up. It's like reinforcing what you already know to be true. Because you have all these other voices in your head who are like, you know what this is. You know what that means. You know, so do what you have to do. But let's be clear, you know exactly what's going on. The function, the use of these shows of telling the story over and over again is to sort of solidify your spine a little bit. There's nowhere to hide. It's like, you know what this is.
• 38:26
  JOHN: Again, it's why it's easier not to know. It's easier to not expose oneself because puts those truths in front of you. But I think there is an inoculation. And there are entire countries, albeit small, like Finland, that pride themselves on an education specifically around propaganda countering propaganda because they've been subject to so much Russian propaganda over the century. And that's an interesting thing. There are other former Soviet states, you know that. That have adopted similar techniques. Like, here's how you inoculate your population against propaganda misinformation. But it also makes that population less likely to buy your own propaganda if it's your own government. So it changes that the standard by which your own leaders have to behave as a result. That's not something that seemed to catch on here because whether it's leaders or otherwise don't really want that. And I always got the Sense of Babylon 5 was a extension, for good or ill. Very much of the way we perceive the US Would be as if that mindset is what the alliance writ large becomes. And that means that we are susceptible as a people to this kind of thinking. And the idea of, like, yeah, just throw on the badge, the Night Watch badge. Throw on. You know, get a couple extra credits. Turn against people who are stepping out of line. Use the words like troublemakers. People who stick their heads up too much. You know, go after that. And. And this episode was the final, you know, Point of no Return is a great title because this is it. There's no. There's no going back. There's no pretending things are going to go different. Even Franklin, as these lines in the middle. Well, uses the line that JMS uses on the Lurkers Guide. Some people just say it's going to blow over. And you hear Franklin say that. And he. And he's. He's. He's clutching that last idea of, yes, it'll just blow over. And yet he's saying Haig and the Senate will get their act together. They'll. They'll push back if something like this has been planned. It's a lot Harder to push back unless you have a counter plan. And in our own situation here there really isn't a group that has been planning for this and empowering people to oppose authoritarianism. What's impressive is there's been a large grassroots opposition already to this. And maybe that's to your point. Maybe we have been inoculated to some degree. And my hope is not that it's going to be the Senate get this act together. It's going to be. Are enough people inoculated that before it's too late, they speak up before it's too dangerous to speak up. I don't want to say I'm optimistic, but I'm seeing signs of that today that you don't see in the show. In the show, everybody kept on going business as usual until it was the point of no return. And then we're there. The decision has to be made. Which way do you go? Do you support Babylon 5 and its independence? Or do you just say we have to follow the chain of command and do what the Earth alliance president says without question? And again, good. Good generals, good people, good soldiers, all chose the Earth alliance side. And what does that mean? That's for another episode. But I get the sense there is a lot of pushback now. So these are. This is going to be an interesting time because so far we're not subject to isn. You know, we have these multiple outlets. And in this episode, ISN plays an interesting role. And you look at it at the very end, listen to what the. The anchor is saying, what she's saying, both the words and the tone in her voice. I think, again, it's one of those things that. Whether it was a happy error that they got the casting right and that their director understood what they were doing, I don't know. But listening to it today, I hear her voice and it's meant to be. She's trying to get a subtext in there. She's trying to get something a little underneath in the tone of her voice because she's saying, oh, and Higgs ship the Churchill. Something that they've gotten. You know, they'd broken free and they escaped. And there are people clapping on Babylon, you know, which prompts Night Watch security to start, you know, accusing them of rioting. And her voice, which was hopeful in that end and very much talking about. Oh, openly talking about people defying presidents, Clark's Marshall Law Orders, you know, that. Yes, they haven't. ISN has not been able to tell us what's really been going on. But she is pushing that line as much as is possible. And you can see that she has a genuine hope that somebody's going to push back against President Clark.
• 42:49
  JOSH: Yeah, it's interesting, too, because she also. She's commentating on this live.
• 42:56
  JOHN: Live. Yeah.
• 42:56
  JOSH: So, you know, you imagine, like, that's her genuine reaction.
• 43:00
  JOHN: Yeah.
• 43:01
  JOSH: Her genuine feeling. She can't suppress that in the moment.
• 43:05
  JOHN: And, and just, just wait until the next episode. Wait until Severed Dream to see her reaction in the next one. And then she's gone from. And ISN returns without her with a different. With a different crew, and she returns over a year later.
• 43:21
  JOSH: Yeah.
• 43:21
  JOHN: And it's quite. It's quite the moment. But I love that that is. That that's the level on which this has worked. Again, to some friends who have recently gotten to the show, they're pointing things out to me that I never realized. And they're doing it from the. From the modern TV watching perspective, which is to be very much watching for detail. And I'm so appreciative that we get to experience that and that other people are actually noticing all of that and blown my mind as to how amazing it is. But these little things mattered because that ISN perspective is sort of that last gasp of, oh, maybe, maybe they will be able to do something about it. Yeah, that's. That. That's a huge. That, that, that. That to me is actually a huge, huge component of the shows, how the information goes. And then immediately after. That's another important relevant moment for today is Night Watch is now in charge of security, at least temporarily before the plan is put through when the people in the Zocalo are cheering pigs. Ships getting away on isn. And the immediate response in Night Watch is to say, all right, everybody go home. Everybody go home. You got to go home. You're. You're inciting to riot watching that 30 years ago. Oh, look. Look at these jerks, you know, abusing their power. Now I see it with a more. A clearer eye. That's what they do. If there were people clapping and celebrating and saying, look, look what they did. They stood up to President Clark. Oh, you cannot have that. You have to put that down. And the best way to do that is to recontextualize it. Recharacterize it as, oh, they're rioting. Look at these troublemakers.
• 44:57
  JOSH: And to also make it clear that it is not physically safe for you to express that in public.
• 45:04
  JOHN: Right, right. And that's. I mean, whether it was a shopkeep being shut down or now, you can't even have an opinion at A bar. You don't get to express an opinion that is not in line with what the administration communicates. That's that, that's a big, big, important, bold part. So when you look out in the world today and you say, oh, these people are being categorized as rioting or they're being categorized as troublemakers, you got to look a little deeper. You got to see is this, is that similar to language being used? Because people are voicing what they're doing right now. There are protests happening across the country a week ago Saturday, two weeks before that, massive protest, millions of people. I think the April 5th one was clocked in at something around 5, 6 million people across the country. It's a huge, huge number of people. And the demographics were. Something interesting to note about those protests. Demographics were older, white, slightly more women than men is a demographic that's very hard to put on screen as riotous troublemakers. When you see gray haired or middle aged women and men who are mostly white. Let's be honest about the racial undertones of all that. It's harder for that to be portrayed as, you know, in a media sense it's going to gain traction as, look at these dangerous folks. But you make somebody look different, you take somebody, you think different than, you know, Middle America and everything else and all of a sudden you can paint them as, look at these dangerous people. And that's what. Whether it's the Alien Sedition act or the aliens on Babylon 5.
• 46:36
  JOSH: Right.
• 46:36
  JOHN: That's the whole point. President Clark isn't coming out of a vacuum here. The previous episode we discussed, he's using that threat of the Shadow ship, an invasion of the shadows of this unknown enemy to amp everybody up. The aliens are coming. The aliens are coming. That word alien. It's not just Babylon 5 about, you know, the Centauri and the Minbari. It's in our own language, the alien and sedition. Alien means the other and it's fear of the other. Get that fear of the other going and people fall in line with Night Watch, they'll fall in line with the brown shirts and they'll fall in line with the current administration to, to deal with it.
• 47:09
  JOSH: And all credit to JMS because that ramping up of anti alien sentiment did not come out of nowhere. He's been seeding that since season one. You know, there's that episode in season one, there's an ex boyfriend of Ivanova that shows up on the station and he turns out to be with a group Home Guard.
• 47:31
  JOHN: Oh, yes, to Home Guard.
• 47:32
  JOSH: An anti alien Human first. Xenophobic organization.
• 47:36
  JOHN: Yeah.
• 47:37
  JOSH: And they talk about in that episode, they make a point to say that anti alien sentiment on Earth is, you know, spiking. Which, I mean, not to justify. But again, as you pointed out the other week the context of this whole thing happening, it's 10 years after the Earth Minbari War where the entire human race was literally on the brink of complete destruction at the hands of another alien race. And what that would do psychologically to culture, society, politics. So it unfortunately makes complete sense that xenophobia and anti alien sentiment would rise in the aftermath of, you know, an experience like that.
• 48:16
  JOHN: They play it up in the show. It's, it's. It's fear, the Minbari, you know, resentment. Only two episodes from this, we're going to see a big part of that playing in.
• 48:26
  JOSH: You know, and then when Clark himself, when he's sworn in after Santiago is assassinated and he makes, like, a little speech, I forget what he says verbatim, but he basically says, I plan to concentrate on our own people here at home. And I think you had pointed this out already, so I think I'm paraphrasing you here, but it was sort of like, in that context, that sounds innocuous because we just went through a trauma together. So for now, we're gonna close ranks and heal ourselves. Sounds reasonable. But what he's actually saying is we are going to close out the rest of the. The galaxy and we're going to go it alone. And we're only going to care about humans and our own interests. And he's going to use that sentiment and stoke that sentiment to further his own political vision which essentially boils down to I am the state.
• 49:21
  JOHN: Yeah. You know, you talk about inoculation, and it's really important. Inoculation isn't just about the big, oh, look here were, you know, the dangers and the horrors of the Second World War. We focus on the horrors. And that's in our current dialogue. People focus on the horrors. And they say, unless those horrors are happening, we're not there. Now, the inoculation is for what leads up to that. And, and this is where it gets really subtle. And if you're not. If you're not aware, you're going to let that slip by. Because the dangerous word here is reasonable sounding. Two words. What Clark says, on the face of it is reasonable sounding. But when you look at both the context and how that mindset is used and how that phrase is used, we're going to turn inward, worry about ourselves first. And then you say okay, well, what has happened in history when leaders like that rise and they say it's time to focus on ourselves first? What happens from that? Not that the very concept itself is so. It's not an odious concept. It's not a. It's not a bad thing. But where does that lead one and what does history have to tell us? Well, I'm not aware of any major exceptions to the rule but it seems by and large that means you become more cut off. You resent the others, whatever the others are, more and more every day. They become the blame for anything as you do turn inwards and you turn towards more. Follow the leader policies. And the leaders who say we must embrace the other, we must. We must communicate with these other countries, other worlds, whatever they may be. They have the tougher time of it. They have a really tough time keeping their body politic together and their voters together and everything else. But they're the ones who create these great and lasting institutions which ultimately is what this show is about. The show ends with the Galactic alliance an incredibly fraught but amazing organization that is trying to keep all these different groups not only not together, but civil with each other, prosperous together. And that's a very difficult thing because it's not just JMS isn't human blaming. You know, he makes this a universal phenomenon. The Minbari deal with this in season four. You see, especially amongst the members of Non Aligned World. This is something that is endemic to existence in the series as he's written in all the different species. And that we're at our worst when we do start looking inward. Only inward. Yes. You have to lick your wounds. You have to take care of yourself. He's not. He's not advocating against self care. He's advocating as only looking yourself. And that brings me to the most. One of the most important parts to this episode, and that's Jakkar Jakar has an idea the way he writes an idea and you're just, oh, what is this idea? What is this going up? And when he's talking to Talon, he's sharing his revelation, which is sacrifice. That's Ghakar's revelation. It's literally the inverse of what Night Watch and President Clark is saying. He says for us to survive, for the universe to survive we must be willing to sacrifice ourselves for others. For ourselves and for others. He's literally calling out the very notion of looking inwards which is what the Narn and g' Kar himself have been doing the entire show. At first it was the belligerent Narn, you know, having been oppressed in their own history now flexing their muscle, then being destroyed by the Centauri and the idea of revenge being the only logical outcome from that to this notion of sacrifice and that together we come through this. You couldn't ask for a more diametrically opposed view to what Clark and Night Watch are trying to do in this episode. And he communicates it brilliantly. And Talon is this deadpan response at one. You know, he says.
• 53:06
  JOSH: It's like, what? What?
• 53:08
  JOHN: Tell me about this revelation. He says, well, Jakkar. Well, all answers are replies. Not all replies are answers. And Jakkar is being forced to. To try to communicate. And Ezri says, I'm trying to write it down and it will take me a lifetime. But he started that journey of this next iteration of Jakkar where JMS refers to him as. He says, g' Kar certainly has had a revelation. What emerges from it remains to be seen. We get to know what emerges, and it's brilliant.
• 53:37
  JOSH: Speaking of that, not to distract from the more profound point that you're making but Ghakar's line is, I'm going to spend the rest of my life writing down what I saw in that one singular instant. And that is JMS talking about himself. Because he talks about. Yes, he talks about this moment in the shower where he saw the whole show. He saw the whole story in his head in, like, a flash. And then he spent the next 15 years writing it all down.
• 54:08
  JOHN: There's a lot. Yeah, I totally, totally see that. Oh, man. That is the thing that gives me hope in this episode and in general. Because g' Kar isn't coming at it the way he's been coming at it the whole time by saying, oh, well, we simply have to fight on the other side. He's flipped what you're fighting for. And, yes, it's a lot of prompting from Kosh who we know gave him that vision. But Kosh, like anybody else, the Vorlons aren't mind control. They're guy. They're. They're sort of pushing you down a pathway. And what you do with that is your choice. The same with the shadows. The shadows didn't tell Londo to do anything. He embraced that. They just had the means and gave him a little nudge and said, hey, we. What do you want? G' Car is asking who he is and who are you? Yeah, who are you? Yep.
• 54:55
  JOSH: What the Vorlons say, and that's the.
• 54:57
  JOHN: Real crux of it is that he's saying we have to sacrifice for each other. The fight we have ahead of us is not one that we win by simply being the righteous ones. That's the major difference. And the humans are the key. And we will turn that key together. So he's watching the humans fall into martial law, fall apart and he still believes that they are the key, that humans are the key to this. And for the rest of the, for the next, you know, year of the show, it's Babylon 5. It's not the Earth Alliance. It's not, you know, convincing the Earth alliance to throw its weight in, in the Shadow War to come. It's Babylon 5 and a few humans. Which is a really mind boggling difference between so much sci fi which centers humans as the only heroic ones and this. We're getting a subgroup of humans who are heroic, but everybody else is sort of doing the heavy lifting. But that notion of sacrifice is the most important part. And it's not just sacrifice of sacrificing your body. You have to sacrifice. I think you have to sacrifice being righteous to some degree. You have to sacrifice that sense of, sure, you have to sacrifice comfort and oh, I just. Okay, this is the moment, obviously, as we're recording this, another show that I'm, you know, you're obviously talking about Andor is, is, is back. And there's this speech in, I think, episode nine. Stalin, Starsgard character gives what have I sacrificed? And he starts off, the first word he says is calm, kindness, kinship. He's gone down a darker road, obviously, when he's talking about sacrifice. G' Kar sacrifice is not entirely dissimilar. But it's not saying that you sacrifice kinship or compassion or decency. But you might have to sacrifice revenge. You might have to sacrifice that obsessive need to be right.
• 56:47
  JOSH: Yeah.
• 56:48
  JOHN: And that is a much harder sacrifice in a whole bunch of different ways. Well, g' Kar has to give up. And he's still, he's only at the beginning of his journey. Along this line we see more difficulty. But by the end of season four, my God, that journey, you think of the things he sacrificed and then you see what he's gained from that sacrifice is extraordinary. And that's the point. But it's so hard to communicate. And watching the show unfold like that gives you. Oh, well, that's what he gets from it. How do you, how do you tell that to somebody? He can't at this point. He's trying to tell Talon he has no idea what he's really like. What's the what's the benefit of sacrificing for the humans? For sacrificing for, for creation. He uses some flowery language and other terms about, you know, but there's really no concept. And that's, and that's what's hard to get at this point. But this is the starting point, point of no return also is the starting point of everybody's next journey. It's Jacquards, it's the entire command staff.
• 57:39
  JOSH: Just hearing you talk about what Jakkar is advocating for and hearing you talk about what leaders who have a more sort of a global perspective and a more holistic perspective about, you know, we have to create relationships, we have to, you know, participate in the global or galactic community and how that's a taller order to rally people to your side and to rally support for. Because it's a little more abstract. Because the upside of doing so, the benefits of doing so aren't immediately apparent. It's sort of an investment in the future. Whereas saying we have to stop and take care of ourselves, we have to engage with self care, you know, that's, that's immediate and the advantages are clear. Right?
• 58:27
  JOHN: And so rational. That is a very rational human decision. Make your short term decision. It's how we, it's how we, it's how humans largely do function. It's, it's a miracle of our construction and, and our biology that we are able to do long term thinking. But President Clark takes advantage of that. We have to look inwards, take care of ourselves, do what we need to do right now. Creating something bigger, which is the very purpose of Babylon 5 in the first place, as a station is so much more difficult to get your head around. Even if you will end up with this amazing existence down the road full of prosperity and different species being peaceful with each other. But how do you, you're right. How do you sell that and say, yeah, but what is my bank account right now? What is, how big is my house right now? That's a lot harder to sell, you.
• 59:16
  JOSH: Know, which ironically too though, is that like we're in the middle of the tariff thing still. And when you talk to Trump supporters who are obviously seeing the chaos and the hurt that it's already causing, and you ask them what they think, they're like, well, you know, it's gonna pay off in the long run. You know, it's a long process and we have to get through a little hurt for now. And it's like you fucking you people, when you're using it as a Justification or rationalization for the completely insane and unjustifiable then you're willing to talk about taking the long view. And it's not the long.
• 59:55
  JOHN: Exactly, Exactly. That's something I think is unique to this president as opposed to the fictional President Clark. President Clark is not a force of personality. He's not a force of anything in the show. No one or two lines in the entirety of the show. A couple of pictures here and there. And he's never. He's never spoken of as a charismatic individual. Quite the opposite. What we have right now is we have a charismatic leader. That's a really effective and dangerous thing. The show deals with charismatic leaders. They. They critique it in the form of Sheridan and Delenn.
• 1:00:26
  JOSH: Right.
• 1:00:27
  JOHN: As we've discussed, that. That. That. That's not only an Inquisitor episode but Deconstructing the Falling Stars quite literally does that and deals.
• 1:00:33
  JOSH: And also Garibaldi, like, you know, one of the effective things that he says when he's unknowingly doing the bidding of the PsiCorp, but his paranoia has been enhanced and he turns against Sheridan. One of the things that he says is like, you're walking around like a messiah with a God complex. Like, this is not right. And you know what? We sort of see his point because we see that and it is a little uncomfortable when Sheridan returns.
• 1:00:58
  JOHN: Not right. Yeah.
• 1:00:59
  JOSH: Right. When Sheridan returns from Zahadun, we, the audience, are also a little like, this is weird.
• 1:01:08
  JOHN: Yep.
• 1:01:09
  JOSH: Is he the same guy? Because you don't just die and then come back.
• 1:01:15
  JOHN: No. Sheridan's personality is notably different, which it would be.
• 1:01:22
  JOSH: Understandably. You might have a slightly different perspective on some things after you die.
• 1:01:28
  JOHN: Yeah.
• 1:01:28
  JOSH: And what's it like?
• 1:01:29
  JOHN: And if you have a Vorlan in you for a while and you have the energy of the first one, you know, it's. It's going to be a lot.
• 1:01:34
  JOSH: First one.
• 1:01:35
  JOHN: You know, the first one, like, you're.
• 1:01:37
  JOSH: Constantly airy, is like the literal first sentient being. Right.
• 1:01:41
  JOHN: Oh, my God. It's so much. But that. That critique is always valid. But that's the world we live in today. We have a charismatic leader and the things people will do to justify what their leader says and that is a much higher threshold. So they're taking the long view now. But what's interesting is humans still tend to default back to what comforts them in the moment. And J Must also pointed that out. He says, you think, here's the number one rule. Population will stay passive for as long as they perceive that they stand to lose more by opposing government than by staying quiet. And when they have little or nothing to lose, then they rise up. The politico's first, they're more reluctantly the general population. That's a real important notion that to what happens to this is that people will sort of wait until that point of no return or well after before they stand up. And it's only if they've lost it. So that's why the irony of what's happening right now is in real time we're talking about is there's already been substantial talk on backing off on the tariffs, backing off on a lot of the things. I think the realization was quite clear. Even if there was a grand vision to long term prosperity, which I'm personally very dubious of, using tariffs because there's no historical example of them working to that effect except in very limited targeted cases. If you're going to crumble your own economy, even with the idea that you think it's going to reconstitute itself in a better form months or years down the road, that will weaken your power base. In the Third Reich, despite some real economic blunders, the first step was to wipe away the French debt from the First World War. An economic machine was unleashed. What fascism does is it unites government, authoritarian control with capital companies and creation of end markets. So he unleashed one hell of a machine to produce machines of war in his economy. And that led to a dramatic upswing in the standard of living for Germans. So regardless of anything else you have to say is that the reason he was able to hold on to power was because he delivered on the economic claims while beginning the process of destroying millions upon millions of lives and killing millions of people. So it's harder to get there if you're not at least giving people something that they want to hold on to economically. So if the economy collapses, you're tipping people over to that point of, well, I guess what do I have to lose? Already lost my economics standing. I already lost my job, everything else. And if you have a population full of that, they're more likely to rise up if you keep them fat, dumb and happy, well, that equation goes back in favor of the leader again. So that's what's interesting about this moment. But again, week to week, day to day, that all changes. It's on a rip.
• 1:04:22
  JOSH: You know, in these few weeks, watching through B5 and seeing Clark and the Earth alliance slide into authoritarianism, our reality seems in some ways to be a little worse. But one way in which it's not One thing we do have going for us is that to be somewhat simplistic about it, Trump is stupid in some very important ways. There is no plan. There is no true understanding of these dynamics. And he also refuses to entertain the idea that there are things that maybe he doesn't know, which prevents any new information from getting in. So, you know, yes, like if this is what you're going to do, it's pretty dumb because what you want to do is if you do want to go isolation is if you do want to start playing around with tariffs the way that he thinks they work, you know, you have to lay the groundwork and have a plan for it. I mean, if he and those around him genuinely believe that it works the way that they say, they still didn't do the work up front that you would need to do for it to play out.
• 1:05:32
  JOHN: And quite the opposite. The hollowing out of the competence and effectiveness of the federal government leaves no tools left to build a new industrial base, factory, jobs, whatever it is they're talking about. There's no tool to do it except hoping it happens. And that's a major difference between what we see in historical analogs around Europe. In the early 20th century, their successful leaders were successful economically, and in the show, President Clark, they don't make specific reference, but there's no mention whatsoever in the show that has nothing to do with incompetence, economic catastrophe, instability, all of that. It seems to be a business as usual. In fact, when you do get to the fourth season, which we alluded to, is Garibaldi and the psicorps storyline, when you meet the Mars corporate magnate, William Eggers. William Eggers, he makes it very clear that the corporate elite of the. Of the mega corporations of Earth and Mars are biding their time until it is the right time to simply remove Clark from power. And that's been. That was their view. Now, what this threw up was the idea of like, well, all the suffering that happens in between. And obviously they weren't doing so. They were talking about it. They were pretending like they're gonna do something. The only one who really did it in the end was Sheridan in the politically inconvenient way, as we see in the fourth season. But they really believed they had that power. But in that writing, in that world, obviously. And he does call. He refers to him. Eggers refers to Clark as an amateur. He does, and that was an interesting point to it. So you say, okay, well, he seemed to have some quiet backing from the shadows here and there. And the corporate elite were willing to go along with it until it was too much of a cost to them. You know, today we've gone past that point because, yes, you have somebody who was an amateur, he's now learned how to manage the levers of power, and now everybody's fallen in line with very little odds of opposing them at the corporate level. So, you know, the parallels begin to diverge a little bit. But you certainly see that the notion was, oh, don't worry, the powerful elite will always reassert themselves well, in time. And maybe they already have. Maybe that's why the tariffs are being drawn at this point is because those William Edgar's of the world are saying, no, no, no, no, no, our interests are finally at stake. So it's going to be interesting to see what happens. But the predictive next step would be to hold onto power. If the corporate elite are beginning to turn against you, if the economy is not proving to be the selling point that it was, you have to find more aliens.
• 1:08:07
  JOSH: Right.
• 1:08:07
  JOHN: If the deportations aren't selling and getting the traction and the popularity, it's not unlikely. And this is not a prognostication. It's simply looking at how it might unfold if you're looking to hold power. And for this administration, it's gonna be picking an enemy and going out, creating one or picking one and building that up and saying, yep, this is who we have to now get in a, in a fight with and make that part of this administration's identity and part of American identity. And it didn't seem to work out well when he was picking on the Canadians. That was not garnering national support. Greenland doesn't really get people salivating. But it's important in that concept of inoculation, be on the lookout for the next mention of something. You go, why is he mentioning that group of people or that country or this that we've never really cared about before? Be on the lookout that thing. Because that could be the thing that gets built up into the next big alien enemy that we have to protect ourselves against and reassert the authority of a leader as a result. That's where I would keep your eyes open for that, you know, and, and yeah, if President Trump comes across a shadow ship, then yeah, yeah.
• 1:09:16
  JOSH: Or the, the real world equivalent. I mean, I don't know what that would be, but yeah, no, you're absolutely right. I have one final point that I wanted to make. So the episode resolves, such as it does. So the Night Watch is poised to take over and to arrest Sheridan and the command staff. And General Smits is communicating with Sheridan. And in code. He doesn't outright say it because he's on an open channel but he tries to communicate to Sheridan that this is an illegal order because it's not coming through the proper chain of command. Clark is a civilian. He cannot give you a military order.
• 1:09:57
  JOHN: So, no, it's the. It's. The Political Office cannot do it. He's the head of the chain of command.
• 1:10:03
  JOSH: Yes, right, right, right, right.
• 1:10:05
  JOHN: This is through the Political Office. The Political Office has done this.
• 1:10:09
  JOSH: And he keeps on looking at command. Yeah.
• 1:10:13
  JOHN: And Ivanova says after success, they've successfully, you know, figured that loophole out. Well, President Clark will simply reissue the order personally. But that's down the road in that'll be tomorrow's problem.
• 1:10:26
  JOSH: Right. So once Sheridan realizes that he still has to deal with the Night Watch on the station. And the way that he does it is with Jakkar's idea which is to use Narns as a new security force on Babylon 5. Which is great. It's satisfying. It's a great scene. It's very clever. And they won the day. But as you point out, it's just about buying a little more time. It's not a full victory. They have escaped literal arrest but they've only delayed it for days, a week until the proper order comes through the proper channels. And that made me realize the victory in this episode is gumming up the works. Essentially, it's a delay tactic. And reminded me, I don't know if you saw this, but a few weeks ago on social media there was a CIA resistance manual people were sharing that I think was written in, like, the 50s or the 60s that was essentially giving instructions on how to resist a regime or a dictatorship, I think, for sabotage. And what the instructions were was to gum up the works, slow everything down. When somebody gives you an order, you call them to verify it.
• 1:11:38
  JOHN: Right? Right.
• 1:11:39
  JOSH: And then they verify it. You say, I'm going to need that in writing. You know, like all that stuff. Like, you make yourself a huge and inefficient pain in the ass and that slows the gears and makes it harder for them to do what they're trying to do. And, you know, that's how they win the day in this episode. They are taking advantage of bureaucratic technicalities. And, you know, it's like a clever legal. It's a clever legal argument. It's a semantic argument. And they are making nuisances of themselves, essentially. And the same thing in the teaser of the Next episode where Londo is going through customs and the Narn says, oh, I'm sorry. I'm having trouble with your Identicard. Londo's like, come on. You know who I am. And the Narn is like, yeah, except I. You know, the computer doesn't. So, like, I'm sorry. If you'll just step aside, I'll take care of this. It should only be two or three hours. It's that sort of stuff.
• 1:12:37
  JOHN: Yep.
• 1:12:37
  JOSH: That is not just for, you know, personal satisfaction or for pettiness or whatever. According to the CIA, that is a real, genuine and effective resistance tactic.
• 1:12:47
  JOHN: Yeah. Yeah.
• 1:12:49
  JOSH: So I thought that was interesting.
• 1:12:50
  JOHN: Yeah. Well documented. Brilliant.
• 1:12:53
  JOSH: So, John, what are we doing next time? Are we going to do Severed Dreams or should. Should we save that for when?
• 1:12:59
  JOHN: Should we go right to the edge and now try to pull back and see if there's something else to cover in the first three seasons? First two seasons.
• 1:13:06
  JOSH: Yeah. Why don't we think about it?
• 1:13:08
  JOHN: Yeah, let's.
• 1:13:09
  JOSH: Let's.
• 1:13:09
  JOHN: Let's look into a couple of the options. I feel like. I feel like there'll be enough bullshit we're going to have to cover as things unfold with this administration that will match up with Severed Dreams at some point. Let's look into what we have in seasons one and two that might be fun to revisit.
• 1:13:23
  JOSH: Sounds good. All right, well, this is Last Best Hope signing off. And by the way, please reach out. Let us know that you're listening. If you like the show, you don't like the show, you have criticism or anything that we haven't discussed that you would like to hear us talk about, kind of feels like we're sort of screaming into the void, and that's fine. I mean, I like screaming into the void. But if you do have the inkling, if you're on the fence, we would absolutely love to hear from you. And with that, we want to leave you with the idea that sometimes peace is just another word for surrender.