Latest / LAST BEST HOPE: A Babylon 5 Podcast for Our Uncertain Age / #6 – A Stormy Present (MESSAGES FROM EARTH)

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#6 – A Stormy Present (MESSAGES FROM EARTH) · LAST BEST HOPE: A Babylon 5 Podcast for Our Uncertain Age

• 0:00
  JOSH: Foreign.
• 0:05
  JOHN: Welcome to Last Best Hope, a Babylon 5 podcast where we talk about one of our favorite shows of all time and its unfortunate and surprising relevance to today's geopolitical circumstances. I can't think of a better show, as we've explored it, that actually really explores the major issues of authoritarianism and anything related to that slide. So here we are at an episode in season three, three messages from Earth. And I didn't expect to get to season three so quickly, but season three is. That's where the tracks are parallel to our current. Our current world, it seems, right now. So this episode is a really interesting one. The crew and the captain particular are forced to make a real decision. This is the one where you realize there may the viewers. And as I'm going back to it really began to realize there may be no turning back. This episode begins with a really dramatic. Literally a dramatic moment. A package has arrived at Babylon 5 that in a previous episode we hinted at was one of those layered setups that Marcus was referencing in Exogenesis. And the package is a person in the form of Dr. Mary Kirkish with a ominous message to the command staff of Babylon 5. And her intro is done in a way. It's drum like music, like a march, almost like they're being marched to the gallows, if you will. And she's walking through the station being escorted with security, very tight security to avoid Night Watch, to avoid anybody else. And there she delivers a message. And that message is one that terrifies the entire command staff. And that's that Earth government has uncovered a shadow vessel buried on Ganymede, one of Jupiter's moons, and is trying to reactivate it. So you think, okay, that's. That's the big sci fi beginning of this episode. Where that goes is in a number of different directions. But I just, you know, every time I watch this episode, it's that dramatic drum music which is not something that Christopher Frank used a lot of where she's coming into the station. And more than what I said earlier, it's more of a military drum. Like they're, they're getting attention.
• 2:05
  JOSH: It's very effective. Like when she finally starts speaking, you're really primed for something really weighty and dramatic. Some. Some bombs to be dropped.
• 2:16
  JOHN: Yeah.
• 2:16
  JOSH: And to the show's credit, you know, it is worth it. What she says is pretty chilling.
• 2:21
  JOHN: It was as if they'd said, okay, it's on. It's happening. We've been building to this. We've been talking about it. The characters have been worried about it. But here's where we get a big moment. And you're like, oh, God, this is real. This. This is big. And unlike, let's say, a resident in the more cloistered Earth alliance now the Command crew, Babylon 5 know what's at stake. They've now had encounters with Shadows. They're battling with Shadows. They're fully aware of the. Of the war that is about to break out completely into the open. Like, that's a big part of it. This. This episode is, you know, the revelation how the ships are controlled. There's a lot that gets put into this, but the characters know that. And they're in this very difficult position that you need the attention for because they're in the position that no one else can act. No one. There's not like, oh, well, there are other people who know this is a problem. The other people who have this. They're the only ones who have the intelligence, the only ones who have the knowledge. Lots of that is coming from Delenn and the alliance with the Vorlons. So there's nobody on Earth who actually, for. For all the, you know. Yeah, the Shadows are influencing, but there's. There's nobody in the Earth Dome apparatus that might have a worry the way that our main characters would because they just don't know. And they're being kept in the dark.
• 3:37
  JOSH: The other thing, and correct me if I'm wrong but what we discover in this episode is not just that Earth Dome has been compromised by the Shadows but that they are working with them. I mean, they are in league with them. And I think that this is the first moment where the two stories really collide and become part of the same larger story.
• 3:59
  JOHN: Yeah. Yeah.
• 4:00
  JOSH: Which is a hell of a revelation previously, you know, in season two, when we were learning more and more about the Shadows it sort of seemed like a parallel story that was happening in addition to what was happening on Earth but not necessarily as intertwined. Intertwined. Then we find out that, oh, the Earth alliance is using the threat of the Shadows to further their own ends. But then in the beginning of this season we just discovered that the Shadows were directly involved with helping Clark assassinate Santiago. And now we see they are really intimately involved working with the Shadows here. They're sort of trying to do something in secret from the Shadows. Right.
• 4:42
  JOHN: I definitely picked up that part was that. Was that this is. This is where it added layers onto it which really made it work even better. Which is that the Shadows are influencing and have operatives and are working. But Clark is a Step further than that. Clark wants it to be about him. So he and his agents, they want to take this. This shadow ship that has been discovered on Ganymede. And the quick background on that is that this is a ship that likely was stranded there and depowered during the war a thousand years ago. I think Clark really believes that if he can get hold of some of the technology himself, he's gonna have to be beholden to the Shadows. He is really out for himself. He's really out for. And this is where I'll bring the comparison a little bit to today. It's a little bit of a stretch. A little bit not is that he doesn't want any other handlers. He doesn't want, you know, he'll use them the way they're using him. But in his vision, he wants Earth first, Earth dominant with him at the helm. And all those conditions have to be true. It's very similar to the impression we get about the current president, America first, with him at the top. And it's all a zero sum game. So the exclusion, others must be second. And even the people who are allies in getting there, other countries, other forces, other businesses will be put into subservience as part of that. And I think almost every ally who's ever worked with the current administration has found that to be. A common story is that you will get your benefit for a while, you'll get your largess, and then either. And primarily when you no longer are useful, you'll be kicked to the curb. And certainly if you. If you speak out. Clark is looking to do the same thing here. He doesn't want to be under the thumb of the Shadows. And the Shadows don't seem to be taking too much of an insult to that because the Shadows are playing a different game entirely. They're not like that. That's what goes to the space opera. That's above what's happening in our planet right now is that they. They just want the conflict. They just want the different things. And they'll always be able to build somebody else up to take out the other anthill. You know, that's. That's why they. Using that example later on is so great, is that they're not really interested in President Clark or which form of government or which. That they just want to see which anthill they can build up and how they can get them to fight. So I was surprised. That's why initially I was surprised. Well, why didn't the Shadows, you know, when they found out that this ship, which is living so it's a living Shadow due to an ext. Why didn't they get really pissed out Earth Dome was doing? They didn't care. They're above all that. President Clark doesn't understand that part. It's above him. But he thought he could get out of this by saying, this ship will be ours. We will reverse the technology. We will have Shadow technology, and then we will, you know, non aggression pact be damned. They will take over the galaxy best they can.
• 7:34
  JOSH: And it's funny too, because you say Clark isn't aware of how the Shadows are operating on another level. And they're not, like, really like the Earth alliance isn't the real player, that the Shadows have probably led them to believe that they are the exact same with the Centauri. You know, you hear the Centauri talking about how, you know, they're so powerful and their rightful place and this and that, blah, blah, blah. But the Shadows, they are letting you think that. But the idea that it wouldn't even occur to Clark that maybe the Shadows are way more powerful and playing a whole other game, the idea that he thinks he can get one over on the Shadows just speaks to his narcissism and his lack of imagination. You know, the idea that, like, well, if I'm having this idea, it's a brilliant plan and it'll totally work because how can they. How can they outsmart me? Right?
• 8:24
  JOHN: Right on that. This week and last week, you have the tariffs. And there I'm reading the Wall Street Journal. That is a Murdoch owned paper. So no liberal rag, the Wall Street Journal rag there. This is a Murdoch paper, part of the News Corp. Empire. And they're very clearly talking about what China has done since the last round of tariffs came into effect in the first Trump administration. And they've built up an arsenal of tools to use in this exact case where it will. Where you know, everything from being able to target individual companies, weaken our intellectual property of tools. Really fascinating economic detail into that. But they were planning for this because they said, well, if this happens, we want to be in a position to leverage more pain on the US Than the US can leverage on us. And it seems to be that's what's going to play out. So you have the president here in our world saying, oh, we're going to throw up these dry tariffs. We're going to force everybody the table and we're going to get these amazing deals that are going to all be in our favor. Not understanding that China is playing a different game. They have a different Government structure, one that is itself authoritarian and centralized and has a lot more power and plans in the long term with a lot less ego and a lot more ruthlessness towards realism. And he's not ready for that. He's not ready for the fact that we, as in this country will end up suffering more on that end. And over there. Well, if, if, if his people have to suffer in China, he's fine with that in the short run, knowing that the long run game will be an even bigger victory.
• 10:06
  JOSH: Conveniently, he also doesn't care about the people who are going to suffer in the short term.
• 10:10
  JOHN: Exactly.
• 10:12
  JOSH: Yeah. It's also wild, I'm going to call it again, it's, I think, narcissism combined with hubris where it doesn't even cross their mind that the US Is not the dominant player that has all the cards. Like, it doesn't even cross his mind that we may not be in as strong a position as he, he thinks, which is fascinating.
• 10:35
  JOHN: He said, he said on camera to Zielinski in, in that Oval Office meeting, you don't have the cards. You don't have the cards. But he's totally blind to the fact that this other power on our planet has a lot of cards and arguably has been planning and may have, as a result, may have even more cards and certainly has a higher threshold of pain. That may be the best card that they have to play is that as a nation they have a higher threshold for that between an authoritarian regime on their side, but also population and a nationalization that is willing to go through that, especially if it means winning in the end. And that's something that can't quite be said. You know, I think that at some point there will be a massive backlash if, if the economy crashes. And I'm almost getting to the point where I say when, where people will demand accountability. But that also weakens that, arguably it weakens his delusion of, oh, well, you know, that's not going to be a problem. We can negotiate hard and push them to the wall. So delusion is a big part of any authoritarian. And not to say China doesn't have its own delusions and they've gotten themselves into trouble with it. It's just they've sort of mastered some of the discipline around that. So I, you know, that's, that's where, yeah, there is sort of a loose parallel to this traditional figure of authoritarianism and President Clark is that he's delusional in, in his beliefs about the Earth alliance and delusional about his own Position, which I think is why it bookends with his. With him taking his own life at the end, because it wasn't. It wasn't somebody else doing it. It wasn't one of his cabinet members. It wasn't a. No one else was able to get him. This was. Well, Sheridan's riding in the alien fleet is coming in. Like, I, I'm not. Like, I've lost. So he ends it himself. And then scorched Earth wants to incinerate Earth.
• 12:30
  JOSH: Because he's also similar to Trump. He. His sense of self has merged with the sense of state. Right. So if something happens with the Earth alliance or with the US in our world, whatever happens against your country is like a personal affront that affects your self worth, your sense of self. It's almost. They take it personally because they see the state, you know, as an extension of themselves. When you said some degree of delusion seems to be a feature of these authoritarian rulers, I thought to myself, that makes sense in that it's very hard for me to get in the mindset of a person who wants that kind of control and dominance over everything like that sounds terrible. It makes sense to me that the kind of personality, that complete total power over everybody is a desirable thing and that they should be the one to have that power. You got to have some amount of delusion, it seems to me.
• 13:40
  JOHN: Yeah, delusion. And definitely. It's definitely a different mental framework than what I think most people function with. Some would say that obviously that correlates to a high level of sociopathy, maybe even psychopathy. But when looking at stories through, through history, whether they're shows and books or actual historical examples, I think that there's generally been a trend, and you certainly notice it in writing, which is that, oh, the best leaders in reality and in fiction are those who want at least, but have it thrust upon them. That's. That's general storyline. And you see that here in this show. That's Sheridan. He's a natural leader when it comes to his. His military record, anything else. But he's always reluctant to be the absolute. He doesn't want to be the absolute. He's portrayed by ISN as that, but he doesn't want it. He. He doesn't live every day like, oh, how can I get more control? It's. How can I. How can I do the right thing and then step back and keep things going in my. In whatever my job is? Like, he didn't come on to Babylon 5 like, well, now it's my way of the highway. And I get to remake the world through this place. It was like, oh, there's more going on here than I thought. Oh, crap. I have to take this episode. Is him making that decision to take the next step reluctantly when he goes on Earth. It is not a about him. I'm just ready to go ride in and make it all about me and take over the world. It's, it's, it's the, it's the reluctance. And I think back the two examples. And this is, this is, this is from an author who I now have a very tortured relationship with. Orson Scott Card, who wrote Ender's Game, you know, turned out not to be the person I'd hoped when I first read the book. I think a lot of us read Ender's Game as, as teenagers or in our young life. And a phenomenal book, not knowing that the author was problematic, to say the least. But. And I feel bad for him for other reasons. I could do a whole episode on him, but the book featured a notion about leadership and the reluctance. And I always remember reading that where he cites two historical examples of leaders who gave up power. And that's why they are the greatest leaders. The first one was Cincinnatus in ancient Rome and during the Republic. And he used. During a time of crisis, the Romans had a law that allowed for a dictator, that's where the word comes from, to assume power for six months. And that would be to get the matters of state, the matters of whatever it was, security, crisis, famine, under control, and then power would properly return to the Senate. So Cincinnatus is given this power during a crisis. And at the end of six months, he's asked by the Senate or members of the Senate to remain in power. He's done such a good job. Rome is doing well now. Again, they've weathered the crisis. And he stands up and says, no, I'm going back to my farm. I'm going to go back to my family. The last thing you want is for me to continue, even if I'm doing a great job. The point is, I'd now be the permanent dictator. You'd go against your own laws, and eventually I wouldn't be a good leader. And where would we be then? And of course, years later, Julius Caesar. The same laws and act is utilized, and he crosses a threshold and goes beyond the six months and famously is assassinated by the Senate. But his heir, Augustus Caesar, takes the name, becomes the first emperor, and you see the functional end of the Republic as a result. The other example is George Washington and that's a little bit vaguer in some senses. But he was asked in the beginning to be a monarch, declined that as they were figuring out what to make this constitution look like. And after eight years, two terms, you know, asked to stay on and said, no, otherwise this will become a form of monarchy or continued power struggle. Interestingly, that he doesn't live much longer past his second term. It's almost like, you know, in fictitious characters, they sort of like ride off into the sunset. Sheridan gets that, you know, is that when his time is up, it's up, and he literally sort of goes off. But the fact that those are the two examples and there weren't many others always, always got me from that book. Said, wait, but. But where's the list of other. Of other leaders in history? The. The process of becoming a leader, the process of becoming a ruler of any sort tends to filter out the people who are good for the position, and it tends to elevate the people who are worst for it. And that's just a very human thing. And fiction loves to explore the idea of the person thrust into power who doesn't want it and is moral and can do the right thing.
• 18:20
  JOSH: There are two points that I want to make along these lines. One, I think may steer us down a rabbit hole. So the first one is, you know, we're talking about the kind of personality that would see that kind of total dictatorial power as desirable. And also, you know, I think in previous episodes, we were discussing this idea that just some. Some people naturally have more fascistic sort of personalities and fascistic impulses. I was really struck since those conversations watching this episode. There's a scene near the beginning of the episode where the head of the Night Watch walks into the security office to tell Zach that there's a new Night Watch meeting the next day or something. By the way, he's played by an actor named Vaughn Armstrong who does a lot of guest spots on Star Trek. Probably the only one without makeup was Admiral. Oh, he's on Enterprise. Yeah, yeah, yeah, Enterprise.
• 19:21
  JOHN: And he's quite a sympathetic, good character in that show.
• 19:24
  JOSH: No. Yeah. And he's actually really good as this, you know, Night Watch security flunky or whatever you want to call him. Strangely, when I was looking him up, he's only ever credited as security guard number one, which I thought was interesting because he's very central in at least three or four episodes. And JMS never gave him a name.
• 19:47
  JOHN: That had to be deliberate, right?
• 19:50
  JOSH: Yeah, yeah. So he has that scene with Zach, and they Have a little bit of a back and forth. And then as he's leaving, he stops and he looks at the wall of security camera monitors and he says, you know, seeing them like this sometimes kind of makes you feel a little like God, doesn't it? And he kind of smiles and he leaves.
• 20:12
  JOHN: Yeah.
• 20:12
  JOSH: It's very clear that he enjoys having that sort of power and control. I don't know. I thought that was a very revealing line because I could also imagine somebody sitting there and feeling a lot of, like, weight and responsibility and. Or maybe feeling like they're seeing something that they shouldn't see.
• 20:34
  JOHN: You can definitely contrast that to Garibaldi when he's sitting in front of those screens. He's. He's watching and he's nervous. He's protecting. He's concerned. It is the power that's granted to the security force of the station and security and generally in our world. But he doesn't. He doesn't seem to revel in it in any way throughout any part of the series. And that. And that's the difference. That's. That's the difference between the way you portray those kinds of things and why the characters end up where they are in this kind of.
• 21:07
  JOSH: The reason why it struck me was because it had nothing to do with the literal nuts and bolts of what they were talking about in the scene. So the fact that that's where he chose to close the scene. Right. Having him say that line, I think it's supposed to make you reflect on the kind of a personality, the kind of a person who's engaged in this. So there's that. And yet what you were saying about Sheridan and leaders who, you know, the best leaders are the ones who've relinquished their power. There's something that I noticed in this episode and it's followed up on again in Severed Dreams, and I'm not quite sure what to make of it. I do think there's something there, so I'm wondering how it strikes you. But, you know, there's a long scene in this episode where Sheridan is talking about something that his father had done for him. Right. He's reminiscing about this moment that his dad was a very loving and giving father in a moment where he needed it. And then jumping ahead a little bit in Severed Dreams when he makes the decision to break away from Earth the last thing he does, right before he makes the announcement that they are seceding from the Earth alliance, he calls his dad.
• 22:23
  JOHN: Yeah.
• 22:24
  JOSH: It makes me wonder what JMS Is saying. I'm not Even necessarily saying that it's something conscious on his part. But what is the implication here? Like, what is the role? I don't know. Maybe it's having the example of a strong leader who was kind and compassionate.
• 22:43
  JOHN: They were. They refer to his father. And this is. And. And for listeners, just to. Jumping ahead in the episode is that when Sheridan makes the call to destroy this Shadow ship, you know, they take the White Star and he's trying to sleep. And we'd already had some info on his father. He's a diplomat that had some talk about, you know, things getting difficult on. On Earth. But this story was really beautiful. And this, where the episode goes, again, goes from, like, you know, it's the intense. It's the we got to take care of the situation thing to the beautiful, tender moments that really get underrated in the show. And they make this show. The tender moments are beautiful. The character moments make everything in this show and I love that of people getting to watch the show. Now they're actually seeing that and telling me about that. I'm like, yes, okay, so you're seeing that. You're getting to experience that. So when he says that his father. What was the exact story? He was stressed out. He was taking a test for the Academy or something like that, studying.
• 23:45
  JOSH: And he was up all night and he couldn't sleep. And he knew that he just needed to get a couple hours. But it was like four in the morning and he was wide awake. And his dad knew that the thing that would help him sleep. He always loved the sound of rain hitting the roof.
• 24:00
  JOHN: Yeah.
• 24:01
  JOSH: And then it's very sweet because he's relaying the story to Delenn. So there's actually, like another layer, another relationship that is sort of developing here in the scene. But Delenn says. And did it start to rain? And Sheridan was like, no, but my dad went outside with the garden hose and. And stood there making it rain until I fell asleep.
• 24:24
  JOHN: Yeah.
• 24:25
  JOSH: You know, would you just imagine. I mean, that's the kind of dad we all want, right?
• 24:30
  JOHN: It really is that. That was one of those moments. And again, like, I can. I really can't remember 25, 30 years ago, watching most of this show. That's a moment I do remember because the language that's used, it literally created the visual in my mind. I had it back then. When I first watched the show, I literally saw my version of the house he lived in. The roof and the garden hose and the father. Like, that was an image I had in my head from all the Way back when this first aired, because it's, because it was, it just, it just gets to you. And then of course, deland issues a statement in Membari that like, is like telling the Siri of the White Star to start playing Rain. A beautiful, you know, wrap up for that moment. But you wonder who is this father? And of course, you're watching the show, you're like, oh, that makes sense. This is the man who raised John Sheridan and his father's a diplomat. He's a very well respected individual who has wielded power as a result, like it was referred to, that he's obviously wielded power in a very responsible manner. I'll even go so far as to say that the way he's portrayed both in Severed Dreams, the father and I want to bring up the actor's name in a minute because I think he did a great job.
• 25:42
  JOSH: Rance Howard, he's Ron Howard's dad.
• 25:45
  JOHN: Yes, yes, yes. And when he basically tells her, he's like, well, son, you got to do what you got to do. And then the lessons that Sheridan speaks later of, you know, never start a fight but always finish it. What I'm really getting at with that is that Sheridan's father is portrayed as the best manifestation of masculinity, something that's really lacking these days when we talk about the crisis of young men. That is masculinity to me. That is the ideal of masculine energy, mass. It's not overbearing, but it is strong. It is quiet, powerful and compassionate. All those things at the same time. And Sheridan reaches out to me. He knows that his father understands. He knows that he will find that last bit of strength he needs in that moment. Like, it's really beautiful. And this moment sets that up with the rain because, you know, wow, he would go out there and just a simple act like that. We all say, yeah, but that's it. That's what it's all about. And that same man is going out often. Being a diplomat, he's off, off doing. He's doing. And, and when they meet, when all this is resolved, that's another beautiful moment. So I think that, you know, I'm not going to dive too deep into Jameis himself. I just know from his autobiography he definitely has some life experience and, and views on this, which I think he really wrote.
• 27:07
  JOSH: Well, you said you're not gonna delve too deeply into jms. That is exactly what I was gonna do next.
• 27:13
  JOHN: All right.
• 27:15
  JOSH: Just to the extent that, you know, having read his autobiography, Becoming Superman, which we've referred to in previous episodes. Without getting into it, his father was probably pretty close to the antithesis of this example.
• 27:31
  JOHN: Yeah.
• 27:32
  JOSH: After reading that, it sort of struck me how when JMS is writing father characters and it's not just Sheridan's father, I think this one is the most fully realized father relationship simply because, you know, we're with Sheridan for a long time. But Sinclair also mentions his father way back in season one, and the way that he talks about him, you can tell he also held him in very high regard. And then also, I remember in Jeremiah, that was on Showtime, the very beginning of that show, the very first episode, was the main character writing a letter to his dad, who I think is dead. Yes. Because it ends with, I miss you every day. So jms, when I read about his father in his autobiography, he's writing these idealized versions of what he imagines a father, a good father to be. Yeah. Which I think is just striking in that it does seem like he has this fixation with these. This notion of, like, the good father, the idealized father. You know, you don't have to have a degree in psychology to figure out that that fixation probably has something to do with the lack of having it in his own life. I would venture to say, and I just find it interesting, you know, that, as you say, and I would agree, this ideal version of masculinity that we see on display from Sheridan vis a vis, his father only came from someone who had it lacking in his own life. And from whatever examples he had or from whatever he imagined that would look like, he. He created a fiction.
• 29:22
  JOHN: He created a fiction that was very real, though. It wasn't a fantasy. It wasn't a. It wasn't a superman. It was an ideal. But it was something that we all connect to without being. Without saying, oh, well, that's impossible. We've all met, whether it's our own families, members of our families, or friends of the family, or people who just encounter the world, we've all met that ideal at some point. And. And he met that ideal at different points in his life. It just wasn't his own father.
• 29:51
  JOSH: Right.
• 29:51
  JOHN: So he's writing that it really does connect and that. That gets to something about JMS's writing. And what you do get from his autobiography about him as a person is very often there's a notion that that trauma begets trauma, that the abused becomes the abuser when the wheel turns, and that it is the less common scenario where the person is able to take the pain and horror of their experience and turn it around entirely in the life that they lead. And he has a lot of. A lot of statements about that in his autobiography which also informed his choices of what to do and what not to do in his own life. But it was an example of somebody who's incredibly self aware and incredibly striving. And that's why for listeners who are this autobiography is called Becoming Superman. Not because JMS imagines that he became Superman. The superhero with flying x ray vision, etc. Superman is held up as an ideal of moral behavior, an archetype. To aspire to becoming Superman is becoming that, not becoming superpowered. It's a really interesting distinction. Despite having the standard Superman, you know, iconography on the book cover. That's what it's about. And that's one of the really brilliant takeaways from that book. And then you see, well, of course, that's Babylon 5. Of course, that's the character he writes in all of his writing and shows Sense8 is all about that. It's about flawed people trying to find not only the better versions themselves but also understand that that's. That everybody's going through something. So I really. I really appreciate that in the writing of J. As ever hears this. Like, I want him to hear that part, you know, that we see. We see that part in his work and that part and that part of him. And going back quickly to the father thing, even Delenn at one point brings up her father. It's. It's. It's a beautiful moment. Yeah, I. I just rewatched that. In an episode where Sheridan wants to know more about her she tells this other story to Sheridan which is they would go to temple every day. The Minbari, the religious cast and everything. And one day her father puts her down and says, delenn, you are too old for me to carry. You must now walk on your own. And she describes that moment of her childhood as such a defining moment because she saw in her father not only his love for her but the acknowledgement that things. That he's getting older, she's getting older, that life has changed. And for the first moment, she realized that her father was mortal that he would one day pass and at. No. And that she loved him no more than at that moment. They just connected. And I thought, wow. I mean, yeah, you don't expect. You don't always expect those moments in this show. You don't expect it from the trailers and everything else. And then you get a moment like that.
• 32:43
  JOSH: Next week on Babylon 5.
• 32:45
  JOHN: Yep. Yeah, it's. You know, this is. This is the whole thing, and this is why I love how we do go down the rabbit holes when discussing this, is that this show would have been great just having the story that it had, just having the Shadow War, the station, it's. It's the crazy goings on that would have actually been enough for it to be a really good show. What actually makes it really great is these moments, because that's what I take away. I say, you know, I can forgive some of the special effects when I get a little bit like, oh, that didn't quite work, or some of the moments don't quite work. It's because these moments really work because, like, why do we. Why do we. Why do we love Delenne? And Delenne is written in a way. This is where we could do again a whole episode. She has obviously a feminine energy and a strength that you would never want to have to go up against because you will lose. And that when we get to that in severed dreams, oh, my God, that. That's what every goosebump goes, you know, that moment. And yet she can be so tender at the same time and so incredibly powerful and often ruthless if she needs to be as well. And there was no like, oh, but this is better than the other. We have to diminish one to have the other. The Sheridan Dylan relationship, as it evolves, is one of total equals. Also bring all kinds of different things to the table, and they really get to explore because you have human, you know, so.
• 34:05
  JOSH: Right, right.
• 34:06
  JOHN: You have that, but it's really a great way. And there isn't this chauvinism from either. Either side. You just get to appreciate it all. And I think I took. I took a lot of that away. That's why when I revisit this show, I really. I get. I get to re. Experience that. I get to re. Experience why. Why did they fall in love? Like, what is that like? And then what's it like to be at the. Be in the positions they're in, which is power. You know, they end up with enormous amounts of power. And none of them are, like. They're accused of it, but none of them are. Neither one of them is going after power for the sake of power. We had that great discussion about, you know, comes the inquisitor, you know, yes, there is. There's almost a little bit. He. He was inquiring and pushing them and torturing them on the idea to see how delusional they were. Has that moment and she breaks. Whether she might have had a little bit of delusion to begin with because again, you almost, you need that, you need a little bit of delusion to get you into these roles. I've always heard that to be a great, you know, whether it's a startup or a visionary or even a great scientist, you have to have a little bit of delusion, but not enough to poison you. And then she breaks a moment and says, but another will replace me. It's not just about me. She, she had to come to grips with that to realize it's not all about Delenn either. But she passed the test. As a result, most or a lot of people in those positions of power can't pass that test because to them, as you said, they're connected. They are the state, they are the cause. Whatever the cause is, it is them. And that's not our two main characters here. They, they, they numerate at numerous points, are willing to sacrifice themselves, but also to say, yeah, I also have to hand it over to somebody else at some point. I have to trust other people. This episode is about trust and the breaking of trust. As you get towards the end with the Night Watch and the crew on board. And that's something I don't think, if you think it's all about you, you can become more paranoid and you're not going to be able to trust somebody else because how could you trust anybody? I mean, President Clark was there at the end alone. Who could he trust really? In the end, who could President trust Clark trust? Nobody. And, and, and that's what I worry about. I see the same tendencies with our current president is that he certainly doesn't appear to trust anybody. He uses people he temporarily trusts, people who are, who are in his court and who are very flattering of him. And, and again, the, the notion of you want to, you're not going to psychoanalyze somebody. But the well documented part from family members and biographies about his family is that he had the opposite father. He had a brutal father who destroyed his brother. And he was raised in a way to compete with everybody. His siblings have no real self worth. It sounds like a brutal, awful childhood. You can understand the man he is in part because of that. And the counter example is, oh, if you're going to be a good leader, Chan, there may be that you had good examples in your life. If not a father, a father figure, somebody that you looked at and said, here is strength and compassion wielded together.
• 37:17
  JOSH: I'm really going to go out on a limb here. Do you Think people who support him or voted for him had that example of leadership from their father or their mother, their parent figure, versus those who see Trump and are horrified and are like, nothing about that man is appropriate for leader of anything. Maybe they had apparent example more along the lines of David Sheridan. Obviously this isn't really something that we can answer definitively. It just made me wonder if you see that and that's an acceptable model of leadership to you, you know, enough to cast a vote for it and or still support it. I was talking to a friend of mine who I've known for a long, long time. His parents are very conservative and they support Trump. And the other day I asked him, I was like, have you talked to your parents about what they think about this tariff stuff? And he was like, they think that the short term pain is going to be worth it and they trust whatever he's doing is right. And my friend was like, what I say to them is that they just want a, like, stern father to tell them what to do. And that's why they believe anything he says and they will go along with anything he says. And it's interesting because we're talking about how the personalities and choices that somebody makes, whether or not it trickles down to the next generation, some people like for JMS was able to break the cycle. And you know, my friend, he does not share at all the beliefs of his parents. You know, we can sit here and be like, well, you know, I believe in this and I believe in that. Right, but why do you believe that? Where did you get that from? How did you get there? Was it something you did? Was it another experience that you had? Was it in spite of or was it because of. You saw that style, you saw what that was and that made you not want to be like that. But as you say, trauma begets trauma. Hurt people, hurt people. So what is the difference there?
• 39:34
  JOHN: There's the cartoon. And first of all, so I'm going to say my response to your question is anecdotally, yes, I do believe that. I think they're. I think that that's, from my perspective, my experience and the people I know in my life, to make that sort of broad generalization as to populations, we could find some data on that, not about Trump per se, but about the nature, particularly when looking at the Third Reich and others. There is some good information out there and research about, well, how did people come to. Who are the people who are most likely. It's not a universalization. It's not as it's not deterministic.
• 40:09
  JOSH: Right.
• 40:10
  JOHN: We say hurt people, hurt people as a generalization because that's what we call a trend. That's why we look at that and say that's why we want to change the trend. We want to change what's going. Not because it's literally everybody, but that, yes, that's the trend line is that there, there is something like that. And this cartoon that comes to mind is one that was drawn. It was, you know, it was from generation to generation. You see the different, you know, different forms that abuse takes, whether it's physical, psychological, etc, and then the most recent parent you see is wielding a shield and you just see like the words trauma coming in as arrows while they wield the shield to, to, to shield their child against that incoming, the trauma arrows or whatever that is. I thought that was a neat cartoon. That sort of shows that yes, at some point somebody will make a choice. Maybe it's because they had a different influence in their life or. I've encountered parents who have literally said, this is what happened to me. I resolved not to let that happen to my children. And that's a very human instinct. So, you know, never to be discounted that just, just because it is likely, more likely than not, that somebody who's, who was hurt is going to hurt somebody else. It means that. But it's also out there that somebody will make the opposite choice and they're both fundamentally human. When you're looking at it on a more population level, you know, you ask yourself, how did that substantial number of people vote for Hitler, the Nazi party? You know, we, we've explored this a number of times in the show. Did it mean that that entire population was just a bunch of evil people and that, well, that's an evil culture and evil people and evil part of the world? No, that's not how it works. But there is something in a lot of people and does, does it trace back to their version of hierarchical thinking and their father figures, their parental figures, their figures of authority in their childhoods? Oh, I would certainly bet on that. I think that I, I see a lot of people who say, you know, because it was done, to me, it needs to, you know, it be done. I guess I, I can think of horrific examples of that. When you think of certain cultural practices. And here's a dark one that, that is a clear example of one that's done is when you think of genital mutilation. It is carried out by the people that was done by, to the next generation. That's, that's the worst type of thinking of. Well, because it was done to me, it must not only be normal, but I must carry it on. As awful as it is, as awful as what I went through was, I will carry it on on a smaller level. It becomes, as he said, well, that's what it is. Life is about stern leaders. I respect that. Maybe they lacked that in their life. I think sometimes when you lack a reliable authority figure in your life, you look for a reliable authority figure. And Trump is, if anything, reliably authoritarian. So if you're looking for somebody who's going to always tell you what to do, he'll be the one. He will always be willing to tell you what it is, even if he changes his mind day to day.
• 43:19
  JOSH: But what he will authoritatively the other thing too. That's probably a comfort to someone who was lacking that. Is that because he's also reliably transactional, you know exactly what to do to get his love.
• 43:32
  JOHN: Yes, yes.
• 43:33
  JOSH: You know, so if you want to make him happy, you know exactly how to do it. And it's interesting too, because another kind of feature of authoritarian leaders is their reliance on family. You know, installing them as part of their. Their government. Because, you know, you were saying with Clark at the end, like, who could he trust? Well, someone that, you know, you have control over. Someone that, you know, you have a sort of unbreakable relationship with. You know, blood is. Is thicker than water or what have you are your own kids. And that's why you've got all of his kids and you've got their spouses and you've got the brothers in law and you've got like, the whole thing. It's becoming a family operation.
• 44:19
  JOHN: Yeah, yeah.
• 44:20
  JOSH: The family is firmly embedded in the official, like, state apparatus. It's just another layer.
• 44:28
  JOHN: And it goes beyond loyalty. It goes beyond familial loyalty.
• 44:31
  JOSH: Exactly.
• 44:32
  JOHN: When you are the patriarchy. You've been manipulating these people your entire life. Their entire lives. Their entire lives. You molded them to be something.
• 44:41
  JOSH: Right.
• 44:42
  JOHN: And, and that means that the chances of them being. You'll know their tells, you'll know it makes them far more easy to manipulate. And that's. I mean, that, that's Shakespearean. I mean, there's nothing new about that. That's. And, and then eventually, yes, it is possible they're the ones to turn on you, but they're using your same playbook, you know, and it's also that much.
• 45:05
  JOSH: Harder for them to get there.
• 45:07
  JOHN: Yeah.
• 45:08
  JOSH: You know, it's not just a professional relationship or A friendship or whatever. It's like, it's deeply, deeply psychological.
• 45:16
  JOHN: You said in the modern era with the not so fictional show, as it turns out, succession, you know, you see that with the Murdoch empire, which is largely responsible for aiding Trump's rise, and the way the children are played off each other now that, that is turning to a far more King Lear like scenario. I mean, almost, almost page by page. And now the children are fractured. But the intent was to create a dynasty of people. Murdoch is trying to reach out. You know, when he does perish from the grave with his trust to make sure that the way he had News has News Corp. Now must be the same way. It will always be that even when he, when he finally faces his mortality, that what he created will always be the same and his children are extensions of him. And a version of immortality, that that's a story as old as time.
• 46:05
  JOSH: Do you think that this whole thing, a part of it, a part of what drives these authoritarians and to merge with the state, is really a fear of death?
• 46:16
  JOHN: Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. I think that that's been well documented in the, in the biographies of many powerful leaders, especially dictators.
• 46:25
  JOSH: God, I'm sorry, how small are these people? It's, it's so funny. It's almost as if their, their minds or imaginations are so small that they have to like broaden their material reality as much as possible. And it's just so crazy. It's like, I don't know, small.
• 46:47
  JOHN: Small is a good word for it because you, because when you imagine the inner lives of especially the worst of the worst dictators, they've in the years, they are very small. The inner lives are so minimal. And yes, there are leaders who wielded a lot of power and had incredibly detailed in our lives, but we're talking more about the ones that are specifically authoritarian with the, with a level of control that they have. And I look around the world's leaders now who resemble that and they all seem to be the same way. You know, none of them have it. Now. The joke about, the joke about. And also the historical irony when people do talk about Adolf Hitler is that he was a painter and was an artist and that in many ways the theory is that, well, maybe if he had been more successful or baby express that he wouldn't have ended up a genocidal ruthless dictator. But it's interesting, it looks like a pathway was cut off for him, at the very least a pathway of expression and understanding. And it went entirely internal to this very, very well, grand Limited version. I mean, that's what we see now with, with Trump is it's a very limited vision. It's grand. It's make America great, make us dominant. But it's, but it's no more detailed and no more intricate than. Than just us. Be strong, control everybody else because we're the best. That's. That's the beginning, middle and end of it. There's no more. There's no more to maga. It's. That's just it. And you think, like, is it. That's a lack of creativity, but it's also a lack of interest. Like, what happens when you get there? Like, hypothetically, let's say all this works, the tariffs work, we bring the whole world to make. Give us a fair deal, but then we eventually dominate everybody else. Everybody looks to us and says, oh, how great is America? Like, for a reason. Like, what does the world look like at that point? It's like, great, now you're in control. Now. What I mean that. That's always the question at the next step is that even, you know, I imagine what. What if, you know, you know, we have historical fiction for what would have happened in World War II if Germany and Japan had won. And none of it talks about a golden age. It all evolves into infighting. It all ends up being, you know, infighting within the Third Reich and the Japanese and the Third Reich fighting it out. So it's like, yeah, you need to. The better vision is one that's a lot trickier. The show where it ends with the alliance and all this. It. It's not a firm, solid, one thing, end of history idea. It is. Oh, it's a, it's an everlasting process, but we're always evolving and learning and changing. And that's sort of the beautiful part of it. And that's when we get to deconstruction of Falling stars as the, as what I call the first series finale. Really. Yes. Right. Is that it explores that and doesn't obsess of this idea that. Yep. You just dominate, you win and then. And then the game's over and aren't you happy? Like, no. What's the feeling you get when you finish a video game? You feel accomplished for a while and then you're like, well, I'm bored now. Like, the same is going to be after. Like, you know, just another conquering. Like, great, what have you done? The Centauri in the show never seem happy. They're always. They end up conquering somebody else. And then they have to Go back in and do more, you know, court intrigue and, and what do we have now in the White House? But more and more court intrigue. And now they're infighting over these tariffs. It's really. And it gets really tedious as, as a citizen here.
• 50:08
  JOSH: That's one word for it. Yeah.
• 50:10
  JOHN: No, like, it's fun to watch. If you're watching like a dramatic soap opera, that's one thing. But when it's the real world, you're like, oh, you gotta be kidding me. Another more of this.
• 50:19
  JOSH: Well, yeah, because also in a soap opera, they cut out all of the boring parts and the repetition. Yeah. Just one thing I want to throw at you before we move on from this. Maybe Hitler was a bad painter because he had a small mind.
• 50:35
  JOHN: Yeah, yeah, that's possible too.
• 50:37
  JOSH: Just saying, just saying.
• 50:40
  JOHN: Oh, man, it is, it is a thing that, you know, everybody ask, how does this happen? How does this happen again? And it's human psychology. It all comes back to that. And the examples people have and what do they have in life. And fiction gives us a lot of archetypes. I mean, that's, that's Joseph Campbell. That's Star Wars. That's everything. We see the archetypes and they persist through time for a reason. And to identify something that I did going into this episode, I did not expect that this would be a large topic. And here we are, like one of the most profound moments of this episode is realize as our realization about his father and what that means because he, he becomes not. He becomes in essence, a father to the alliance. And. And there you go. I mean, that, that's sort of the brilliance of like the idea of like. Yes, but he only has 20 years to live, you know.
• 51:32
  JOSH: Right.
• 51:33
  JOHN: There's a built in term limit.
• 51:34
  JOSH: It's a built in term limit is what it is.
• 51:38
  JOHN: And he takes it so like. And he wants to live as well, you know, like life. So it's a really interesting, you know, notion around that. So, you know, I think, yeah, as we sort of, you know, wind our way back to the meat and potatoes of this episode, you do get, you do get the sense that, that, yeah, he's not looking to conquer anybody. He makes this decision now that he knows what Earth is up to, that they have access to a shadow vessel, that they are going to try to merge somebody with it and get control of it and use it. And then not only would that be. They're thinking, not only from the tactical perspective, that that is a big problem. Obviously, if, if President Clark has Access to Shadow technology. That's a huge advantage for the authoritarian. No doubt. But they know what the actual ramification is, right? Is that what it means, is that that shot, that's a Shadow vessel. He's not going to get control of it. It's going to cause death, destruction and chaos.
• 52:35
  JOSH: Well, there was a line that really stood out to me. When the Shadow vessel is awake and they're there in the White Star and, you know, the White Star is a new experimental ship and they're talking about. They're not sure how they're going to fare against the Shadow vessel. And Sheridan says we'll last a lot longer than an Earth ship will against that thing. So even then, in that moment, he's trying to protect.
• 52:56
  JOHN: Yes.
• 52:57
  JOSH: He wants to save lives. Whereas, you know, there's another course of action you could make justifications for. You could certainly imagine another commander making the decision to be like, okay, well, we tried and we failed. Let's get out of here and let the Shadow vessel do whatever it's going to do and see how that plays out.
• 53:14
  JOHN: Yeah.
• 53:15
  JOSH: Though it would probably end up, you know, making the authoritarian impulses even worse. Not like they needed any help because they use this very incident to justify declaring martial law at the end of the episode.
• 53:26
  JOHN: So that's the end here. Like this episode, is it? This. This. This is where martial law happens. They. The Shadow ship, which they wanted in the first place is then used when they fail to gain control of it is used as the pretext for martial law. That's. That's the part where you. You start the episode with the percussion. You end it with the. Oh, boy. It happened. Like, everything we've been hoping we would avoid happened. At least start on Earth now, is that the Earth alliance is under martial law. The orders will eventually come into Babylon 5. And as a viewer, you're just left with, like. I mean, there's no other way to put it. Then you're just like, oh, like, I thought that they would derail this by now. Or, you know, or that maybe, you know, going up against a Shadow Vessel, something would wake people up. Nope, They're. They're. Sheridan is. He makes that. And I want to go back to it, but when he makes the decision to do this, he takes off his badge. He's like, okay, listen, I gotta, like, wipe out the fact that my identity is in any way associated with this. He's not doing it to be the acclaimed hero. He's living up to that Inquisition moment and being like, okay, we have to go do this. We didn't want to have to do this. This isn't. May not even help us oppose Clark. It's just that if we don't do it, no one else will. And the cost will be so great to innocent lives into the future. So he does it. And he goes off. And even in the throes of it, when they're hoping to disable the Shadowship and then realize, nope, it wakes up. They're fighting it. Now he's just as interested in saving the Earth alliance cruisers, you know, I think, you know, he sees his old ship right? You know, he doesn't want them to needlessly suffer, even though they're aiding and abetting Clark. You know, he's not approaching at the standpoint of I have to wipe out my enemies. He's approaching it from the standpoint of I have to have these bigger ideals and I still care about these people and I'll risk myself for that. And he does. And the White Star, fortunately, is able to handle the gravity well of Jupiter better than a Shadow vessel due to. Due to physics. It's a really cool special effects moment, but there we are. We think. We think as viewers. Oh, we can breathe for a moment. They got rid of the Shadow vessel. Didn't have to destroy an Earth cruiser. They can go home now, like next episode. Nope. Even though they did the right thing, they won the day. That was the pretext. Clark used to say, holy crap, look, everybody, look at these alien vessels. Look at these things. We are under threat. We must declare martial law. We have to protect you. And yeah, you know what? That's the bullshit of today. That is the bullshit of today. That. That is the. The complete mass hallucination. That is the freakout on immigration. And I'll just go look full in on this because. Because we're April 9th when we're recording this right now. Yeah, and that's been the pretext for a lot of things. But on day one of this administration, the executive order regarding the border was issued. And this is making its way over the Internet right now. And whether it comes to pass or not, we will see. But this fact is true. In that executive order, he wanted a report from the Secretary of Defense and the Department of Homeland Security chiefs on what not only to do about the southern border, but it specifies specifically and whether or not the Insurrection act should be invoked as part of that process. Now, knowing who those two people are, we can guess. The answer will very likely be yes. And that was a 90 day timer put on that. So that brings us to April 20th. So on or after April 20th, there will be a report from the Secretary of Defense Department, Homeland Security as to whether or not to invoke the Insurrection act to deal with this with the southern border and obviously creating a situation that is so, so threatening that it is literally equivalent to a war. And most people don't understand what a war really is. I mean a war is, I mean war is war. It's not. This is not that. And so yeah, that's the pretext. You use something, you amp it up, you amp up the fear around something and then you use martial law. Because the Insurrection act is literally the tool by which a US President can use the military of the United States for domestic law enforcement. It's the only law that gives the President that authority. And if they are getting what we anticipate will be the broad recommendation of the two amongst the two most cabinet members to do so, that will open up a floodgate to say anything related to, even conceptually to border enforcement means we can use the US Military anywhere in US territory. Never, never been done to that level before, Never. I mean, and last time we really had the Insurrection act invoked like this as, as I will quote another sci fi luminary, George Takei, when he's talking about this. You know, one of the last times the Insurrection act was, was utilized to its full extent was to and turn all those of Japanese descent in the United States into internment camps, into effective concentration camps. I mean we did. That is the biggest black mark on FDR's record. And that was the act it was used for. And the difference is we were in an active world war at that point on two fronts. Not justifying it all, but saying like, like that was an actual war here, there's not even an actual war. And that's going to be used against everybody. What would the limit be if that were, if that were to take place? And this is, this is the warning that's going out from people. And yes, it's making its way across social media and you want to say, well, what's real and what's not? But we, that is what the Executive Order said very clearly. So the pretext for an order that involves martial law is 11 days away. That's, that's how it is. And I still saying it out loud feels surreal because I still couldn't imagine, I think the way that the characters in the show couldn't imagine. They'll never actually do that. Why would he do that? There's not even a reason to do that. But here we are.
• 59:19
  JOSH: Yeah. You know, there's that scene with Ivanova and Marcus where Ivanova kind of blows up at Markus and she also has the self awareness to basically be honest and say, yeah, I'm mad at you because we shouldn't have to be doing this.
• 59:34
  JOHN: Yes, yes.
• 59:35
  JOSH: And also because I don't have anyone else to blame, which felt very real to me. This shouldn't be happening. And I'm really angry about it. And I am just going to reach for the nearest scapegoat shaped thing and yell at that. I mean, obviously the prospect of the military being used as essentially a domestic police force is, is chilling and I don't really have much else to say about that prospect except. Yeah, it's hard to wrap my head around that one. What it made me think of was there's a brilliant line. I think it's an original line. I don't think he's paraphrasing something else. But in another sci fi show, the rebooted Battlestar Galactica, Commander Adama has a line. There's a reason you separate military and the police. One fights the enemies of the state, the other serves and protects the people. When the military becomes the police and the enemies of the state tend to become the people. Ironically though, in a situation like this, that's the idea. They already see the people as the enemies of the state.
• 1:00:39
  JOHN: Yeah.
• 1:00:39
  JOSH: Because whoever is opposing Trump, who, again, he is the state. They are an enemy of the state.
• 1:00:45
  JOHN: Yeah.
• 1:00:46
  JOSH: Because they're an enemy of Trump. So, yeah, not great.
• 1:00:50
  JOHN: It's one of the moments where, like in doing this show, I didn't really expect there to be as many direct parallels. I thought it was me more of an intellectual exercise starting off and more of a slow moving train of warning signs and interesting, interesting things. And again, this would be, you know, just. Oh, yeah, that's, that's, that's a podcast. You know, what I'm shocked at is, is not only the parallels, but the actions that are happening live in front of us and, and this being one of them. And again, I try to pay attention to a lot of things. I didn't know the details of this executive order until fairly recently. I didn't know what the 90 day timer meant for that. And, you know, while we don't know what the ramifications of it are, we know under the mechanics of law, if there's only one way that is clearly legal without just doing this, but he's looking for it, you know, to use the military domestically, then that is Very likely the path they're going to follow and what follows from that, you use it one day for that. Then there's a protest. Use the military for that.
• 1:01:57
  JOSH: Exactly.
• 1:01:58
  JOHN: It has to expand until you give up. Now, South Korea in modern times, recently, in the last couple of weeks faced a similar scenario where their president quite literally declared martial law. Again, this isn't fiction. This isn't like, oh, we're all exaggerating stuff, and was very quickly repudiated by, by their parliament, including many members of his own party, was then impeached and removed. And just recently the courts upheld his removal. So South Korea sort of reacted in real time to preserve what they had of a democracy, what they have of a democracy against a president who was citing emergency after emergency and things that were not really real. They were real, but they weren't anywhere near at the level that justified some sort of martial law. It was a power grab. It was, it was arrogance and it was fearful. Some people equate that to like, you know, the immune system kicking in and, and then purging. That's not happening here right now. We do see protests, we do see a lot of, obviously a lot of reporting and, and media that, that is countering the narratives coming from the administration and trying to stand up for a lot of democratic values. But it's, but there isn't, as far as I can tell, an easy systematic way to react against an invocation of the Insurrection Act.
• 1:03:19
  JOSH: Yeah, I mean, you would hope that somewhere in the military there's a General Haig or several General Haigs who would stand up and say, nuh, we aren't doing this. I also have to believe that like the rank and file, like, you know, the people on the ground that like a lot of them would not be very comfortable with all this. I mean, again, obviously if you're at the bottom of the chain of command like that, there's not really much you can do except to, you know, follow.
• 1:03:42
  JOHN: Orders, you know, pretty much your, your choices. And, and then, you know, we don't have insight into is that, you know, what is, what has the recruitment been like for the military? How much are they recruiting from the ultra maga sort of scarier groups that I won't list on here. So we don't know that makeup. But the, but the interesting where the fiction and the reality diverge is that term, number one involved a lot of pushback from the military brass, a lot of pushback from the Joint chiefs, the leadership, etc. And then there was the election, a new president Selected. There's an attempt to overturn that result on January 6th. And everybody was so aghast on the middle and the left and even some on the right that it seemed inconceivable there will be a second term. And so it didn't really seem like more safeguards were being actively put in that we would have expected because it seemed like, oh, we got through that.
• 1:04:40
  JOSH: Yeah.
• 1:04:42
  JOHN: To come back now four years later means that as opposed to an extension of the first four years, we get a new four years reset with all the knowledge of how to appoint loyalists and purge the institutionalists who are categorized as the Deep State. And that's something that's very different from the fiction here, which is that you're. You have a three year time horizon, really two year time horizon from when President Clark ascends to the presidency and is trying to put loyalists. So where the General Hagues are, where the senators are. Well, they've. They've been there for years and years and years and years. And they. And, and even as he purges them at the. Very shortly after this with martial law, it was a process that, you know, he was taking against well established norms that had been there. He'd only been there for two years. This is a case of coming back and knowing exactly what to do in round two. So I don't know how many loyalists there are left. You have to hope that they're being very quiet. If there's. If you're smart, you would be very quiet because, you know, the moment you say anything that could be perceived as not toeing the line, you would be pushed out. I mean, the other day the NSA chief was removed a military uniformed officer because a conspiracy theorist met any. And the Oval Office and said, these aren't loyalists here. So it's a different. It's a different dynamic than what the show portrayed. Because even. Even later in the season three, they say, well, contrary to what you may be told, the Resistance is alive and well. That was when the. The religious leaders come on board to meet with Brother Theo. In a moment. I'd also forgotten about that. So, you know, there in real time, there's some advantages over what President Clark had access to. Fortunately, there are no Shadows involved as far as we know in this case. Unfortunately, there are no alien races or Vorlons there to help us out either. That would sort of be the nice part, is to know that the. That maybe Delenne and her memory Cruisers were there to at least defend the breakaway station of Babylon 5 as opposed to, you know, whatever it would be here today.
• 1:06:46
  JOSH: Yeah, you know, my sort of rising fear from 2021 through 2024 was, it seemed to me like the necessary response to close the door on what had just happened from spreading any farther was not happening. In retrospect, it seems like the hope was a return to the status quo would just solve everything rather than perhaps extreme measures from some people's perspective. But real serious steps had to be taken to really put the kibosh on that whole thing. You know, the idea that Trump never even went to trial. You know, we had four years.
• 1:07:31
  JOHN: Yeah, there are four years. There's, there's a lot of criticism to be leveled against the people involved in that, whether it's Merrick Garland and his very much slow walking to do by the, you know, he claims it was to do by the book, but it was very much a, a slow walking of a process because the underlying assumption was that that was so far out there that it was inconceivable that it would happen again. Not realizing that that was in fact the opening salvo, that that opened everything up to what would happen next. No.
• 1:07:59
  JOSH: And it's also, we already had seen, lived through how far they were willing to go. He was willing to go. So the only way to counter that is to rise up to meet it rather than say, oh, okay, if we just, you know, return to what we were doing before and not make too much of a fuss, they'll just go away and everything will politely resolve itself. It's, it's, it's almost as if there was so much faith or the onus was put so much on the institutions to do the job for us rather than, you know, realizing it's really the people who work within those institutions to step up and do something.
• 1:08:42
  JOHN: Yeah, and they weren't, they certainly weren't prepared back in the Weimar Republic. And surprisingly, despite our 240something year history, they weren't really willing to do all that much in the four years after January 6th. And that's, and that's a real indictment of the mindset around that and a lack of vision too. It's sort of like, have you folks never read history or have you never read a book, fictional history of anything that maybe would have given you perspective to say, hey, a return to the status quo? Well, in fact, the status quo gave us this in the first place. A status quo birthed the first administration. So returning to that would simply imply that you're going to get another one. And I think that's, we talked about delusion earlier there's just as much delusion that comes from the respect for the status quo as the savior of all things. It's that don't rock the boat. Everything's fine. When you looked at the attempt to shore up voting rights and pass the new Voting Rights act, you had two senators in the center who were, who then declared independence, who opposed any kind of filibuster reform on the grounds that it would empower the other side too much. Now, while it's holding right now, in theory, we have, still have a filibuster in the Senate, not going to mean much of anything a couple months from now. But they thought, oh, well, we don't, we don't want to bypass that to make sure that voting rights are secured or anything else like that, because that itself would, would undermine whatever, you know, their concept of what majority rule was about. I said, but there was a, there was such a fragile vision that they had where they didn't see or were deliberately blind to what had already happened and that people will try again.
• 1:10:25
  JOSH: It's almost as if the first Trump term was so hard for a lot of people to wrap their heads around that they never quite reckoned with what that actually meant. And when it went away, it must have felt like, see, that was an aberration, not going to happen again.
• 1:10:47
  JOHN: Right.
• 1:10:48
  JOSH: We don't have to reckon with that because it's gone. They never actually saw it for what it was and followed the, the thought process through to its logical, obvious conclusions.
• 1:11:02
  JOHN: They certainly didn't. They certainly didn't. They didn't. In 2016, whether it was the, ironically, it involves Merrick Garland again, was the appointment of the Supreme Court and saying, yeah, but this is all going to be normalized, like, Clinton wins, we get our power. It was, it was a very arrogant assumption. Assumption that happens. And that's, and that's what open, that's what leaves any civilization open to an authoritarian is this sort of bland arrogance of a ruling group that doesn't think that the norms will ever change.
• 1:11:31
  JOSH: And I also think, frankly, it also comes back around to a lack of imagination. Yeah, right. And, you know, the last point I want to make, I wrote this down in my notes, but it kind of has a little more significance in light of what we were saying about authoritarians and their small or narrow view of the world. When Garibaldi visits G'Kar in prison, you know, which is a wonderful scene, and I always really like the relationship between G'Kar and Garibaldi for some reason. But, you know, G'kar he's incarcerated for attacking Londo. He's also trying to grapple with the. The revelation that he had and he's trying to write all of it into what will become the book of Dakkar later on. But something that he says to Garibaldi, who is surprised that D'Kar seems to be really enjoying his incarceration and his solitude. And Gikkar is saying that everything that's out there is a distraction and it's all designed to distract us from ourselves. And he says there is much to be learned from silence. And so what G'Kar is doing is that thing that authoritarians, at least in the mold of the Trumps and the Clarks and the. The ones with these small minds who seem to be operating in the way that they do, is they are unwilling to just sit and face themselves and face the world without any mediation, you know, without any distractions, without any, you know, material considerations. You know, G'Kar has been broken down and he is processing that in silence. No distractions. And I just think it's quite a contrast to the kinds of people who, who are unwilling to, you know, self reflect and really try to look around and take stock of the world of themselves to really try to reckon with what actually is there. When you get rid of all the distractions with as much humility as possible. I think that's the only way that you can do it is with humility. And yet, and I just think a lot of people are unwilling to self reflect to the degree that is necessary. And I think it creates all sorts of delusions about how to avoid that fear of the end of life and how it doesn't make sense and, you know, bad things happen to good people, etc. Etc. You know, and if you can just control it, then you don't have to face that fear. But as Jakar would probably tell you, that control is an illusion.
• 1:14:24
  JOHN: Yeah, I mean, his character as written, goes through that, through that point of trying to use for pure force of will and strength to control the world around them, to make it make sense to then be broken open first be broken down and then be broken up. That doesn't. That won't get him where he needs to be. And I think that's one of the most difficult parts to realize is that so many people in power, but particularly those who end up becoming dictators and authoritarians, they stay locked in that delusion. Their minds stay forever small. I've never, I can't say never, but it's Rare that I've found the writings of such people to be particularly interesting if they had any at all. In the case of the current president, we don't have anything outside of. We have his tweets. He writes a lot of tweets and that can tell you all you need to know right there. But in terms of the, you know, of everything else. Yeah, it's just amazing how easy it is to believe that if one gets to that level, they must be a combination of brilliant and, and deep and function. People think that, oh, he's operating on four dimensional chess here. That's the game. It's actually not. There isn't that much going on. There's one technique being tried over and over and over again and sometimes it works and that is to play the crazy man leader who's willing to blow it all up to get the deal. And sometimes that works in business, sometimes it doesn't. And he got a few small victories in this in the first term using that technique. As we discussed earlier in the episode, you know, China's adapted to that. So it, it remains to be seen. But I think with a low probability that his current techniques on the, on the tariff and the trade war will work the way he thinks they will. That that blustering and having, you know, threaten other people to call your bluff won't work out the same way. And that shows a fundamental lack of creativity. Like, oh, you're using the same playbook over and over and over again. Like there's no nuance there. There's no real difference in strategy. Which means eventually somebody will, will beat him on the international stage. You know, and then the question is, does he take the clock route out at the end is, is the scary part. Obviously when JMS wrote that he was keeping the tradition alive when it came to President Clark at the end, that in Earth Alliance, Earth Dome, as well as this country, there is only one way to launch those weapons and that is with the President of the United States or the President of the Earth alliance. That that's it, you know, and you think, my God, that's not the best system. It's like, and, and again, you can say like, oh, we had years to reform that. There were a lot of, a lot of committees that talked about that, that hey, we need a better process for something like that. So while that seems that's a bit of a downer to a close to the end of this on, but it's the, it's the reality. I wonder where the writing on the wall, I mean, if when we end this episode, it's sort of where I'm feeling right now. It's the. Oh, it's coming. In that case, Earth alliance declared martial law. That's it. You know, like, we know that's happened now. The one thing we've been trying to avoid in the show when it seems, again, like quite a defeat for the main characters. But it's not the end, it's the beginning of the next arc that leads us to Severed Dreams. How many episodes now do we have one or two episodes before Severed Dreams?
• 1:17:53
  JOSH: Now there's one in between, there's. The next episode is A Point of no Return. And then Separate Dreams is after that. This three episode run Messages From Earth. Point of no Return. Severed Dreams has always been sort of referred to as like a sort of a little trilogy. It's like a. It's like a triptych. And I think that comes from JMS himself. I think he was, from the very beginning talking about them that way. It's also interesting, too, because again, when I was younger, I don't know that I was watching this with as much awareness or understanding as I obviously have now. Like, I don't know that the martial law decree at the end of this episode was as clear to me that that was a direct result of what Sheridan and Delenn had done in the episode.
• 1:18:43
  JOHN: Interesting. Did it feel more like it was. It was like a coincidence?
• 1:18:48
  JOSH: No, not a coincidence. It was just that they were already in the process of doing this.
• 1:18:53
  JOHN: Which they. Which they were. I mean, that we know from what Night Watch this is what they were preparing for. They used that as the final launching platform. But it was going to happen at some point in the near future.
• 1:19:03
  JOSH: Yeah, because even at the very beginning, Ivanova is watching isn and it's just sort of seated. The ISN anchor is quoting someone from the administration. And in regard to this new security threat, the quote is, extreme measures may be required. You know, which is a very kind of ominous but vague quote. And what struck me watching it today, it's another way where the reality is actually more outrageous than the fiction. Because, you know, now they just say. They just say outright exactly what they're gonna do. It's like, I do think it's an impulse control thing, but I also think it's, well, let's put this out there and get everyone used to the idea. Have people saying, like, maybe we'll need to declare martial law. We'll see. I don't know. I don't want to do that. But maybe it'll be necessary. And then people freak out. His supporters say, oh, well, he's not serious. Like, he's just talking. But you have a year, two years of that scenario circulating, and people are getting used to that idea. So when it happens, it's like, you know, you were talking about South Korea before, and again, I haven't been following that situation as closely. I wasn't. But from an outsider's perspective, seeing the news that we saw and the way that it played out, it seemed to me like his mistake was he tried to grab too much too quickly.
• 1:20:31
  JOHN: Yeah.
• 1:20:32
  JOSH: Whereas it seems, unfortunately, in our situation, the idea that he's just saying stuff, he doesn't mean it, but in so doing, you are actually softening the ground.
• 1:20:43
  JOHN: Yeah. So you're peeling people away who would otherwise have been shocked. And, you know, normalizing that kind of rhetoric. You're normalizing. You're shifting. Some call it the Overton window, which is sort of what's generally accepted in discourse and political ideas. And then most importantly, just the time factor and of knowing, you know, okay, well, we've spent enough time putting people into the right places. I don't even think his first run, he entirely intended to grab that level of power.
• 1:21:16
  JOSH: No. Because I think that he and a lot of other people around him weren't actually expecting him to win.
• 1:21:21
  JOHN: Right.
• 1:21:21
  JOSH: So once they got there, it was sort of, well, okay, now that we're here, how does this work? What should we do? How can we.
• 1:21:28
  JOHN: They didn't know how to fly the plane at that point. Point. Right. Now they do, and they've been burned. I mean, they're. They're, you know, their honor has been assaulted, you know, by the people. And they felt they were maligned. He always feels he's maligned by. By the pushback he got in the first term. The irony being that's the very thing that got him in the first term was, you know, there are some people say, well, if he hadn't been ridiculed in that press dinner by President Obama, he never really would have had the thought to run for president again.
• 1:21:55
  JOSH: How small. How small a mind must you have for something like that? You're the butt of a joke. And then as a result, you make your entire life's project completely dominating and destroying the world. I mean, basically absolutely insane.
• 1:22:13
  JOHN: And I feel like every. Every teenager has had that moment when something happens to you and somebody makes fun of you or something. So you just want to, like, blow it. You just want to, like, you imagine, like, I will. I will make all the bullies. I'll make everybody respect me no matter what. And it's this, it's this literal, like, adolescent grandiosity that is utterly unrealistic and unhealthy. But imagine living in that space your entire life. I think that's what it is.
• 1:22:38
  JOSH: Well, you know, Trump has famously said that he's the same person he's been since he was in first grade, which is wild.
• 1:22:47
  JOHN: I mean, I, I, I'm not the same person I was in first grade. I'd like to think I've grown and changed and.
• 1:22:52
  JOSH: Yeah, I mean, not only is that a crazy thing to say and to think, but what that means, the implications of that are actually pretty horrifying. And the worst part about it is that if you look at what he does and what he says through that lens, it makes sense.
• 1:23:11
  JOHN: Yes, that's, that's the unfortunate part. That's the really unfortunate part, is that you want to believe, you want to believe that the villains in this world, in any world, are always these incredibly complex, nuanced characters. Years. And, and they're not. And, and even in this show, they, they didn't bother for a reason. They didn't make Clark much of anything because there wasn't meant to be much of him. He wasn't the antagonist for a reason. You know, at different times, Londo was an antagonist. Incredibly layered, incredibly nuanced. He has to redeem himself. He doesn't redeem himself. Goes back and forth. Clark has given nothing. He's given one or two lines in the entire show pictures, and then it's just the, the, the story built around who he is, and that's because that's the kind of person he is. That's the kind of person he's meant to be. He's not nuanced, particularly interesting, or even particularly ultimately relevant in the sense of it could have been anybody with his mindset that would have been just as easily a tool with the shadows that, that's why he had to link himself to everything because he didn't matter that much. And, and certainly the shadows weren't going to be like, oh, thank God we got this guy in power. We finally have our, our agenda working. It's like, no, they're just like, he's another useful tool for us. I will say, I think a lot of people may are making that mistake now that they thought that Trump would be their useful tool. I think a lot of the wealthy billionaires, I think a lot of the people, I think a lot of the tech overlords that lined up on the DS on inauguration day all thought that if they bent the knee that he would be useful to them, not realizing that they will come back. I mean, it'll come back on them. What's the phrase everybody uses? Like, people are shocked that when they vote for the party, that platform is leopards eating people's faces. That, oh my God, leopards start eating people's faces. Like, you know what you're getting here. And then he acts surprised. I mean, all these people having surprised the tariffs. He's been saying this for years.
• 1:25:10
  JOSH: On like Larry king in like 1987, he was saying this.
• 1:25:14
  JOHN: Yeah, it's because singular obsession, not rooted in fact or reality, by the way, that is certainly not. Not anything that is considered reality. But he's been saying it the entire time. Like, don't get surprised when, when he actually does it. That's also a fundamental lack of imagination. When you can imagine the worst and hope for the best, you're probably best prepared. But when you're just sitting there like, yeah, no, they won't do what they say they're going to do.
• 1:25:40
  JOSH: No. And it's also true, this idea that he's thought this for like 40 years. The idea that he's seen nothing in the last 40 years. He's read nothing, seen nothing, had no new thoughts, nothing that would change that belief.
• 1:25:54
  JOHN: But he. Of course not. You said it before. He's the same person. He's been since first grade. You know, he must obviously loves the idea of being the same person. People call it being consistent. Well, you know what? We have another name for that. Unadaptable. Humans can't survive unless we adapt. That's one of the most core components of reality. And sometimes the voters, they punish people who grow and evolve because they say, oh, you flipped. And that's a major fault.
• 1:26:22
  JOSH: Happens all the time.
• 1:26:23
  JOHN: Yeah. No, that's the point is you want a leader who learns and evolves and becomes better iterations of themselves. But if you want somebody who is just, well, I know what he is. Well, you know what he is. The irony is that people are still denying what he's been saying as if it's not going to come true. That's the other thing that I've read over the years. It also confirms, is that typically authoritarians tell you exactly what they're going to do. They're not hiding nearly as much as you think it's out there in the open. It's just that you have enough people around you who are effectively gaslighting you and to say no, don't listen to that part like it's going to be fine. Don't, don't listen to the reality of it. The answer is always listen. People will tell you what they mean and what they intend on doing.
• 1:27:09
  JOSH: There's one final, I promise, final observation that I had just because I wonder what you make of it. But I thought the choice of Jupiter was very interesting. And it struck me when I was a kid too. You know, usually on Star Trek, like you never hear about like Jupiter, right? You know, you hear about like regula7 or something like that. And I thought having this mission to Ganymede and Jupiter, these like planets that we're familiar with since we're, you know, little kids, did something to make it hit home in a way that ironically, something like Coriana 6 and the Shadow War resolution does not hit the same way. You know, that's sort of an abstraction. It's like the Zogs from zog. I don't care about that. But having this happen in Jupiter really made it feel real in a strange way. And the other thing that as a kid really struck me and kind of gives you a sense of the scale and majesty of the galaxy and the universe was this idea that Jupiter, the planet was how they destroy a shadow vessel, right? This like knowable real planet that we've known about since we were in kindergarten, like Jupiter is so massive and powerful that it can take out a shadow vessel. You know, this isn't some crazy super weapon. And if we use the main deflector and we do this and we do that, no, I'm gonna fly right into Jupiter, this planet hanging in your first grade classroom and use gravity to crush it because the forces of the real galaxy are orders of magnitude more powerful than you can even imagine. And there was just something about that that always really resonated with me. Like utilizing the familiarity of Jupiter drives home how real the threat is and also in a way that makes it very distinct from Star Trek because with very few exceptions, you're never really seeing planets that we're familiar with in Star Trek. It's always like really far out there with like crazy names.
• 1:29:10
  JOHN: And always a wild exception when they had an episode on Earth. What the hell? What are they doing?
• 1:29:14
  JOSH: We saw Jupiter in Star Trek the Motion Picture very briefly, which again, kind of an existential threat. And the next time we saw it was in the best of both worlds facing another existential threat. And even then I remember the pork ship is very small compared to Jupiter, right? Again, it's like, Jesus, like these planets are massive.
• 1:29:36
  JOHN: Yeah, No, I mean, I have to remind myself that that's how big Jupiter is. Yeah, I mean, Ganymede is. Well, technically a moon is practically a. It is a planet in terms of size and that's just in our own backyard. So. Yeah, I mean, the fact that that was used, it was another example of Sheridan, you know, using. Using tactical expertise to take advantage of a situation for a one time victory. No, it wasn't a long term viable way of winning. But adapting in the moment, doing it with like. Yep, there's a thing in our backyard that is more powerful and grand than anything that we can actually imagine to scale right now. It was also. It was in the solar system. They're in Earth's backyard. They're that close to being home. The Shadowship is that close that it could wreak havoc on Earth. Hypothetically. You know, all of that was meant, was meant to be there for a reason. And we don't get back there for quite a long time. You know, we don't have the characters on Mars and Earth until the fourth season.
• 1:30:36
  JOSH: Yeah.
• 1:30:37
  JOHN: You know, when you get to binge watch it, you know, things happen quickly. But we were first time watching the show over the years that it aired with hiatuses. God, those are awful. It cut right in the middle of the Shadow War and then we had to wait, you know, eight weeks to get the resolution. Yeah.
• 1:30:52
  JOSH: The worst was those last four episodes or five episodes of season four. Four.
• 1:30:56
  JOHN: Yes.
• 1:30:56
  JOSH: It turned into a cliffhanger, which was intersections in real time. Yeah. And then we didn't see the end of the Earth civil war for like, I don't know, six months. It was crazy.
• 1:31:09
  JOHN: It was something crazy. And it was. And it was very unique to the way that that network was airing.
• 1:31:12
  JOSH: Yeah.
• 1:31:13
  JOHN: And now we get that with binge watching. Like, okay, you get the 10 episode drop, but then you have another finale cliffhanger, and you got to wait two years now. Yeah, you gotta go back and remember what is happening in your show. At least in Babylon 5 you had enough memory of like, okay, well, that was six months ago. That was three months ago. So I can generally follow through because outside of you and I recording our VHS tapes, you know, you weren't really going back to rewatch it. You did have your reruns. That was a big thing. Reruns are a big part of life back then. I mean, I've never heard that word rerun. Like, yeah, that's our vocabulary anymore. Yeah.
• 1:31:47
  JOSH: I mean, what, what would the context Be.
• 1:31:50
  JOHN: Yeah.
• 1:31:50
  JOSH: Where you would use that. It's true. That's a good point. I just had a really stupid thought that is not at all intentional. It's not there in the text, unless you had the conversation that we just had and you're. And you're looking for it really hard, but Jupiter is the king of the solar system, the largest of all the planets. Does it say something that Sheridan had to return to the king of the solar system? Like returning to his father to. Yeah, I know, I know.
• 1:32:21
  JOHN: I think. I think there's always a lot of layers in writing because we have all these core stories from history and. And the imagery is used sometimes deliberately, sometimes subconsciously on the parts of a writer. What I'll say is that it works, you know, using Jupyter. They didn't. They didn't make it. You know, Colony X, you know, they made it there for that and it worked, and I appreciate that. And when I was watching this. Re. Watching this episode, I was folding laundry at the time. That's how I always remember what I was doing when I watch an episode that I have to recall later. And I remember just stopping and I stopped midfold and was like, staring at the screen for a while as the episode was ending. I was like, oh, this was that one. And even in the two weeks since then, I've been like, wait, what happened in this episode again? Oh, that's right, it's that one. It's actually the one where they try. They do the right thing, but at the end it still all falls apart outside of their control. And this is the one where everything that happens in the next season and a half is because of that martial law declaration. Everything, everything comes from that. And I guess they got in under the wire, they did what they needed to do, it happens. And you're left. You're left holding your breath. And from this point onward in the show, you're holding your breath a lot. Then you do get interludes and examinations. You get these episodes and flows. But then once you get to fourth season, you don't really get a chance to breathe.
• 1:33:38
  JOSH: The fourth season is just crazy. Like, I remember watching it late at night because it would be on at like midnight or something on air again and just really feeling like I was on a roller coaster, you know, like this was moving and it was going.
• 1:33:55
  JOHN: Somewhere I'd ever experienced on television. Nothing moved that fast. Nothing moved that coherently. That's what was so exciting to watch. I mean, I. The only comparison to make was a soap opera in the sense that the ongoing things were relevant from episode to episode. Yeah.
• 1:34:11
  JOSH: And even then, like, they were making it up as they went along. Yeah.
• 1:34:15
  JOHN: This was. Oh, wow. They have all this planned out and that. And that's why it was so fulfilling. I love how you brought up earlier that. That all the mysteries, generally speaking, they were solved. Like, they weren't like this. Okay, finally, season five, you find out what happened in season one. It was. We're gonna explain this. And few things couldn't be because of changes in the story that were required by production or actor changes or anything like that, but it worked out well. And I'll say this, that the show gave a very satisfying resolution to this story arc. In regard to the Earth Alliance, I would say a slightly less satisfying resolution to the Shadow War when we get there, if only because that was compressed a little bit more than it otherwise had to be. Not dramatically, but I think. I think it was. But. But even that left me watching it of like, oh, I saw a few flaws in it, but I was. I was still satisfied. I was like, wow. And it kept on. It kept on going. I would just say that, you know, you get to season five and you're like, well, you know, if they'd known they'd had the season from the beginning, it would have been better, but just to be able to experience that. And I hope there are people who are going to pick up this show now more and more, because getting to see that and going to be like, wait, something's happening just like we did. Like, oh, the story's getting going. And they're like, oh, season one really does have all these interesting layers. And you're like, oh, wait, you haven't even gotten to season two and then season three.
• 1:35:29
  JOSH: Well, you know, it's interesting when you were talking about your friend who's watching it now, and you said that they're just in season one and they're picking up on all of these layers and nuances. I wonder if, you know, we've sort of been spoiled and trained now to watch TV more closely like that in a way that we weren't 30 years ago. And the other thing, too, you know, not for nothing from mine and your just personal experience, you know, we were much younger. I think we were more interested and engaged with the sort of more kinetic stuff. Yeah, yeah. Versus these smaller character moments. You know, I don't know that teens and preteens were necessarily the audience for. For that, but, yeah, you know, watching it now as a fully grown adult, unfortunately, it's really rewarding it's so rich. It's such a richly written show. It's really, I mean, not that he has to hear this again, but it's really an achievement. It's really quite an achievement that JMS not only was able to write something of this quality, but that he got it made.
• 1:36:34
  JOHN: That he got it made again. The autobiography has some really neat nuggets in there about that towards the end. And he really did have to keep it under the. Keep a lid on it. He didn't tell the studio. This was his vision.
• 1:36:46
  JOSH: Yeah.
• 1:36:47
  JOHN: He had to sell it as an episodic Star Trek esque show that was apparently ripped off to become Deep Space Nine, which is a great show in its own right. But learning that there's more information about that is fascinating. And they had to basically not tell them that this was really his plan.
• 1:37:05
  JOSH: Do you know what we should have done for April Fool's Day? We should have covered a Deep Space Nine episode.
• 1:37:10
  JOHN: Oh man, that would have been great. There are some things to explore in that.
• 1:37:13
  JOSH: No, absolutely. Like that two parter in the, in the fourth season. The one where.
• 1:37:19
  JOHN: The one that General Haig is on.
• 1:37:21
  JOSH: General Haig is on. And why he couldn't be on Severed Dreams.
• 1:37:23
  JOHN: Yes. Same time in that wild. And that's the episode we're thinking about. Yeah, yeah.
• 1:37:29
  JOSH: You know, if you want to continue this plan. I think last time where we left off was we might hold off on Severed Dreams. Is that what you said?
• 1:37:38
  JOHN: Knock on wood. Nothing happens on the 20th or, or thereabouts or on the days immediately following. But that'll be interesting to see. If we're in the throes of something that approximates it, then we'll be right in Several Dreams. I, I'm also thinking that could be interesting to do Severed Dreams and then the way that the show sort of has to take a breath after that, we can look at other aspects of the show as well or continue going on. But it won't be as quite a breakneck pace because it's going to be a little more, you know, the show begins to shift gears towards the Shadow War.
• 1:38:10
  JOSH: Yeah, I would like to do an episode on Becoming Superman. We can bring some other people on. And I would, I would like to do an episode of Deep Space Nine for, you know, cheeky reasons. And also it would be interesting to see how that storyline played out on another 90s sci fi franchise and the way that they handled it.
• 1:38:30
  JOHN: Yeah.
• 1:38:30
  JOSH: It's also interesting too because Starfleet never goes there fully. You know, you get into section 31. But that's like few bad apples. And they're not supposed to be doing this.
• 1:38:39
  JOHN: Yeah, very much. Was not what Gene Roddenberry wanted to explore because that was Star Trek 6. You know, it was what happens when the people in the Federation Council, the Federation higher ups, who quite substantially disagree with policy and are willing to use military means to have it enforced. I mean, that's why I think that two parter deep design really does explore that and shows. And it shows you how vulnerable the characters are to thinking along those lines and being like, oh, but that would actually be acceptable and necessary.
• 1:39:06
  JOSH: Well, it's also interesting too because if you take the view of, you know, Earth is a paradise in the Star Trek 24th century, those people are so far removed from the conditions that lead to this sort of a thing happening that they would be incredibly susceptible.
• 1:39:23
  JOHN: Yeah.
• 1:39:24
  JOSH: The other way is that, well, they're so evolved now that they would see it coming from a mile away and they wouldn't let that happen.
• 1:39:30
  JOHN: I think that's what Roddenberry hopes for.
• 1:39:32
  JOSH: Yeah.
• 1:39:33
  JOHN: In Star Trek is that we become evolved. That our going back to the immune system analogy or metaphor is that we're so good at churning out those antibodies that we are effectively resistant to the authoritarian impulse. Jamis, I think has made it very clear, clear that he disagrees with that viewpoint. I mean Babylon 5 itself is an exploration of how that continually happens. Yeah, that's deconstruction of falling stars. That's what happens on Minbar. I mean that's every major group, every major species in Babylon 5 has to deal with a major Jakar turning down dictatorship.
• 1:40:09
  JOSH: Right.
• 1:40:10
  JOHN: Fourth season, you know, another parallel.
• 1:40:12
  JOSH: He takes another example.
• 1:40:13
  JOHN: Yeah, Washington view of like, no, you dethrone one dictator only to put out another. And he said freaking out, you know, that's that that was the takeaway. So it's something that is sickle that happens. And that when they say, oh, you know, the price of freedom is eternal vigilance, that doesn't mean a panopticon. It means watching out for those very totalitarian impulses.
• 1:40:33
  JOSH: That was also really twisted because security guard number one has that line in this episode.
• 1:40:39
  JOHN: He use. He uses that line and is used in such that, you know, it is almost Orwellian that it's reversing what the intent of that very phrase is. Is that like, yes, at the gate are always the authoritarians. They're always waiting to scare you into turning over your freedom. And there he is saying the same thing like, oh yeah, you know the price of freedom is eternal vision. Like, but you're not offering freedom, you know. And we'll get to this next episode. But it gets really interesting when they say, oh, well. Or maybe say episodes later. People on Earth are. Right now, they're kind of satisfied because martial law has cut crime to zero. You know, so there's that honeymoon period where it goes. Yeah. But things are stable. The stern leader has declared that things are just in order now. And you know what? Life is predictable.
• 1:41:24
  JOSH: Trains are running on time.
• 1:41:26
  JOHN: Trains run on time. That's a huge appeal. That's why these places can last long enough to become real threats to other states and things like that. But yeah, I. Security officer number one. Who would have thought that that was the legacy of that character? Because I. I certainly don't know his name. I just know him as that guy who was the Night Watch guy who was very much a problem for people in. In season three. Yeah, I'm looking forward to the next episode. I think that's going to be a lot of interesting things to discuss. How you. How people can resist, how they can't, and what luck is involved and where. Where loyalty lies as we go careening into severed dreams. Yeah, I thought we would have been still in season two at this point, but the parallels are real and the show does pick up this part of the line. I imagine we'll be jumping through aspects of season three and then season four. Season four gets real interesting. Especially after the Shadow War gets real, real interesting. A lot of stuff. So. Yeah. So in wrapping up a lot of stuff to process this episode, we here at last best hope. Wishing everyone best. And yes, stay vigilant. Look for the signs of President Clark and then try to find the better angels. That's what I think Sheridan really offers us as that counter example is people who don't want to have to act but do so only because it's the last choice, as it was in this episode, becoming the reluctant hero.
• 1:42:45
  JOSH: And to remember that sometimes peace is just another word for surrender.
• 1:42:49
  JOHN: Indeed.
• 1:42:51
  JOSH: I thought this was going to be a short one. I really did.
• 1:42:53
  JOHN: Yeah. I thought it was going to be two. It.