Season Two: "The coming of Shadows" (Part Eight)
2.12 “Acts of sacrifice”
Having shown the Babylon 5 command staff footage of atrocities carried out by the Centauri against his people, G’Kar is heartened when Sheridan agrees to speak to his government about intervening in the war. However he gets a frostier reception from Delenn, who reminds him that his people have become just as warlike and hate-filled for their enemies as the Centauri. Although they were attacked first, it seems unlikely that should the Minbari come in on their side the Narns would leave it at that: the bad blood runs too deeply, and each of the two races is dedicated to the goal of eliminating the other. It’s hard to believe that, given the chance, the Narns would not wipe out the Centauri. A new race arrives on the station and Ivanova is detailed to greet them and ensure they sign a trade deal.
Unsurprisingly, tensions are running high on the station, as the Centauri, winning the war easily so far, bait the Narns and surely it can’t be long before everything explodes into outright conflict on the “last, best hope for peace.” Ivanova meets the Lumati, the leader of whom speaks through an intermediary, not because he cannot understand the human language but because he considers them inferior, not worthy of his actual communication. Sounds like a fun people! Londo is finding his new-found fame and influence to be more of a burden than he had expected, and finally the tensions spill over and a Narn is shot by Zack Allan, after refusing to put down his weapon while in the midst of an altercation with the same Centauri who was goading them in the Zocalo. G’Kar is furious but Sheridan reminds him that the Narn ambassador asked for his help, and incidents like this are not in any way helpful. G'Kar talks to his people and gets them to calm down, or so he thinks. In fact, the crowd kill the mocking Centauri who had been responsible for the Narn getting shot by security, and initiate a stationwide attack on the Centauri population. Luckily Na’Toth sees the preparations and she and G'Kar make off to attempt to stop the riot.
Meanwhile Sheridan is aghast that his request for even humanitarian aid for Narn is flatly refused by Earth Central, while Ivanova is more successful, a misunderstanding leading to the Lumati being so impressed with the humans that they will ally with them. It wasn’t supposed to happen this way but, well, anyway you put the ball in the net, it’s still a goal! G’Kar re-establishes his authority by taking out the Narn leader who wants to attack the Centauri. Sheridan hatches a plan with Delenn to use Franklin’s contacts in the underground railroad that helped telepaths in “A race through dark places” to try to get Narn civilians out of the war zone, and bring in medical supplies. She is impressed, as he is going against his government’s orders, and agrees to help. G’Kar, however, is less impressed when he is told: he had been expecting military intervention, but Sheridan can’t go that far. Surprisingly, Londo agrees to play the trial of the Narn who killed the Centauri low-key, make no fuss, have him deported. Sheridan had been expecting a big show trial, and is delighted that Londo makes it easier for them. It will probably however be the last time he does so, as battle lines are drawn and each takes his side.
QUOTES:
Delenn: “I must confess, I find this report deeply distressing, Ambassador G’Kar. There is no excuse, political or military, for the deliberate killing of civilians.”
G’Kar: “Then your people will come into the war on our side? It would mean a great deal to my people, Delenn. The war is young, the Centauri are still in the process of committing their forces. Some in their government are unsure about the entire affair. They only need a reason
not to fight. If the Minbari intervene you could provide that reason. You could save hundreds of thousands of lives!”
Delenn: “Narn lives.”
G’Kar: “And Centauri.”
Delenn: “But you have said many times that you will not rest until every Centauri has been utterly destroyed. Do we help you now, knowing that in a few years, when your forces are back up to full strength, the Centauri would come to us, asking for help against you? You must know, your actions in the recent past, the things you’ve said, make it difficult for anyone to come to your aid now”
G’Kar: “I know. But what else could I do? When you have been crushed beneath the wheel for as long as we have, revenge occupies your every waking thought. When everything else had been taken from us, our hatred kept us alive.”
Delenn: “And now it may destroy you.”
G’Kar: “Do you want me to beg, Delenn? Is that it?”
Delenn: “No.”
G’Kar: “What is it?”
Delenn: “I was there, when our war against Earth began, when our ship encountered an Earth vessel for the first time. Afraid of us, the unknown, they fired. I saw our leader die, I heard the cries for revenge, for blood. For death. In return, we nearly exterminated an entire species. My people are tired of war, G’Kar. You cannot ask them to go through that again.”
(The last paragraph here will become very telling, and make much more sense when we get into season three and learn a shocking truth about Delenn and her part in the war. However at the moment we can read between the lines: she does not wish to allow Neroon any chance to tighten his grip on power within the Grey Council, and joining a war would certainly raise the profile and importance of the Warrior Caste. Assuming it was sanctioned, which, given her fall from grace and how little the new leader thinks of her, and other races, seems unlikely.)
Ivanova: “Are you incapable of speech?”
Lumati leader (through translator): “No of course not. But it would represent a loss of face for me to communicate with a member of an inferior race. Before I can speak with you directly, I must determine if your species is worthy. If so, we may even allow others of my kind to honour you with their presence.”
Londo: “Six months ago they were hardly aware of me, now suddenly everyone is my friend. Everyone wants something. I wanted respect; instead, I have turned into a wishing well with legs!”
Lumati leader: “I do not understand. Why go through all of this to save the lives of potentially inferior species? Evolution is driven by blood: the weak die and the strong survive. By preserving the sick and wounded of other races you pollute the genetic pool. It does not serve evolution.”
Franklin: “Well, my job isn’t serving evolution. It’s serving humanity, even when the patient isn’t human.”
Lumati: “But what happens when the inferior, saved from the process of natural selection, begin to outnumber the superior?”
Franklin: “I don’t believe that any form of sentient life is inferior to any other.”
Lumati: “Yes, we often hear that argument from inferior species, and their sympathisers.”
Franklin: “Just one second. You’re saying that if you saw a child from one of these ‘inferior races’ bleeding to death and all you had to do was move one finger to save it, you wouldn’t do it?”
Lumati: “We would neither help nor harm it; it’s not our place to interfere. The way for one race to help another is to allow evolution to run its course. It’s for their own good. Well, thank you for the stimulating conversation, Doctor. You have some strange notions but I’m sure they will pass with time.”
Franklin (after they have left): “Strange notions. Yeah. I got your strange notions right here!”
Garibaldi, after Londo has repaid him all the money he loaned him over the years: “I’ll get you a receipt, cos I want to make sure everything is on the up and up.”
Londo: “I don’t want a receipt!”
Garibaldi: “Then what do you want?”
Londo: “I want you to stay! Have a littel drink with me! I want you to be happy. I want me to be happy. I want you to be happy for me and me to be happy for you. Is that so much to ask around here? Why is everyone here walking around as if they’re afraid of me?”
Garibaldi: “Maybe because they are.”
Londo: “What are you talking about! I wouldn’t never threaten you or any of the others!”
Garibaldi: “Maybe, maybe not. I don’t know you any more Londo. None of us do.”
Londo: “Wait! Mister Garibaldi, in my time on this station very few people have listened to me or taken me seriously, until recently. Now I have friends I never knew were there. But you: you always listened to me. You were always kind to me, even when you had nothing to gain. And now that things are changing, and I look around for someone to share my good fortune with, there is no-one. Except you. My good, close friend, Garibaldi.”
(This little scene shows us a microcosm of Londo’s world, the way everything has spiralled out of control for him. Events are moving faster than he can keep up with them. From being the man who hung out at the casino and was a general laughing-stock on the station, he has become a powerful and feared figure, and as he says himself, friends he did not even know he had have crawled out of the woodwork. But who can he trust? Everyone wants something, everyone wants to use him to further their own agenda. But not Garibaldi. He’s never looked for or asked for anything from the ambassador. He is probably, along with Vir, the only true friend Londo has.
And eventually, he will lose even that friendship as he proceeds further down the dark road along which he is travelling.)
Narn: “If we do nothing we look like weak children.”
G’Kar: “If you’re interested in showing how strong you are I suggest you return home and join the military! It’s easy to talk about being strong here, when there isn’t a Centauri ion cannon pointed at your head!”
Lumati: “Most impressive. We have isolated ourselves from the inferior but you have shown the will and the strength to isolate yourselves from the genetically inferior part of your own species, as an evolutionary protection.”
Ivanova: “I don’t think you understand. This was not planned…”
Lumati: “Oh you’re too modest. It’s a brilliant move, Commander. You see, you isolate the genetic pool, you limit the chances for procreation, you create a workforce without a powerbase to challenge you. This is not something we thought of but it is something we will instigate upon our world at the first opportunity!”
Sheridan: “Ambassador, I’ve learned the hard way that governments deal in matters of convenience, not conscience. If they fall behind it is up to the rest of us to make up the difference. If we don’t, who will?”
Delenn: “Who indeed?”
(This small kindness, this gesture, this tiny but heartfelt speech tells Delenn everything she needs to know about John Sheridan, and if she ever had any doubts that he was the man she would want at her side in the coming war, they surely disappear as she listens to him speak.)
Londo: “It is good to have friends, is it not, Mister Garibaldi? Even if, maybe only for a little while.”
Garibaldi: “Even if only for a little while.”
IMPORTANT PLOT ARC POINTS
Back home
Arc Level: Red
When Sheridan is turned down by Earthgov on his request for help for the Narns, he’s probably not that surprised. Clarke has made no secret of his dislike, even contempt for aliens, so why would he want to help them? But if he has to take side, were the Centauri not the first alien race humanity encountered, and so if there are any ties with any aliens it should be them. Not to mention that they’re clearly going to win this war, and Earth would naturally want to back the winning side, if it backs any.
This stance will become clearer quite soon, and will start to uncover a very disturbing and worrying trend back home, as Earth becomes increasingly isolationist to the point of xenophobia and … but that would be giving too much away.
“Our two sides must unite”
Arc Level :Red
This line from Minbari prophecy could not be clearer to Delenn, if to none other of her people. The Minbari must ally with the humans in order to defeat the darkness which is coming. The first tentative steps of this are shown here, as they both decide to engage in a covert operation which will help the civilian Narns, in one case without the knowledge or support of and in the other directly in contravention of the wishes of their respective governments. It will be the beginning of a beautiful relationship.
SKETCHES
Ambassador G’Kar
Although this episode does not lend itself too well to anyone’s character development, in many ways it’s G’Kar who carries much of it. His frantic attempts to secure aid for his people, who are losing the war against the Centauri, while not quite falling on deaf ears are hardly welcomed with open arms, and he must do all he can to keep his people under control while violence threatens to spin out of control and undo all the work he has done. Far from the G’Kar we saw in the pilot and the first few episodes, he has begun to mature into an altogether different individual, a man who realises that sometimes his own lust for revenge has to be put to one side in deference to the needs of his people.
Though he hates the Centauri with all his might, he knows that if a riot breaks out across the station that it will reflect badly on him. If his people charge about killing Centauri his chances of anyone coming to the aid of the Narn Regime are slight at best. He sees his authority evaporate in the face of the restless resident Narns, and must challenge the leader to reassert it. Once he has done so, he believes the other races, especially Earth, will intervene, and when he is called to a special meeting with Delenn and Sheridan his hopes have to be high, but they are dashed when he hears of the minimal aid he is being offered.
Nevertheless, from a man who only a few episodes ago was ready to assassinate the Centauri emperor, G’Kar is beginning a transformation that will see him question everything he has believed in, change the way he does things and understand that there is more in the universe than revenge. In a very real way, his own personal journey of discovery begins here.
WAR IS HELL
Each of the main races has their own ideas about the Narn/Centauri war, and in much the same way as the aliens in “Believers” got different answers from each ambassador when they asked them to intervene in the controversy over their son, here too each side has something to say, and not all see it the same way.
Earth (represented by Babylon 5): Sheridan believes that, having seen the footage of a Narn cruiser having to protect fleeing civilians from marauding Centauri ships, and paying the ultimate price for such heroism, it is time for Earth to make a stand and he tells G’Kar he will speak to his government. He is sure the Senate will ratify some sort of sanction, if not military action against the Centauri who did, after all, make a pre-emptive strike without warning or reason against the Narns. He does not bear any great love for either race, nor would he usually take sides, but the idea of civilians being targeted sets something off in him, and he believes that a line has been crossed, and it is time to do something other than just watch and shake his head.
Minbar: Delenn knows all too well the history between the two races. In the very first episode she was approached by G’Kar, with an offer of alliance. She turned that down, knowing the Narn were only interested in destroying the Centauri. Now G’Kar asks for her help again, and though she is troubled by the slaughter of innocents, she is canny enough to know that were Minbar to throw its hand in with Narn, the Centauri Republic would definitely be beaten --- for who are better fighters than her people? --- but that once the dust had settled, Londo would come looking for her help against G’Kar, and she would be in the same position. To say nothing of dragging her people into a war that does not at the moment concern them, and give Neroon a chance to solidify his grip on power within the Grey Council, give him a reason to unleash the likes of the Star-riders and the Wind Swords. Also, though he does not know it, she likely has not the influence she had within the Grey Council, and Neroon would be likely to veto such a suggestion of aid or alliance, if not laugh at it outright.