2.18 "Confessions and Lamentations”
An overdue Markab transport turns out to have been subject to some unidentifiable virus that has killed everyone on board; Sheridan is incensed to learn that Warren Keffer has been conducting unauthorised excursions in pursuit of the strange ship he once saw in hyperspace (see “A distant star”) and orders all such activity curtailed, as he knows this is a Shadow ship Keffer saw, and the importance of not playing his and Delenn's and Kosh's hand too soon. Franklin is concerned that there have now been four deaths of Markabs on the station, all apparently due to natural causes. Something is not right. It turns out that all the Markabs on the vessel - which is towed back to Babylon 5 and which the Markan doctor there initially demands is sealed, but is overridden by Franklin, who has discovered the truth - as well as the four “natural deaths” on the station are due to the contraction of a disease known to only have existed once in Markab history, on one island whose inhabitants were noted for being promiscuous. The Markabs believed, when the population was wiped out, both that it was a judgement from their gods, punishment for the wickedness of the islanders, and that the plague had been confined to that island.
Now that it has resurfaced, it is a taboo subject, somewhat like AIDS was originally, and the stigma attached to it is one of great shame to the aliens. The Markab doctor, Lazarenn, tells Sheridan and Franklin that within a short time, every Markab on the station will contact the virus and die. Research on the subject has been so minimal, with the Markab believing only the impure are affected, that Lazarenn does not know if the disease is transmissable to other races. When he finds out about the fact that his friend has been working, under almost no budget and with complete opposition from his government, on a cure, Franklin directs the entire resources of Babylon 5 towards helping him.
Sheridan issues an executive order placing Babylon 5 under quarantine, and when the word gets out as to why this is happening, a climate of fear descends on the station, which turns to hatred, as such things often do. When a dead Pak'Mara is found, seemingly healthy, Franklin worries that the disease has begun to jump species, and other races could now be susceptible to its effects. Dr. Lazarenn, scandalised by the treatment of his people as they are called in for tests to see if they are infected (essentially implying they are immoral) declares that they will segregate themselves from the rest of the station, gathering together in one place, which Franklin warns is the worst possible thing they could do. Concentrating in one group will only speed the progress of the disease, but Lazarenn will not relent, and believes their purity will save them from the wrath of their gods.
Franklin is mildly disgusted when, on ordering his doctors to enter an isolation unit wherein the dead Pak'Mara lies, they all shuffle their feet and look around, reluctant to do so and possibly expose themselves to the virus. He snaps that he will go in, but then Lazarenn appears and offers to take his place. He will remain within the isolation unit, and comment and observe from there, thus preventing any possible spread of the disease to medlab. Delenn comes to Sheridan with an odd, but brave request: she wishes that she and Delenn be allowed enter the place where the Markab have segregated themselves, in order to minister to, comfort and help the aliens. Sheridan is staggered at her generosity and - well, for the want of another word, humanity - after all, she does not know that the disease will not affect Minbari, and it well may. She is willing to risk death for a people she hardly knows, just to bring them solace and to ensure they don't die alone. Choking back emotion, the captain agrees.
In the isolation unit in medlab, Dr. Lazarenn begins to show symptoms, and knowing his time will be up soon, exhorts Franklin to start running some tests while he can. Inside the Markab area, Delenn and Lennier wander through an atmosphere of despair, fear, panic and bitter hope and desperation, trying to bring what words of comfort they can to a people they know are beyond all hope. There is nothing they can to to stop the disease, merely ease the passing of those who are infected by it. Perhaps it will be enough. The tests on the Pak'Mara come through, and it is not good news: the plague has jumped species. This time, though, Franklin is in no mood for hesitation from his staff, and orders them to autopsy the alien and look for some answer, something they can use to defeat this plague. Smarting at the lash of his tongue (and perhaps at their own cowardice) they rush off to carry out their orders.
Finally, a cure, or a possible cure, or at least something to combat the plague, is discovered, and Franklin rushes to the isolation area to begin distributing it to the Markabs. But when the doors are opened, there are only two living beings left standing: Delenn and Lennier, among a sea of Markab corpses. Every single one of them has died.
QUOTES
Keffer: “There's something out there!”
Ivanova: “Yes, there is. There's something out there. There's also something in here. The something in here is me giving you a direct order. If there's some part of that sentence you don't understand, Lieutenant, I'll be glad to explain it to you for the next four months while you watch Zeta Squadron go on missions without you!”
Delenn: “You were asleep.”
Sheridan: “Oh no no: I was meditating.”
Lennier: “The sound you were making, this is part of human meditation?”
Sheridan: “Oh now, I don't snore.”
Franklin: “They were all killed by some sort of plague or disease that was brought onto the station by your people. Now I want to know: how contagious and how terminal?”
Dr. Lazarenn: “It is one hundred percent terminal, and one hundred percent contagious.”
Garibaldi: “When people get scared they start looking for scapegoats. Trust me, this is gonna get real ugly, real fast.”
Lazarenn: “How do I know this is not a conspiracy on the part of your world to destroy my people? For all I know, this disease was planted in our drinking water, our food. Nothing happened until we began coming here. Perhaps it is your own immorality that has contaminated us!”
Ivanova (on monitor): “Some of the more extreme human groups think they've come up with the solution: wipe out the Markabs, wipe out the problem.”
Sheridan: “Seems we've heard that before.”
Sheridan: “They're not your people, Delenn.”
Delenn: “I was not aware that similarity was necessary for the exercise of compassion.”
Delenn: “All life is transitory, Captain. A dream. We all come together in the same place, at the end of time. If I don't see you again here, I will see you in a little while, in a place where no shadows fall.”
Delenn: “Lennier, she has been separated from her mother. Please find her.”
Lennier:”How?”
Delenn: “Faith manages.”
Lazarenn: “Sometimes the test is not to find the answer, but to see how you react when you realise there is no answer.”
Barman: “Hey! What do you call two billion dead Markabs? Planetary redecoration! Ha ha! News! News gives me the creeps. You know, I heard it was the Vorlons who poisoned them. You know how they are!”
Franklin (
sotto voce): “Nothing changes..”
Parallels
It's quite ironic that the doctors and nurses on Franklin's staff, sworn to preserve life and give theirs if necessary in the furtherance of their practice, shy from entering the isolation unit, yet when faced by a Markab, who is certainly infected by this disease - which could quite easily be fatal to humans too - and who holds out his hand for assistance, Garibaldi, the tough guy who usually professes if not an aversion to then a general tolerance of aliens, has almost no hesitation in gripping the Markab's hand and helping him up off the floor. A pretty stunning moment, encapsulating in one tiny scene the fact that the security chief has more humanity and more self-sacrifice in his little finger than the whole of medlab, Franklin excluded.
IMPORTANT PLOT ARC POINTS
None really: the only real reference to the plot at all is Keffer's quest to discover what the Shadow ship is. Other than that, it's a self-contained episode that, in effect, you could watch without having seen any of the rest of the show. And surely one that, had you watched it and not been a fan, would encourage you to get into the show. (Also see new section “Together we're stronger”)
QUESTIONS?
It's an unsubstantiated rumour, even a wild accusation that the barman voices at the end of the episode, but could it be true? Is it possible that the Vorlons had some hand in the destruction of the Markab people? Were they some sort of experiment, for later use in what is to come? A whole planet used as laboratory test subjects for a new (or very old) biological weapon? Imagine the power any race would wield if it held such a weapon, and controlled the antidote, assuming there is one. It's food for (very dark) thought.
Absent friends
Just as Delenn did not figure in the previous episode, but more than makes up for her absence here, so this time there is no sign at all of Londo or his attache. G'Kar remains an unknown quantity, and if the Vorlons had anything to do with the Markab extinction, Kosh is not around to confirm or deny, or more likely, be inscutable about it.
Together we're stronger
We see from this episode that some sort of attraction is beginning to develop between Delenn and Sheridan. This section will concentrate on how, whether it be individuals, races, fleets or whole planets, the coming war will only be won by a concerted, joint effort, and old enemies are going to have to work together. Season three and four, particularly, are an exercise in and example of what can happen when people put aside their differences and work together. It will also highlight how this can go badly, sometimes tragically wrong.
As Delenn prepares to enter the Markab isolation area, Sheridan, touched by her willingness to sacrifice herself (something that will be picked up on and expanded in an episode or two) asks her, next time she sees him, to call him “John”. This, coupled with the dinner he attends near the opening of the episode (a return of the favour for when he invited her out to dinner shortly after her transformation: their first date as it were) shows that he is no longer seeing her as an ambassador only, as an ally or even as an alien: feelings are starting to grow inside his heart (and, he must hope, in hers too) that will hopefully burgeon into something far deeper. When she touches his face and promises to meet him “in a place where no shadows fall”, there is of course added significance in the choice of words here, given the name of their enemy.
SKETCHES
Ambassador Delenn
We have heard much about the Minbari ambassador; how she sacrificed her very identity at the end of season one to become this new hybrid, and how this has been received by her peers, leading to her being dismissed from the Grey Council by Neroon and the others. We have seen how she abhors violence but is prepared to use it when there is no other choice (particularly in “All alone in the night”, when we get an inkling of the steel that resides beneath her otherwise placid, almost unassuming shell) and now we see how great her capacity for compassion is.
Realising there is nothing she can do to save the Markab, unless Franklin comes up with an antidote or cure in the eleventh hour (in the event, it's the twelfth hour and far too late when he does) she requests permission to go into the isolation area and try to comfort the aliens. She does not at this point even know if she will survive: the virus could very well affect her people too, and Lennier, unquestioning and unafraid, ready to follow her into fire, accompanies her without a word of protest or caution, wanting only to serve her, and if necessary, die with her. She is not making a grand gesture here: she does not announce it to the station or have a big crowd gather to watch her make the entrance. She does so quietly, without fuss and without the slightest hesitation. In this one selfless act, she shows herself to be more human than anyone else on the station.
While inside, she relates a story to a Markab child she had befriended before the plague was confirmed as on the station. She tells of how, while quite young, she got lost in the city but found her way to the temple (presumably, though it's not confirmed, of Valen) and stayed there, believing she would be safe. She fell asleep and awoke to find a mighty figure looming over her, smiling. The apparition (again, we must assume this was Valen) told her she would be all right, that he would not allow any harm to befall “one of his children”, and shortly afterwards she was reunited with her parents as they found her in the temple. Yes, the story has an uncomfortably direct parallel with one of the parables in the Bible, almost ripped off, you could say, but it does show her faith in Valen and that he was watching over her even at that early age. Given what we will learn in season three, this account might very well be fanciful, exaggerated or even the dream of a lost child, but it does clearly illustrate the fact that, even then, the gods of the Minbari were looking out for Delenn, aware that she was someone special, with a destiny to fulfill, a great task to perform. Again, when we get into about mid season three, this will take on much greater significance and may even suggest an explanation.
The parallel of course is obvious: Delenn is telling the Markab child that she, too, was lost once but was reunited with her parents, mostly through having faith. Just at that moment, in a perfect example of pin-sharp writing, Lennier arrives with her mother. The joy of seeing this child reunited with her parent though is immediately tempered by the sudden stumble of the child, as Delenn and Lennier realise/remember that all of these people, all of them, are fated to die, and there is nothing they can do about it. They may have managed to have produced one moment of joy for both child and mother, but it is fleeting. A small victory, perhaps, but the true defeat lies ahead.
After her ordeal, Delenn is typically philosophical about the future, hoping that people will learn from this tragedy and be kinder to one another, and also not hide behind religious dogma and superstition when danger threatens. She is of course engaging in wishful thinking, as we see by the callous attitude of the barman in the final scene. But if nothing else, this whole episode has shown her that life is indeed precious, and if she has feelings for John Sheridan, it may be time to share them with him.
Messages
You'd have to be blind not to see the clear message being put across through the story of the Markab plague, and although Franklin compares it to the Black Death of the fourteenth century, it's of course more closely linked with the rise and spread of AIDS in the 1980s. Fear, distrust and paranoia turn to vengeance, retribution and accusation as the Markab are blamed for bringing the disease aboard the station, and Lazerenn relates how many of his people, believing the planet itself had become cursed by immorality, left to go to other worlds, thus propogating the spread of the disease. Ignorance and pride, mixed in with a healthy (or not so healthy) dose of religious fervour and panic, led those who believed they were pure to abandon their homeworld, never believing or even conceiving that they too were infected, and that by travelling they were condemning others to their fate.
It's not mentioned whether other races fell ill outside of B5, but what is incontrovertible is that the Markab race, as a whole, has all but ceased to exist now. Franklin postulates that some random Markabs may survive on distant planets, but they will be few and far between, and probably in hiding when the word spreads about what has happened. It's clear too that, had the Markabs stayed separated and accepted the help of medlab, the virus could have been beaten before it was too late. As ever, fear, distrust and a belief that their god would save them led the Markab to inadvertently speed up the spread of the disease, and their own destruction. It may be that here, JMS is saying that if we ignore epidemics like AIDS and SARS, try to isolate those who are infected instead of helping them, we may end up doing more harm than good. Fear is the real enemy, and it only triumphs when we give in to it.
There's also the age-old message of governments protecting themselves by ignoring a problem. Not wishing to be the ones to admit that their people may be immoral, the Markab government refused to fund any research into the disease, leaving Lazarenn basically on his own. They were more worried about losing their positions and their power than in helping save their people, and even indeed themselves. In a way, they brought about their own destruction. Harking back to my “Together we're stronger” section, this is proven to be the case when Markab (or at least, Dr. Lazarenn) and human doctors work in concert to try to determine what the disease is, how it works and how it can be defeated. Add in Delenn's self-sacrifical and selfless compassion offered to the dying aliens, and you have perhaps one of the first and best (if ultimately futile) examples of races working together for a common goal, without thought of territory, religion or any differences.
This ain't Star Trek!
Along with season one's “Believers”, and yet to come season three's “Passing through Gethsemane”, this is one of the saddest and most moving episodes in the series. I was wiping away tears while writing this, and they were nothing compared to the amount I wept when I saw this originally. Another example of how
Babylon 5 was so different from
Star Trek, or any other science-fiction series, where almost always (though, to
Star Trek: the Next Generation's credit, there were some “dark” storylines and the good guys did not always win, to say nothing of
Deep Space 9) there was a last-minute solution and the day was saved. In that universe, a dead crewmember suddenly coughed and was not dead after all, or a planet doomed to destruction had the catastrophe averted at the eleventh hour. In
Babylon 5, this does sometimes happen but not always, and this is a fine example of a time when it does not.
Watching this for the first time, anyone who was unfamiliar with the series would be expecting, as Franklin and Sheridan rush to the isolation area with the cure, that they would be in time, and it's a great shock and a cold water-barrel of reality dumped over our heads when the doors open and there is not one single Markab left alive. Yes, there is a cure, but there is no longer anyone who can benefit from it. It's a sobering piece of writing, fantastic drama, and though it leaves a nasty taste in your mouth, you come to realise that taste is the real world. In the real world, the hero does not always triumph, the guy seldom gets the girl and the bomb usually does go off. Though this is just drama and not real, it at times comes so close to reality that you have to remind yourself you're watching a TV show.
Now that's good writing!