By Any Means Necessary

Jeff: Welcome to Babylon five for the first time, not a star Trek podcast. My name is Jeff Akin and Brent I'm. We're watching Babylon five for the first time. I let's just get to this one. I introduce yourself. I want to get to the meet on this one as soon as we can

Brent: And I'm Brent Allen, and I'm also watching Babbel on five for the first time though. Honestly, Jeff as two veteran star Trek podcasters coming to the show for the very first time today. I would've just rather watched star Trek.

Jeff: Yeah. Hundred percent, a hundred percent. And we're gonna make references about star Trek, right? We have our game, our rule of three. And when we do make a star Trek reference, we get buzzed. We get three, a piece of those that we get to pull in.

Brent: mm-hmm and, uh, yeah, there's, there's, there's a lot to be said for this, although I think I'm gonna come down to the end. I might surprise you a little bit Jeff, and maybe some people out there, but we gotta get there first. Jeff. This is the part where we like to read some reviews, emails, and comments.

You're the one with access to all of that. I just sort of see it on the backside. So we got anybody, any, any, any good people out there? I imagine we do because people out there are awesome.

Jeff: People are incredible. We got quite a few. I'm gonna share three, three this week. And the first one is from our webpage. We've got a website, Babylon five first.com. It's the number five and the word first.com. And from the webpage, there's a little button. You can click sends an email. John sends an email.

He says, hi, Jeff and Brent. I hi. I don't think I heard it in the parliament of dreams, podcast episode during the minbar ceremony scene behind stair, a nervous hand of Jaar switches, his little red fruit with the person sitting next to him. Just a little detail I thought was hilarious. Looking forward to the next episode.

Yeah, he said that

Brent: Yeah.

Jeff: it's pretty cool. I J Jaar, right? Like we, we love Jaar

Brent: Right. I,

Jeff: but thank you, John. It was a great little tidbit. I don't think we brought it up when, uh, when we watched parliament dreams, that's been a while, but, um, yeah. Awesome.

Brent: I usually have about a half dozen notes that I never say on the show. Like it just doesn't work into the course of, of our conversation. And I think that was one of my notes, like, cuz it, I saw it and it cracked me up when I saw him do that.

Jeff: On Twitter at Babylon first. That's where you can get us on Twitter. But the yum yum podcast says, well, actually I didn't say anything. They just sent a really awesome gift of a Babylon five dude that we don't know yet giving us a thumbs up. And honestly, I don't even know for sure. It's a Babylon five guy, but they were like familiar looking aliens in the background.

So I'm assuming, but Ryan and Rachel at the yummy podcast are awesome. They're super cool. I recommend that you go check it out unless you're also watching Babybel on five for the

Brent: Yeah. And, and, uh, Ryan and Rachel, just in case you guys are listening and you go look and you find out I'm not following you. It's because I did for like five minutes. And then I realized that protect to protect the integrity of the show. I couldn't follow you. So I can't wait when we're done with the production of this show to be able to come and catch up with you guys, because you sound like really cool people.

And, uh, we really appreciate the love you, goodness. I just needed to not know what happens. And you guys are on the other side of this journey. So

Jeff: got some cool episodes on star Trek. So if you wanna go give them a listen, those are safe. Those are safe for us. I've listened to a couple of those. Those are good. So yeah,

Brent: have to go check that

Jeff: at least so far, so far, they have been, I, you know, it's tough cuz there's such a great community around babble on five that we're discovering.

And I feel like we can't really dive all the way into it just because we can't know, you

Brent: you know what though? No, but you know what, and I, I mean, I, I know we say this, we just keep all the praise on everybody out there and, and it's deserved they're coming around us,

Jeff: Oh,

Brent: which is really cool. You know what I mean? Like the, the, with the, the way they're interacting with us with the way they're commenting on things, you guys out there are coming around.

Jeff and I, although we can't reciprocate in, in so many ways, we'll do it as best we can given again, the parameters and integrity of the show, but you know, they're awesome. And I'm, I, I can't wait to be a fully fledged and doctrinated member of, of this, uh, Babylon five community and expand my sci-fi nerd.

Jeff: I'd be happy to be a card carrying member. As long as that card isn't slapped onto the back of my hand. And I have to hold it up awkwardly to talk to other members of the community

Brent: I believe I said

Jeff: Uhhuh. Yep. well, we have a super timely episode from, uh, Dr. Algernon Ben way on YouTube. He drops a little hint, but it's, uh, I think it's appropriate for us on here.

He says with respect, I think it's clear that you folks need to adjust your perspective a bit. Babylon five was the first and only truly serialized sci-fi show on us television period. You guys are used to the magic reset button from star Trek shows, example here's where it gets appropriate for us alcoholism experienced, explored and overcome in a single episode.

Never to be referenced again, Babylon five says Babylon five. Never does that

Brent: okay. Okay.

Jeff: Yeah. Yeah. Each episode each episode is roughly a week or so in Babylon five time, storylines, storylines are never dropped. So if it looks like they didn't explore something by the end of the episode that they should have, don't worry.

They will, there are seeds planted in every episode.

Brent: here's the thing, I'm gonna start holding y'all to this because I've, you're not the first person who I've heard say this, I've heard lots of people continue to say this. We are 11 episodes, 12 episodes into this journey right now. So I understand there's a lot more to come. I'm keeping an open mind, still Jeff and I have to comment based on the information and the knowledge of where we are in the journey right now, but I'm, I'm gonna hold y'all to that because if they don't come back and circle back to some of these threads that we're picking up as first time, viewers, well, I'm not gonna be mad at y'all, but I'm gonna shake my fist and speak sternly into a microphone.

Yeah. I probably won't even do that. Mm-hmm mm-hmm

Jeff: Podcaster yells at sky, right?

well, in today's episode, Brent, we're talking about episode 12 by any means necessary. But last week, this is fun. We have so many games we like to play on here, and we like to guess what the next episode is gonna be about base just on the title, cuz we don't look at anything about it. So last. Brent. Do you remember?

I remember what you guessed. Do you, do you remember your slight cop out

Brent: I, oh, I remember exactly what I guessed because I didn't guess, uh, a slight cop out, Jeff, I completely copped out on this thing. I said it could be anything. I, you, I couldn't even begin to tell you what it was and it's because I knew it could be something like what it was we got today, which was cool. I was great with how that whole piece ended.

We'll talk about that in a little bit, but like there was, there was no way to narrow it down just based off the title alone, E like to even come up with a BS storyline. Just for the sake of answering it, like it wasn't gonna happen. So yeah.

Jeff: I think it's so hard cuz they're introducing so many threads at this point that like every app's like, Hey, here's a new idea. Here's another new idea. Oh, now we're gonna explore this idea a little bit from before. Oh, here's six more new ideas and yeah, it's hard to keep. It's hard to keep track of everything at this.

Well, I went ahead and tried to make up storyline for this one. And I thought that it was gonna be a continuation of the home guard kind of storyline and that the aliens were gonna band together and they were gonna fight back by any means necessary. And Brent, I probably, I could not have been more

Brent: no, Jeff, I would, I would push back on, I'd say you got about a third of that, right? Yeah. Well, because they banded together and they fought back. It just wasn't aliens. It was humans. For the most part, there might have been an alien or two somewhere in the midst of all that, but I don't think there was. Um, and it's possible that there's a home guard connection in the middle of this one. Possible and well, maybe possibly. So I'll give you, I'll give you a third credit

Jeff: Wow. Look

Brent: for it.

Jeff: I'm I'm racking these up pretty soon. I might have five credits.

Brent: Right by the end of season one.

Jeff: Exactly. But if the cool thing is, I know Gary Baldy will defend to the death, my credits, because that's what we learned last week. He does with, uh, criminals. Well, for those of you

Brent: brain.

Jeff: well, for those of you that it might have been a while since you've seen this episode, like, I don't know, 30 years or so, or you haven't watched in a while or you've joined along in our journey watching Babylon five for the first time.

Let's remind you what this episode was about. Brent. You've got the recap this week.

Brent: Yay.

Jeff: yes. Yay.

Brent: here we go. It's a busy day at the docking bays of Babylon five, but Hey, it's just another day because this is how it's been for a really long time around the station. Kind of like we saw back in episode. Or episode. Okay. Yeah, we haven't really seen it before, but they tell us that this has been going on for a really long time.

Bottom line. Those dock workers are overworked, short staffed, and they're using substandard non safe equipment, but Hey, at least pay rate, isn't an issue, of course, as it inevitably does major accidents happen destroying a Narn ship and an entire docking bay injuring several and killing one who also just happens to be the foreman's brother.

Well, that's enough to make the dock workers go on strike or catch a case of the blue flu. I mean, seriously,

who can work in these conditions? Sinclair gets it. He tells their union rep that he's trying to get them what they need, but the money just isn't there. The earth central Senate doesn't really care because they have all these experts and the experts say that they have all they need. And since the dock workers have a contract, they can't even go on strike.

So tell 'em all to get back to work. Tensions, continue to rise as the Senate won't budge on improving working conditions and the workers won't budge to go to work. And oh yeah. Now they want better pay because Hey, while you're at, it might as well. This causes the Senate to send in, or Zeto a strike Buster.

He's actually kind of bad at his job because he not only doesn't help, but he exacerbates the whole situation by invoking the rush act, which we never really find out what all that is. But apparently it's really bad. But Sinclair being smarter than the average bear does the unthinkable. He actually reads the text of the rush act order and he notes one little line saying that he's authorized in this thing by.

Any means necessary. XTO agrees any means necessary. Now go bust some heads, but not so fast as Sinclair says, because the means he's going to choose to use is to reallocate funds from the military to give the dock workers exactly what they want, safer working conditions, more people on the job. Probably some better pay, maybe not.

I don't know. We'll see, he'll give 'em whatever they need to get. 'em back to work and better tools. He's also gonna forgive any little transgressions and everybody just sort of hugs it out. Well, except for XTO who leave, shaking his fist saying I get you my pretty and little dog too. Meanwhile, while that's happening, Jaar has a big religious ceremony coming up and that Narn ship.

That started all of this way back at the beginning. Yeah. That was carrying a pretty rare flower. That is required for the ceremony. And now the only person on the entire station who happens to have one of those is lawn. And so lawn spends the entire episode, just screwing with Jaar, which is awesome to watch by the way, he's just stringing along, watching him squirm.

Yeah. I'll give you this for 50 million, 50 million. That's outrageous. Of course it's outrageous lawn says. And then when he comes up with the money, he is like, nevermind, I'm not gonna sell it to you. Anyway. Ultimately, Ja car gets NATA to steal some precious idle thing to lawn's people. And guess what?

Sinclair gets involved in this too, cuz he doesn't have enough going on. And he negotiates with the two ambassadors and everybody eventually gets back what they need and woo, an exhausted scruffy looking Sinclair ins his day with a call from his favorite Senator saying, Hey, you better watch your back because you really pissed off Zeto and he has friends in low places. Jeff. I'm gonna throw it to you first. Cause I know you're itching to talk about this episode. What did you think? What are your overall opening thoughts on by any means necessary?

Jeff: I feel like the Jaquan let's talk about Jaar and lawn first. Cause that's a nice, that's a nice thing. The Jaquan faith thing for Jaar, uh where'd that come from, right? Like what is

Brent: saying that for so much out of this episode.

Jeff: Uhhuh? you said it, we said you specifically for the last one and now this one it's like, um, okay. I guess this is a thing.

If it sticks, right? If it sticks this whole religious Jaar thing sticks, I'm all for it. But I don't want to be like, oh, this is politician Jaar for this episode. And over here now we have religious Jaar because there's a model on how to do this. It's been done really well with, uh, Kira norice in deep space nine, right?

She was always devout her faith guided her actions. It, it made sense all the time. Granted we're 12 episodes in, so maybe it hasn't really come up yet, but I. It'd be cool. I think this is a really cool added dimension to Kar. I, I liked, I liked everything about that storyline.

Brent: I can't say that. I liked everything about that storyline because specifically I didn't like Kar.

Jeff: Really?

Brent: Now I'm not saying that I didn't like the actor or how he portrayed Kar. I didn't like Ja Kars busting in, dude. We ju your ship just blew up our docking bay because your dude freaked out. That's his fault.

Don't make us the victims. Yes. Or don't make us the people at fault. Yes, it is. You. That was you because you are worried about your flower for your religious ceremony. I have all the respect in the world for people who have religions, who adhere to their religion, whatever that. I have my own, but that does not give you the right to ignore people who have died. So you can carry out your ceremony.

Jeff: really take the religion out of that, make anything else. And that's Kar Jaar doesn't care that some doc worker died. Right? I mean, that's, that's him now. Should I do I like that? No, but is that in line with his character? Absolutely. I think so. Just, it was just weird because it, he had this weird, like false humility of a religious, you know, first he's like, oh, don't make us die.

But also, you know, we need this, this very precious thing. I just hope that this is an added dimension and not just like,

Brent: I I'm with listen, if they establish it, I need them to carry it. Not

Jeff: Yeah.

Brent: just forget about it as I think they might have with another character, which we'll talk about later. Um, but in talking about this lawn catches wind of the whole thing. Lawn has been lawn has been preparing for this moment for a very long time. And he finally gets to jump into action. And when he comes to Jaar, he is all smiles and it's something is off. And the, the be the moment you knew it was all about to go down for the whole episode is when lawn gets on that elevator and he's waving with both hands , he, that that might have been the, uh, the way to get past the TV sensors with, instead of 'em just flipping 'em off with both fingers, you know what I mean?

Jeff: that's so

Brent: but this whole, I mean, this whole storyline was the bright spot in a very, very dark tunnel of 45 minutes.

Jeff: Yeah, cuz here's the other thing this, so I have to own that literally the Friday before Brent and I recorded this episode, I was at work preparing for negotiations with our labor union. This is a world that I live in, have lived in for a very long time. And this episode sucked.

Brent: and just, just, just to clarify, you're on the management side

Jeff: Oh yeah. Yeah.

There's that too. yes, it's a good, it's a very, very important clarification. But when we talk about it some more, I'm gonna show you why Sinclair, uh, is the example of how to be on the management side of the table. I mean, another shining light for Sinclair in a lot of ways. There's some stuff, uh, that we'll talk about in a, in a little bit, but I mean, This was literally like late eighties, early nineties, late night drama.

We're gonna do a worker dispute thing. Uh, what, what was the foreman's named Del Delto was, was just a stereotype in every single way. Um, and, and was, and it was wildly in the minute. This episode fell apart for me. Well, the minute I knew this episode was, was never gonna be fully like, come back for me was at the end when this whole time Delian has been like, this is not time for talk.

We've heard you talk you're you're horrible. And what we're gonna do, awful things and whatever it takes. And then Sinclair walks through and he is like, oh, we gotta hear what this guy has to say, dude, you saying you don't want to hear what he has to say is what started all of this. And now all of a sudden, oh, it was just, it was inconsistent.

It leaned on stereotypes of like what a labor dispute looks like. I, I don't know. I just thought it was really, yeah, it was, it was awful. It was really bad. and what was his name? Uh, Zeto or XTO or whatever. Oh my, Hey, um, let me find Disney villain par you know, type three

Brent: let's find the slickest smoothest naughtiest dude. Find the guy with the most punchable face out there. Get him in the show. Yeah.

Jeff: It was almost like , what's a, a Dolores Umbridge and Harry Potter, right. It's like, Hey, let's take her and take every bit of charm away from her and then make her a strike. Buster.

Brent: Jeff buddy.

Jeff: I just touched a nerve. I

Brent: Dolores Umbridge didn't have any charm.

Jeff: I think she did

Brent: No, you're

Jeff: I think

Brent: You are. I'm throwing an arrow at you. You're wrong. little. I got my kids' dart, uh, uh, Nerf dart arrow. you're wrong. Wrong. Do you know my completely side topic? Do you know my favorite nickname for, for Dolores Umbridge? Well, her initial is D and then Umbridge.

She's dumb bridge.

Jeff: there you

Brent: That's that's my thing for her she's dumb bridge.

Jeff: I am, I, I don't know. I just think, yeah, so imagine a, a worse, less, um, okay. Maybe charms, not the right word, less interesting. How's that less interesting version of dumb bridge. And then you get, Zeto like, oh my God. So bad. I mean, so bad.

Brent: Mm-hmm Hey, by the way. Good job. Good job. Uh, sidestepping mentioning Kai win there.

Jeff: There's charm

Brent: Oh, there's definitely charm there for

Jeff: so much.

Brent: definitely charm I could on my other podcast, it be me up. Matt asked it be Matt. Uh, my co-host there. He actually used to run a Harry Potter podcast. So in that show, there's a lot of references. It's actually the drinking game for the show. Anytime somebody message mentions Harry Potter, you gotta take a drink. And in that show and we talked about a lot. How, uh, Kai win is dolo. Sunbridge like there are two peas in a pod. I'm gonna throw XTO in there as they're like, they're weird nephew you know. Exactly, exactly. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. Jeff, I they're really, I mean, I'm, I'm picking up everything you're laying down about this episode.

There's not really much to like about this episode, except for lawn versus Kar and this isn't even lawn and Kar, this is lawn versus Kar, and I'm so glad

Jeff: door was

Brent: that they're keeping this rivalry going, that they're not just being buddy, buddy or being respectful towards each other. Cuz when, when lawn first came up to Jaar, I was like, oh, okay, here we go.

He's gonna be a friend. And you know, they're gonna pretend like they didn't really just about kill each other a handful of episodes ago. And oh no, no, they didn't. They did everything. I needed them to do Ja car breaks into lawn's apartment or quarters or whatever, and leaves the door open. And he's sitting there at his table.

like, oh my gosh. Yeah. Right, right. Lawn's like, I've got the flower, but it's in a safe spot, so you're never gonna get it. And , you know, the, I, I love the it's 50,000 Centara credits 50,000 that's highway robbery. Yeah. That, of course that is that's the point.

Jeff: he just owned it. He's like, yeah, totally.

Brent: then when he comes up with the money, he's like, eh, I'm not giving it to you anymore, you know, and all the way to the end when Sinclair, uh, fixes it and Kar like Kar, it doesn't take much to push, uh, sorry, not Kar lawn to push lawn to giving it up.

And, and his little line of like, I've gotten all the happiness out of it that I needed. Anyway. I'm good. Just to, I'm not, I'm not getting in the middle. I, he knew he knew when to call it. You know what I mean? Like I, I respected lawn for that in that moment. More than anything else, you know?

Jeff: what he, and he won, like at the, for all he knew. He's like, you didn't get to do your, your thing. I, I messed with your whole religious ceremony. ha.

Brent: well, even, I mean, even that he did get to do his religious ceremony with a, with this weird, oh, that, that sunlight that hit the Mountain's gonna be here in about 12 hours, 10 years later because of traveling through space and science and physics and stuff, lawn doesn't care. I still say lawn one lawn won the day on this one.

Absolutely. There was that I loved, loved, loved house and Claire chose to solve the problem at the end. Everything else about this episode, though,

Jeff: Yeah. Well, so I wanna, I wanna talk a little more about the lawn Kar thing, cuz I think, I think there's a deeper, there's a deeper thing here. So here let's take the fun thing and make it serious. But the story between that I understand between Tari and Narn, is it the Tari basically almost wiped out the Narn and enslaved them and colonized their worlds.

And that's where the whole radish three, you know, misses ours and it was theirs and it was theirs and all that. To me, this screamed of, so to the Naar and this Jaquan F is sacred, you

Brent: to, to some of the

Jeff: to some yes. Yeah. Cause NATA doesn't practice. She, what was the, the other, uh,

Brent: it, it was, it was Jaquan something or other, like, it was the same like similar name, but then it was like a different branch or something. I, I'm not sure what, but like her family does that and she doesn't even practice anything at all. So this is only a handful of Narn. It's not even a, uh, I really enjoy because one of the criticisms that I have of other sci-fi shows is when you meet one or two representatives, and then all of a sudden their whole world becomes a monoculture based on that one or two people.

Um, and so I'm glad to know that this is a thing that's a part of non society, not the entirety of non society

Jeff: Uh, lawn wado says something about, uh, you take the seeds and you put 'em into some hot water and oof take you to another universe. And so in our world today, like as we're recording this, this is a big issue across our country and where I live up in Oregon, we have recently legalized SIL Sabin or mushrooms, and I I'm actually a consultant on the board for how our state is choosing to, uh, to, to legalize the practice, uh, the medicinal practice of psilocybin and mushrooms in, in our state, our guiding principles for this are that before we came to the United States and indigenous people and native Americans just lived here and did their thing, psilocybin, the mushrooms were sacred to them.

It was how they maintained their mental health. It was how they connected as a community. Like this was a big part of what. And who they, they, they were, and what their culture was. We came in and said, Nope, this is a type one narcotic. And we're gonna throw you in prison forever for this sacred thing that you've used forever.

And so one of our guiding principles is that acknowledging that for tens of thousands of years, this was a very sacred and special thing. This was what that reeked of cent came and colonized took over a lot of the Nan stuff. They grabbed this sacred flower and they're like, dude, this , these drugs are sweet, man.

This is good. But to Jaar and the followers of Jaquan, what a, what a slap in the face. And that's what we have done in the United States with, with mushrooms and other natural, you know, drugs out there that we've criminalized that, uh, used to be sacred to people here still are sacred to people here, but they have to like risk incarceration to practice their religion. So how's that for return?

Brent: I personally have zero experience with any of that. I understand a lot of people do. And I love that. That is your guiding principle of this. This is a, uh, yeah, this, this, this is a thing historically of the people who were of this land before, you know, any of us got here. Uh, say, I, I don't mean to speak for everybody out there. I, this is not my, my, my idea. It it's, it's an interesting take. You put on that though, Jeff. Um, I'm sorry, like I, I didn't think about that at all.

So. Kind of processing that, like, because what he said was lado said, it's a shame, you guys burn it for incense because of what this does. And I was, I was like, I also imagined my thought was, I imagine there's some monetary value to that then too. Like if you could do that and also does this mean that, that lawn's like all into drugs and stuff,

Jeff: I'm gonna say.

Brent: drugs, like

Jeff: his password? Um, yeah,

Brent: that's fair.

That's fair. That's fair. Like, but is, is this gonna be like an acceptable thing in the Babylon five world that like people just get high? Like, and it's

Jeff: I don't know. Cuz they've got, what is it? Dust or whatever that they mentioned. I think that was, was that in the gathering or, but one of the first

Brent: that was the very first one. Yeah. That was the, like the first scene we ever saw Sinclair. He was busting that dude, trying to, trying to smuggle it in.

Jeff: Yeah. So like there's but, but maybe, maybe it's more similar to what some states in the United States are becoming where it's like, okay. So we're acknowledging that we're gonna regulate these things over here. We're still gonna criminalize these things over here. Maybe it's something like that, but also maybe lawn's like, I'm an ambassador dude.

I'm going, I'm gonna do, and I'm a Inari ambassador at that. I'm gonna do, I'm gonna do me. I'm gonna do what I wanna do.

Brent: right.

Jeff: on the trope train as there were my favorite trope came back. My favorite one, a reporter lady.

Brent: Yeah.

Jeff: yeah.

Brent: Yeah. I didn't realize that was her at first.

Jeff: really?

Brent: well, I mean, it, it took, it took me a little bit and I was like, oh, it's that same lady. It's that reporter lady. Oh, I

Jeff: embedded

Brent: yeah. I, I got some news for you though. Jeff, can I give you a little spoily news a little. It's not that it's not that big. Little spoiler news, because I was like, I was trying to look her up and see who she was.

Cause I was trying to see if it was the same girl. And I happened to note that she only has two episodes to her credits in Babylon five. So yeah.

Jeff: I hope I hope she got fired. not the actor, but the reporter

Brent: yeah.

Jeff: like in my head, cuz I mean, she's doing what she should do. Right. And there's stuff going on with the workers. I think the questions she was asking were legit and she, I think her coming into CNC again was a, you know, Ivan had taken care of that before.

It's she should know better, but still it was fine, but Ivon escorts him out, which is awesome. Again, it's Ivan, but

Brent: she escorts them out while counting down from 10. She didn't get to one. She got to three and they were out, like she put lawn in his place. She put Jaar in his place and this lady went too. And she's like that. She's, she's like got her hands around the door with her head, poking head. The people have a right to know commander.

Jeff: Exactly. It's like, I have to get my thing in. This is my thing. I gotta say it. Nah, mm-hmm . Yeah.

Brent: I gotta tell you though, Jeff, you're gonna hate me for saying this. I kind of wish that she would've become like a recurring joke at that point. Like a recurring nuisance around the station. Like I don't the, the, the amount she was in this particular episode to me was perfect and I didn't need it in every episode, but every three or four episodes, like bring her in as somebody who's trying to get the scoop and, you know, like how did she just walk into CNC?

Jeff: Right.

Brent: Like I've had press credentials in my life. It does not grant me access to the innermost Sant of the working operations of whatever business I'm covering.

Jeff: A military operation specifically, like, yeah. And honestly, I would've been fine with her if she hadn't grabbed the door and stuck her head in, like, to me, it's like Willie,

Brent: it was my favorite part.

Jeff: but Yvon, but like, I would hate to be one of her children cuz you know how everybody's like stop. But 1, 2, 2 and a half, two, one was like 1, 2, 3, boom

Brent: Boom.

Jeff: yeah, no room for messing around there.

Brent: I gotta tell you Jeff. That's how Brent parents.

Jeff: Yeah.

Brent: I don't, I don't mess. I don't mess around. Look, I, now my one twos and threes may have a little bit of breath in between them, but it's a, yeah.

Jeff: Nice. Steady.

Brent: as long as I see you moving, I'm good, you know, but if you're just sitting, if you're not doing what I'm telling you to do,

Jeff: I feel like Avan was like, I'm I am going to do something to you. And, uh, if you don't put it into overdrive, this isn't gonna be fun for you. It's gonna be awesome for me.

Brent: I, I loved that moment between her and Sinclair though. Like Sinclair gets in there and he just, all of a sudden has that, like, all right, I'm done. He's like, I want everyone out. And he turns around and just looks at a bottom and it's like, take care of my light work lady. And she just goes, she just smiles.

It's like, she just cracked her knuckles. So with pleasure commander, like, she's a Chick-fil-A lady or something. I was like, you get it girl. And man, she laid it down.

Jeff: yeah. Yeah. Every, I mean, every episode, I, I don't know. I mean, maybe like Jaar lawn and Ivanova about a hundred percent of the time they're on screen. It's just like, this is my favorite part of the episode.

Brent: Uhhuh. Can I tell you a part of the episode that then made me mad?

Jeff: Hmm.

Brent: Avan gets to three and then GU Baldi walks in the RO door and goes two, one. And I'm looking at him. I. We're gonna forget that last week ever happened with Aldi. Aren't we, because now he's back to Aldi from two episodes ago. He's the, he's the jokester.

He's the whatever. I'm not saying he has to be sad and mad the whole time or whatever, but I was like, that's my, that's my fear. I know people say that they don't waste these storylines. I need this one needs to be one that I think gets explored a little bit more with Garabaldi in, in his deal.

Jeff: I think it will. It's funny that you say that because literally when he walked in, I'm like, oh, Brent's gonna have thoughts on

Brent: Oh yeah. And that's my thoughts was crap, but it's, garal like, I, this is my favorite Garabaldi by the way, like smart ass Garabaldi oh, I'm sorry. Smart. But Garabaldi like Baldy, like

Jeff: It's

Brent: uh, he's he's my favorite GU Baldy. I, I, I like him a lot. And when he stepped in and went two, one, what I miss

Jeff: so great. But I think that, I think that Sinclair and Ivan are like his safe place. Right. And where he can, he can do those things and be a little bit, a little bit looser, but he can also be a little more real. Like I think that's where some of the stuff from last episode will show up is in that little trio, but also he's like, yeah, we're cool.

Like I'm cool. Say I'm joking again. It's all good.

Brent: Jeff, I got a question for you and change topic on you all the way around which guest actor slash character was the better actor, Leona Keer or NEMA Connolly. I swear.

Jeff: Hey. Hey Jeff, do you wanna get slapped on the right side of the face or the left side of the face? seriously.

Brent: I swear when we first met, met NEMA, uh, she slams her hand down on the thing. And she, she says, what does she say? She says, don't try to blame my people. And she says it with a big smile on her face. And I was like, oh my God. Like she was laughing when she did that. I was like,

Jeff: like, I'm on TV right now.

Brent: I was like, no. Oh man.

Jeff: I, she ruined to me like, hon, honestly, a lot ruined this for me. The, the, the writing, the, the episode, the, how things went itself, but, or ETO and, and Connolly ruined this. I couldn't, I couldn't buy 'em. She said at the end that she's, uh, what did she say? Uh, I'm the dually elected representative for, for these people, which generally means that she is a worker.

She's a doc worker. They hold regular elections for their chair, their stewards, their, their treasurers, all the things. So. She's a dock worker. Really?

Brent: Mm-hmm

Jeff: No. And don't hear, do not hear me saying that women can't be a dock worker. What I'm saying is the way this

Brent: this particular woman

Jeff: Yeah. This

Brent: a doc worker.

Jeff: No, not at all.

She might have been an organizer or something for the union totally by that. Right. But don't feed me this line about being duly elected when you work for the union, like be who you are, but yeah. One, not, not a doc worker and just, oh my, I couldn't believe a single thing never took her seriously at all.

And, and at first I almost wanted to think that she was trying to play both sides, you know, or something like, oh, this, but then I'm like, no, she she's just a terrible actor.

Brent: Mm-hmm

Jeff: like is yeah.

Brent: so Jeff, I, I have, in my note here, I think we have established very well. There was a lot of bad acting. Scripting was very poor stuff was just off. Some of this was really, really hard to believe. We also have to acknowledge this is early nineties television. We're 30 years down the line. I'd I'd like to having acknowledged that I wanna talk about the story overall and what actually happened.

And the note that I had here is Jeff. I want to know what your take is on the leadership of Sinclair and the Senator and Conley in their three very different and distinct roles. As my, as our resident leadership expert in guru.

Jeff: I literally watched this episode and thought I can do this as a bonus episode for my body. Like there's so much to dive into from a leadership perspective, but the reality, this, this did set up one reality really well. And that's. There's this thinking this mindset. When you talk about labor negotiations, that the people at the table actually have decision making authority.

And that's generally not the case. I'm, I've been on the management side for, for quite a few negotiations. And we basically have this table behind us, of people that aren't bargaining that are telling us, oh, here's, here's your dollar amounts. You know, here are your concessions. You can make here's this.

And so we go and we bargain and we bring those things up, but we're not the people like signing the checks or holding the bag, but we're the ones that are face to face with the people that are, that are trying to do it. That was Sinclair. Right? He's got the Senate over here, handing him an impossible decision and then telling him to deal with it and just deal with it.

And I think this whole episode could have been avoided because if, if, if he was taken seriously by Delto and Connolly, cuz he walked in and he just said, look. I'm in an impossible situation. I only have this much money. The budget is this. I'm doing the best I can. These things need to happen. Let's go talk and figure.

No, the times we've heard enough of that fast forward to the end, or he is like, Hey, um, we should talk, cuz I could solve your, I could solve your problem here. He, so Sinclair shined through this whole thing. He wasn't and what it was so many people, so many leaders get tied up on right and wrong, right.

Where it's like, well this is the contract. And so I'm right. And you have to do this and you are wrong because you forget all that, right? There's this aspect of our toxic dominant culture in the workplace that we adhere blindly to the written word. If it's written down, I don't think I just do. And that's what leads to so many of these labor disputes, Sinclair was willing to look past that from the beginning of this episode.

Delian Totos. Emotionally charged. I think that his motivation was understandable. His brother died. Right. And totally should be coming from a place of like this sucks, but also has to understand, I think it goes back to that question of justice versus vengeance. Do you Delto actually want your people taken care of, or do you just want to see somebody hang in my experience, working in the public sector in, um, in a labor, uh, represented workplace, there are generally two types of people that work for the union or represent the union.

And there are they're, pro-labor where they want the best for their people and they adhere to the contract and they advocate for the contract and want the best for everybody. And then you've got anti management where it doesn't matter what they're saying. If it's coming from management, it's BS and we're gonna dig our heels in and fight ENT dose was anti management.

Doesn't matter until the very end inexplicably Connolly. Tried I think, but she did that thing. Um, what do I call a demonstrative leadership where yeah, I'm gonna go talk and I'm gonna do these things and I'm gonna be heard and then goes in. And then he says, okay, so here's the, you don't know the problem.

You can't talk about this. Well, we were looking at the, you, weren't looking at anything, just cuts him off and argues, and that's not how that's not how you lead. It's not how you negotiate. And especially if you're in that role and you're at the table and negotiating, just sit down and say, you know what, we're gonna fight.

We're gonna fight instead of playing it up, like I gotta put it on a big show and demonstrate what a leader I am for you. Connolly was hot. Garbage Doos was understandable up until the point that he suddenly caved, but Sinclair, oh my God. If we could have a Sinclair at every single bargaining table across the world, labor relations would be smooth as silk.

Brent: I gotta tell you, but secretly towards the beginning of the episode, I was very much on the side of actually I think through, even to the end of the episode, I was very much on the side of the dock workers. Like all the way through, I understood the plight, even if it was a brand new plight that they tell us has been around for a long time.

And we've never heard word one about it, but that's okay. I'll let that go. When they first came to Sinclair, even no, she she's in there smiling about it. And he is like, look, we'll talk about it. Let's go to the Senate, let's have all this stuff. I mean, that's what he should have been saying. And he has a responsibility to act on their, the, the Senate's behalf management side.

Like he's gotta come from that side. He did the good work of acknowledging their problems. Look, I understand you're having all of these issues. I'm doing the best I can. This is all I've got. But I also understand on the other side, like at some point you go, people are dying. Your best is not good enough anymore, and we need to make something happen. Well, we, you know, let's, let's get around our next round of negotiations in six months. And even, even with the bit of information we learned later in the episode where they said, oh, our last, um, not investigator negotiator, the last negotiator promised us a pay raise. And we haven't seen that pay raise either.

And he is like, well, it's not written down.

Jeff: Yep. That's it? That, that adherence to the written word? Yeah.

Brent: And I'm like, these, this is a people group that have talked. They have talked and they've gone in, they've gone in through good faith negotiations and what they've agreed to has not come true fruition on the other side. And now they're done talking and it just felt like Sinclair never got that. He never like, maybe it's just cuz he's still new to the new to the station. I mean, he's been there over a year now, so whatever, but like I, I, he just felt like he never, he was in, he was between rock and a hard place.

Jeff: exactly. And I think that's the, that's the challenge of leadership. You people have this impression that it's like, oh, you're the station commander. Just like wave your hand. We saw that we saw that with believers, right. Just, just tell them to, let me operate on the kid. Like just do it. And that's not, that's never the case.

He, if he walked in at the beginning of the episode and did anything beyond talking about it, Senate would have his head he'd be gone. And, and that, and everyone would be worse off, worse, worse off because of that, like, they'd lose their advocate. He looked for that opportunity as soon as he got the rush act and or the order based on the rush act and read through that.

And he's like, there's my opening. There's where I can do something. He was looking for a solution the whole time, but his hands were tied. I think though, for me, the difference between the corporate world, even then back in the mid nineties and partly now, not entirely, it's still like this in a lot of ways, but we still have that adherence to the written word.

But the right, in my opinion, the right thing to have done, would've been to say, Hey, you know what? Double shifts, triple shifts. They're over. You want 10 hours between stuff. You got 10 hours between stuff. What that means is we're gonna back up people that are, you know, in the freight lines or the cargo lines that are happening, but we'll still move things through.

And then at some point Senate other, you know, other governments are gonna be like, you have to fix this. This is well with the resources we have. We're doing the best that we can.

Brent: Jeff, their experts tell them that they have all the money. They need to be able to run the docs and run them efficiently.

Jeff: So show them that they're wrong. Show them and you don't show them. And here's the thing. And this is where I'm gonna, I'm gonna upset some people I think, but you don't show them by stopping at that point. You're not talking about the problem anymore. Now you are the problem. The minute you start your blue sickness or your illegal strike or whatever, the problem, isn't the hours, the pay, the working conditions, the problem is you not going to work.

And that's what the Senate came in to solve. Here's XTO. Here's the rush act. You get back to work. When, before with Sinclair, he was trying to talk about the issues and that's how we solved it. Here are your issues. And now that I can reallocate funds, I'm gonna do that to resolve your issues. I think that's the thing we, we lose sight of.

And I lean on leaders to push. This is get upset, get mad, but don't lose sight of the actual issues because the minute you start causing problems really. No, one's gonna be interested in solving the issues anymore. They're gonna be, they're gonna be interested in shutting you up. And that's what we ended up with in this episode.

A little, a very, a very pathetic kind of riot that, uh, I don't know

Brent: they got in one little scuffle and their mom got scared and they'll send them to live with their. And be

Jeff: you wanna go live,

Brent: Sorry.

Jeff: but that, but that's exactly what it was, you know, I think, but I think the, so the difference is if, if I were to rewrite this, if I were to be, if I were in St. Claire's shoes, I would've started this by saying, cool. What can you do with what you have? Let's do that. I will take the heat from the Senate.

I will take the heat from the NA and the sentar from the a non-affiliated worlds. And my refrain will always be. Well then fix these problems. Like these experts said this not experts. When as an expert, tell me one of those experts that's ever worked on a dock, because what I have is a whole team of professional, top of the line dock workers who are working their tails off.

And they can only do this much. I think it's acknowledging I have X resources to do Y thing. And then just doing that instead of trying to like break people's backs and kill them to solve the problem. But we have centuries of that mindset. Well, we gotta push this stuff through, so we'll kill people to make it happen.

And that's fine cuz I'm still making money.

Brent: mm-hmm

Jeff: That's what I would've done differently. Yeah.

Brent: but see, like, here's the thing. When you go back to it in this particular case, if the microchips hadn't failed, everything would've, I don't wanna say been fine, but this, we wouldn't have had an episode when IVA called down at the very beginning of the episode, and dude's talking on that trucker headset that he had

Jeff: Yeah.

Brent: which how could in with as loud as it was down there, I don't know how he could hear out of that thing. Cuz those things are not great audio, although maybe point in case of really shotty equipment.

Jeff: no, yeah, yeah.

Brent: Um, but he, she calls down and she goes, dude, can you do anything for me? You know, he kind of gives her, he gives her a little bit of, of hard time. Oh, you're really busting my cohos down here, VVA and whatever, but he tells you, he is like, fine. Put 'em into docking basics six, and we'll see what we can do. They, they were handling it, you know, now it was rough, it was tough. But she called down and asked and said, can you do it? You know how the Narn get, can you do it? And he turned around and said, yes, I can. He could have said in that moment. Nope, we're done. He could have said that he, she wasn't Ivan, wasn't twisting his arm.

She wasn't putting pressure on him. She just called and said, can we do it? Yeah. I know. You know how these guys get though. Okay. Can we do it? Can't we?

Jeff: well, and I'll just say it they're just as complicit in this because of that. Right. They, they waited for microchips to fail and a person to die, and that's not a popular thing to say. Right. But they, and, and maybe they've been making a stink about this. They kind of said they sort of were or whatever, but I think there's a tool I like to help teach people with and promote it's called we don't, we don't say no.

Right. Delto couldn't I mean, he could have said no to Ivanova. Didn't feel they have a relationship. It seems like, you know, they, they back and forth. You didn't wanna say no. So what you say is yes. If yes, I can do that. If you can move this other line over here, or yes. If you give me this time here you say yes.

And then you identify the constraint and then you work together to resolve that constraint instead Delante was like, yeah, sure. Oh, Cru, everything went south and now I want blood. You should have wanted blood all along, dude. Like why did it have to get to this point?

Brent: talk about. With Sinclair and his answer at the end. I mean, it was pretty straightforward, but I thought it was pretty brilliant on his

Jeff: was. It was so good. I, I actually have all of that in my closing thoughts. That's where, that's where I start looking at, because cuz I think that his,

Brent: part.

Jeff: I think his solution was brilliant. What I'll say here though, in this part of our conversation, 1.3 million credits, it's a lot of money and it's taken from the military budget.

Brent: So my question then be in the next couple of episodes, are we gonna catch fall out of what happens when there are 1.5 million down or 1.3 million down?

Jeff: And I think

Brent: are we gonna see what that is? Or is this one point I'm sorry, is this 1.3? The bump that they got and they're just gonna operate on last year's budget and they'll be fine.

Jeff: Yeah. And that's the que cuz I think, I don't know, what's included in the military budget. Right. Is that station security because they, they could use the bump, uh, there for sure. But yeah. but I also, you know, we see the star theories go out and chase after Raiders and stuff like that's clearly a military operation and so yeah, what what's, what's the fault.

If I, if I know babble on five, from what we've been told, this is where the fallout, like there's gonna be the fallout from you've made enemies out there. Like that's gonna be a thing, but I think there will also be fallout from, yeah. You just cut your military budget and you are a military facility.

Brent: I mean, look how much a throwaway line at the end of the pilot episode of president Luis was just reelected on whatever, whatever, and how that's actually turned in. Like this little thing that you picked up on a newscast has turned into what is apparently this big, huge thing. All I've got one question and then let's get to those final thoughts there.

Jeff where's Catherine

Jeff: Yeah.

Brent: where's Catherine. When, when, when Sinclair comes home at the end of the day, he's had a rough day, he's all scruffy. He can't keep his thing. Tied anymore, his, his shirt's untucked and he, no matter what he does, it's never going back into where it's supposed to be. Where's Katherine, did we lose her?

Jeff: I'm gonna guess that she's working, like she's out surveying worlds, doing her stuff. I mean, it's, to me, it is. And I think there's even a, a comment to this at some, to some effect, but she she's Cassidy Yates, right. Cisco's girlfriend later, later, wife who shows up a couple of times, cuz she's off doing cargo runs.

Brent: that's fine. But we knew that Cassidy was off doing cargo runs. They haven't even mentioned Katherine.

Jeff: Well, I mean, Sinclair's up for two days he got four minutes of sleep.

Brent: No, I under, no, but I'm talking over the last, how many episodes?

Jeff: three or four. It's been a

Brent: been a while. It's been a while. Like she went off to go do that thing, uh, with that one planet and Ja car saved her and then nothing like. I just give me, gimme a mention, give something to say

Jeff: here's my bene, here's my benefit of the doubt though. I think

Brent: sure.

Jeff: Babylon five is in the process of building some complex characters. We, we both, I think very legitimately complained early on about like, I don't know my commander, I don't care about my security chief, whereas now like, oh my gosh, these are people I I'm invested in their relationships.

I care about their stuff. They're building this complexity to, to stuff it's just so big. There's so many characters we haven't seen. He's on a Toth for the first time in, in a while. Um, here we haven't seen linear and couple episodes now. I mean, there's just so many players and

Brent: didn't, we didn't see, uh,

Jeff: haven't seen VE yeah.

Del seen Len.

Brent: yeah, we, yeah, we didn't see VE at all.

Jeff: Yeah.

Brent: This would've been a good episode for vere.

Jeff: Yeah.

Brent: as was in it like been a good episode, but even still like with, with Catherine, it just, it was one of those that's been bugging me for the last couple of episodes of just she's just disappeared.

And I think what really gets me is she was really growing on me. Like I know it was just the two episodes. Like the first episode, I was like, eh, whatever. But the second episode, I was like, I kinda like this girl. I wanted her to hang around and she hasn't. All right, Jeff, let's get down to it. Let's boil it all down and see if this show has any of that star Trek equality to it.

Is there a deep moral message? Is it holding up a mirror to society? Is it giving us hope for a better future? We're gonna rate this on a scale of zero to five deltas. I've deltas. Jeff, how many deltas you give this one?

Jeff: Well, before we get

Brent: what do you say

Jeff: yeah, I'm gonna hit the other piece first because this episode, like we've talked about it just, uh, it was not a good episode. The Jaar and the lawn stuff is what saved it, but this is not an episode that I wanna watch again. And it doesn't make me wish that I watched it or babble on five, any.

So there's that, but star Trek. So every everything, literally everything in this episode landed on Sinclair. He had to solve the Jalan stuff. The doc workers were looking to him to solve something. The Senate was looking to him to resolve stuff and he was kind of, um, well, he was awesome in, in both of those things, almost inhumanly.

So, and I think they acknowledged that with the Scruff, you know, and how he hadn't slept in two days. But we got, I think in this one, we got, we got lawyers in Claire in, in this episode, we got the one with Ja car and lawn where first, like he read the letter of the law and he's like, that flower is drugs and I can take drugs from you and I can do whatever I want with it at that point.

And then he got really creative with the sunshine and the light years and the whatever, like, Hey, Ja, court's cool. You're you can still do your little thing. It's fine because. Science, there you go. And then his resolution on the labor dispute, you were, we were kind of talking about a little bit, super creative.

Awesome. And it adhered to the letter of the law. Like I was talking about before that adherence to the written word is a problem. And I think star Trek does a really good job showing us how you work around that. In fact, I think the prime directive, which a lot of people decry and have problems with. I think the prime directive ultimately is there because it gives officers a hard and fast thing.

They have to work around to figure St the, the, the prime directive says this. Yeah. But if, but if we look at it this way and we do it like this, then we can do it. I think that star Trek actively dismantles this adherence to the written, this blind adherence to the written word. That's part of our toxic dominant culture.

I. How many times do we see Kirk Picard, literally cite chapter inverse of another culture's laws to them to justify them doing the right thing. So I think because of the last, literally the last couple of minutes of this episode, I'm given this one, three deltas. What about you?

Brent: Jeff, this is an episode that I could have seen on enterprise.

Jeff: Hmm.

Brent: I could have seen on the original series. I don't think it would've been a good T or a good T and G episode. Uh, certainly not Voyager, maybe deep space nine, but the way Sinclair came in and solved this issue, the way he did it, it felt so Kirk maybe even felt a little arch to me.

Like, I feel like I could have seen this, this wouldn't have been an episode of something that's happening on one of the ships. This would've been an episode that's happening on an alien planet and they would've been having, and they would've come down and kind of helped solve it. Possibly could even be a pike type thing.

Although I I'm gonna stick more with actually captain, this felt very Kirk to me, more so than anybody else. I think it's a super star Trek message and a otherwise not great episode of you do what's right. And you settle an issue without force you set. I mean now, okay, baby. This is the most book hard thing.

You settle it by talking, you set, you know, you have this one guy over here who wants to shoot, shoot, shoot, bust some heads, bust some heads. Actually, here's the way we're gonna handle this. And we're gonna, you know, everybody's gonna be happy except for this guy over here. And Zeto, wasn't happy just because heads didn't get busted. He wasn't happy because it got, because things got settled. He wasn't happy because, um, his task was done. He was not, or he was not happy because he didn't get to bust heads. He had in, he had invoked the rush act, which hadn't been done in a century or however long they said it was, and it wound up fizzling and turning against him. You know, it's like he came in looking for a reason to activate the, he said it walking through.

If I have to use the rush act, make sure that my people are here ready to go. Like he was begging for a reason and Sinclair comes in and he solves it. And by the way, he turns on and does it to the B plot as well. And he fixes all of that and yeah, it's a super star Trek message. Three I'll. I mean, We've set in Jeff, that there are star Trek episodes that are really good episodes.

That would not be a very star Trek episode that would get like zero deltas. Right. And some of the episodes that get like five deltas, four deltas are not great episodes. You know, let that be. Your last battlefield is not my favorite episode out there, but boy, oh boy, you talk about a super star Trek message. That's one of them. This one feels like that to me. So I'm gonna give this one, I'm gonna say four deltas. I'm gonna say four deltas. I, I don't, I'm not quite onto five, but I'm gonna say four deltas. I do feel like this episode is setting more stuff up than it is continuing lines. I noticed JMS wrote this episode this week. Versus some other people that we've had in the last couple of weeks. So I'm kind of in that spot where, when I see his name, I'm figuring this is a plot heavy, overarching episode lynchpin piece. I figure I could be wrong. I don't know. We'll see how that goes, but that's, uh, that's where I'm gonna leave it.

Should I watch this one again? I have no desire to watch this one again. I would watch this on a rewatch only. Like I wouldn't skip it, but I'm not watching it. Like, Hey, I wanna go watch good episode of Alon five. Not this one. No, mm-hmm

Jeff: I might watch it again if like something massive pays off later, and then it's cool to go back and see the seed planted here, but that'd be the only thing that would bring me back. I wanna justify our not five Delta piece on here, because I think the real, one of the real weak points on this was that Sinclair almost killed himself to solve these problems.

Like as a leader, you have to put boundaries up, you have to take care of yourself and he did not do that. And that's a theme we've had with Sinclair since episode one.

Brent: Mm-hmm

Jeff: So, I mean, that's, that's the real negative I can give on this one. Outside of just the overall quality we'll say of the episode. Well, that's it.

That is by any means necessary. Next week, we're gonna be watching signs and port tense for the first time. Now we've never seen this before. We know nothing about it. We like to guess what it's gonna be about based on the name alone, Brent, you copped out last week. You do not get a cop out this time. What do you think signs and importance is gonna be

Brent: I'll answer your question directly. If you can answer one of mine first, what is important?

Jeff: I don't know.

Brent: I don't, I can't even tell you because I don't know what the word means, a sign. And, but didn't we say that this is a, like, they're calling this entire season, this title of signs, importance.

Jeff: yeah. According to Miriam Webster, a portent is something that foreshadows a coming event.

Brent: Okay. And it's a sign and importance and, uh, yeah, I, I see one here that says something about a momentous occasion that heavily foreshadows something. So I'm gonna say that this episode, this one is gonna focus on the ambassadors. I don't think this is a home guard one. I don't think this is necessarily Cy core. I don't think this is earth related. I think this is. Something to do with the Mumbar the sent like, like I've been wondering is the whole Sentara Narn thing somehow connected to the earth Mumbar war.

Like, is there some sort of a connection we haven't put together yet? And I wonder if there's like, that's where this is gonna go is we're gonna see these, these main ambassadors something's gonna happen. That's going to foreshadow, I guess, where we're going in seasons 2, 3, 4, and five. Uh, and this is gonna be like the, what, what do you, what do you call that?

The narrative hook of the show? Like, it'll be that kind of a deal. What actually happens? Uh, yeah, I'm gonna go with somehow the nassari, uh, deal is also wrapped up in the earth. Uh Mumbar war conflict. And by the way, the, the Kash, his people, what are they called? For lawns. They're like masterminding the whole thing.

Cause I, I still think they're like above everybody, they're playing 3d chess while everybody's still out, out kind of playing checkers.

Jeff: I'll tell you why. I love that because in death Walker, we found out that the whole DGA, um, sweep of the non affiliated worlds was tied with the Earthman Barri stuff. So we know, we know there's threads in and out of everything, my guess, um, I think this is gonna further the Sinclair men bar stuff. I think we're gonna get, uh, another insight into that.

Or, or maybe this is where Delen knows that Sinclair knows. She knows that everyone knows, but now they all know on there.

Brent: are we gonna get, are we gonna get like the, we gonna find out what the little triangle on the forehead thing means that we saw a

Jeff: the, that's the last, that's the final episode of the series. And the last of they're like, oh, and this is the triangle. I don't know. I don't know. That's gonna be the big mystery that comes up. I have no idea, but we

Brent: like, are we gonna find out like, like it's actually on her head and she keeps putting makeup over top of it

Jeff: like you got, yeah, it got like put and she's like, Nope, Nope, Nope. Nope. I'm just normal. Normal minbar here. No, nothing to see here.

Brent: right.

Jeff: well, we're gonna find out next week right here. Thank you all so much for joining us, please. Don't forget to subscribe wherever you're listening to us and stop by audible.

Stop by apple. Stop by anywhere that you can leave a rating and a review for. If you leave us a rating review on podcast chaser or apple podcast, that automatically gets tweeted out from our Twitter at Babylon first. And we will read your review right here on the air. Well, Brent, that was a terrible, um, episode and I'm pretty wiped.

So, uh, when you say we get outta here,

Brent: Yeah. Jeff, you, uh, you are looking a bit like weak, old bread. My friend.

Jeff: what I,

Brent: You can't say it to get us outta here.

Jeff: until next time what's leap.

Brent: Don't don't

Jeff: Just no Brent, that you've made an enemy today, such anatomy.