Ship of Tears

Jeff: Welcome to Babylon 5 for the first time, not a Star Trek podcast. My name is Jeff Akin and I'm watching Babylon five for the first time.

Brent: And I'm Brent Allen and oh my gosh, am I watching Babylon on Five for the very first time? Jeff and I are two veteran Star Trek podcasters. Watching this show for the first time, trying to overanalyze the whole thing and find out what deep moral messages are within it, or just how awesome is it.

Jeff: While this is not a podcast about Star Trek, Brent and I are Star Trek podcasters and kind of fans of the franchise. A little bit like we, we, we kind of like it. So those references are sure to make their way into the show. But to keep us honest, we play the rule of three. That means we get three references to Star Trek per episode.

That's it. Three. No substitutions. Exchanges are refund. Hey Brent,

Brent: Hey.

Jeff: we have a five star review. Oh yes. This is the first of three reviews that I'm gonna share today. This one on Apple Podcasts. James Scott, 1978 says, an enjoyable companion to Journey through B five. I've seen several episodes before, but never watched the entire story, so decided to find an accompanying podcast.

I chose this one and I'm glad I did. Great. Listen,

Brent: Thanks. That's it,

Jeff: that's it. Yeah,

Brent: Uh,

Jeff: I did a short, there's a short dissertation on the whole thing that I edited quite heavily, but this time we got like a line. It's

Brent: I like it. Hey, listen, listen, short and sweet, long and wordy. We'll take 'em both. Uh, thank you. So what was the name? I missed the name.

Jeff: James Scott, 1978.

Brent: All right. Listen, James, Scott, you rock. You're awesome. Uh, thanks for joining us. Uh, along the way. We quite like the show too.

Jeff: We have another five star review. Oh yes. This one also on Apple Podcast from Matthew C C n A and he says, whoa, no spoilers here. I've really been enjoying your pod as long as a long longtime B five fan. It's amazing to interpret the show through your fresh eyes. Your format is excellent and I look forward to it every Monday.

Live long? Nope. Um, may the force be Nope. Well, in purple. I'm stunning

Brent: Ah, I understand that reference.

Jeff: I get it. I

Brent: I get it. I get that reference. That's awesome. Matthew. You rock. I love it.

Jeff: Last one. We've got one more five star review. Oh yes, the trifecta from Apple Podcast. Chris says, A very deep dive into B five every week. I've been listening to B five podcasts since around 2007, and I think this is the best one so far. The guys come from a background of analyzing hundreds of Trek episodes and apply that to B five and come up with some surprisingly smart and thoughtful analyses and their regular like clockwork with their podcast posting.

Highly recommend.

Brent: Jeff, I have a question

Jeff: Okay.

Brent: cuz I, I'm not sure that this guy is a hundred percent correct.

Jeff: Yeah,

Brent: Okay. How many Star Trek podcasts have you done in episode? How many episodes of Star Trek have you done a podcast on?

Jeff: I think that, oh my gosh.

Brent: I, I, I love, I'm sorry, I'm gonna cut you off. I have literally done hundreds, multiple hundreds. I'm not sure that you're there yet.

Jeff: Of Star Trek. You've done hundreds.

Brent: Hundreds. Yes. Multiple hundreds.

Jeff: I'm knocking on one hundreds door.

Brent: Okay. There

Jeff: Yeah. Like, well, that's not even fair. I think in reality, I think so. I have to admit, and people who listen to Star Fleet Leadership Academy know this, but I record those well in advance. Like I have them in the can ready to go and I'm moving through stuff.

I think that this week or right around, I wanna say it's like episode 92 or 93 that's releasing. So I'm, I'm close, but not, and I release every other week for that. So yeah, I'm not even quite to a hundred.

Brent: Rookie.

Jeff: Seriously, who the heck am

Brent: I'm just, Hey, listen, listen. No, I, I want to pimp that, um, star Fleet Leadership Academy. It is a fantastic podcast. It isn't just like a, Hey, let's watch an episode and then chit chat about it. Uh, Jeff does some wonderful work, uh, pulling out the leadership pieces. So if you are a leader on any level, whether you are in government, whether you're in an ngo, whether you are in, uh, a religious organization, business organization, charitable organization, whatever it is, this is a podcast you are going to get something out of.

Even if you don't like Star Trek, it, there is lots to learn. And there's also, I just happen to know, Jeff would never say this, so I'm gonna say it for him. Uh, he does some coaching and consulting that you can get access to think through the Patreon, uh, side over there, which is different from our Patreon here.

Um, but, uh, you guys, it is, it is well worth it. I've, uh, been a fan in listening to Jeff's for about the last 90 some episodes.

Jeff: Thanks, Brent. That means a lot. I work really hard on the Star Fleet. It's a very different format than what we do here. I work really hard on it. And yeah, I offer, um, I have some cool stuff on my Patreon over there. You can get to through the Star Fleet Leadership Academy things. And I also do full-time coaching and consulting outside of all of that, just like hire Jeff Aiken through the Star Fleet Leadership Academy.

Like it's a real business that I run,

Brent: Well, I mean, and, and people, people out there may not know this. I hope they would at this point. Like, you are doing stuff at conferences now, and you know, I don't know if you've got a book coming, you probably ought to, uh, oh, you do?

Jeff: I'm working on one.

Brent: Yeah, there you go. Um, but like, you've got, I mean, I mean, this is, this is legit and, and the stuff is good.

Like it, you're not just out there doing it. Like it's, it's actually valuable stuff. Uh, and so people should go out there and do that.

Jeff: Thank you.

Brent: Now, with that though, Jeff, that is three reviews we read today. We also play our rule of three. And there is a third game that we Oh, you like that? You like that? There is a third game that we play right here at Babylon five for the first time.

And that game comes much later in the show. It's where we get to the end of the show and we take a look at next week's episode title, knowing nothing about the episode, and we make a guess as far as what we thought that episode was gonna be about. Jeff, do you remember what you said? It was gonna be last week?

Jeff: Yeah. Not what it, not what it turned out to be. Um, I thought that we were gonna really focus on the Babylon Treaty and Babylon five kind of working to relegitimizing itself, uh, with the non-aligned worlds. I thought there'd be a ship that came through that had a sob story and tried to use Babylon five for negotiating, uh, peace treaty and all that good stuff.

Not a single part of that happened. For this one, I was about as way off as he could be. Brent, what did you think this one was gonna be?

Brent: Yeah, last week was so horrible. I don't remember.

Jeff: blocked the whole

Brent: usually even write it down. I didn't even bother writing it down this time. I think, I think it was something to the effect of like, y you know, like sh like ships that do like a lot of damage in battle, they have like cool names like Widowmaker or the Peacemaker or something like that.

Like I thought this was gonna be like one of those kind of ships coming in. Maybe a big battle, but on five, not really. I'm five. Not really at all what this was, uh, either.

Jeff: Yeah, we were both off on this one, but that's okay because now for the people who want to know what we're talking about, who haven't watched this one for a long time, or have never watched it in their entire lives and are just listening to this for, you know, somebody like to hear us talk about Babylon five.

Brent, will you walk us through Ship of tears?

Brent: Well, hey, remember a few weeks ago when the Earth force, when the Earth Force folks stormed the newscaster place back on earth when it was live on air and the feed got cut. Well they're back and it's totally not a state run media now. No way. No, but they do explain what happened. It really was just a misunderstanding.

You see, there was this rebel force that came in and attacked an Is n the news station, cut the feed themselves to stop the spread of misinformation. But now everything's good again. They've got control, they've repaired everything cuz those dirty rebels destroyed a lot over here at the station. And you know, people are just so extremely happy with the incredibly popular Marshall Law Program, which has been going on on earth, and it is effectively, virtually eliminated all crime everywhere.

So, yay, president Clark. Yeah, the folks on Babylon five aren't buying it either. A Speaking of hearing from Earth, Sheridan is out testing some of the star furries that Babylon five inherited from the Churchill. They're this new fancy kind with atmospheric wings that fold out and they actually have a two-person cockpit, which is awesome, with cool painting and teeth down the side.

And there's four ion cannons, and there's a place for your service droid to keep things peachy clean. When you jump into hyperspace while you get to dego ball and while they're out, they pick up a transmission. It's a black Omega star fury from Earth, and that can only mean one thing. Cyco and Cycore can only mean one thing.

Ster. This Jeff is a ster episode. Well, ster has come to help Sheridan this time. He promises he's really here to help, but no drugs this time or else ster can't help. You see, he's gotten a wind of a shipment of weapons components that the shadows, whoever they are Bester says are transporting. He doesn't like how the shadows have taken control and have influence over the core.

So he thinks that this shipment of weapons components must be stopped. And because he'll be in CPR and because he'll be in hyperspace, his side powers, his super side powers actually are even like ratcheted all the way up to 11 or 12 , wherever, I guess, uh, anyway, they're ratcheted all the way up and Basters gonna be able to use those sidey powers to track 'em down so they can, they can stop the weapons components from being delivered to wherever they're going.

Well, in a move that I'm honestly not really sure was a good one, Sheridan shows off the shiny new inside of the white star to Bester and even lets him sit in the big chair for a minute, which, you know, Kirk never let him do that. Until Sheridan says, get the hell out of my chair, which was awesome. Anyway, they find the ship out there like it works. Everything goes according to plan. Hey, did you know that the white star has a tractor beam? It actually has like three of them, which is kind of cool. And uh, you know, Lanier's there, teching the tech and Sheridan's like, Mr.

Lanier, just turn it on. And he does. And the shadows are like, Hey, you know what? That's cool. You keep those weapons components we're gonna piece out. And they hightail it outta there without so much as a blink. That was weird, but, okay, well back on the station. Kar has forced a conversation between himself and Ivanova and ultimately Sheridan to make them hold up their end of the bargain from a bunch of episodes ago to bring Kar in on this new resistance council.

But before that can happen, Dalin has to have a heart to heart with Jaar. She tells them that they actually knew all about the shadows way before they attacked his home world, and they did nothing to stop it. It's a tear jerker of a moment and while Kar through gritted teeth says he gets it, even quoting that line from Jesus Kosh that some must be sacrificed in order to save all Dalen asked for forgiveness anyway.

And Kar simply says maybe one day, but not today. I mean, after all, this has been a lot for him to take in. Well, down in Med Lab, Dr. Franklin is examining the com. Well down in Med lab, Dr. Franklin is examining the contents of those weapon component ships and those components turn out to be people and those people turn out to be cyco and those Cyco people turn out to be rogue.

Tele pads that didn't join the core or take the meds they've been captured. They've been cryo, frozen and given to the shadows to, as we will come to learn, become pilots for their ships, meaning that they will merge with the organic tech inside and become one with the ship. And they really, really, really don't like ster because it turns out telepaths if they don't have a bunch of implants and stuff, can screw up a whole lot of stuff for the shadows.

Not good. Well, one of those weapons components, which just happens to be the one that they, try that again. Well, one of those weapons components, you know, the one they just so happened to pull out of stasis also just so happens to be best's mistress, and not just best's mixed mistress. Hm. And Becher's mistress just so happens to be pregnant with his child.

You see, Fester's marriage was a core arrangement and there's no love there, but this relationship, this was the real deal. And Ster didn't know that she was there. He scans her because that's what Ster does and he sees her memories. He sees her from her point of view, laying on the table with the stripe.

I'm pretty sure it was the Stripe or Streep getting her implants to control her psychic ability so they can use her. And Bester wakes up and declares the enemy of my enemy is my friend. And he tells Sheridan and the crew, your war has become my war. And Sheridan looks around and goes, did we just become best?

The next shot we have of ster is simply of him leaving the station in his star fury, but something strikes a chord in Aldi's mind. He runs back to his quarters to check that book of Jaquan that Jaar gave him, and he finds it. A thousand years ago, the shadows came and set up camp on Narn. And because Telepaths are a danger to the shadows, they killed all the Narn Telepaths, which is why the Nans don't have Telepaths today, and why the shadow ship didn't do anything to the White Star, because Baster was on board.

But the shadows have developed that tech that can control the telepath. So as long as they have those implants, they can use them and they actually make really good pilots. So Dun, dun, dun. And one last thing, the shadows are out of hiding. They are now openly attacking in their first spot for Carrie Space.

Jeff, what did you think, especially coming off of last week's episode, what did you think of? Ship of Tears.

Jeff: Absolutely love this episode. This was so good. I needed this. I needed, I needed this so badly, right? I mean, we've had a rough little run and this was so, uh, the moment, like they're out there, they're doing the star fury thing and I'm like, oh, cool, they've got vipers now. You know, all of a sudden , it's, okay, cool.

And then they show ster and I'm like, yes, I am in. This is gonna be great. I called it and I called it last time he was here. Brent, I don't know if this is an unpopular opinion or not. I know people made comments when I talked about this last time. Frankly, I ignored most of them because I don't wanna know, right.

What his arc is or whatever, because that's the whole point of this show. Fester's a good guy. Fester's been in the. This whole time. Now he's been a jerk about it and he's done evil things, but ultimately I feel like he's like a lawful, evil guy, hanging out with a bunch of chaotic, good people. Or maybe, maybe he's like neutral, good a little bit, or nu, you know, or something.

I don't know. He's, he's not this big bad guy. Everyone's been making him out to be. He truly, deeply loves earth, and he truly, deeply loves his opportunities for advancement within that earth because he is superior to everyone else. And he proved that. He proved it without a shadow, a shadow of a doubt in this episode. Now, this was great. Um, I don't know, we got like a, what, nine more episodes or something like that? Eight, nine more episodes in this. Uh, let's just do 'em. Da, let's just, let's just go like a solid weekend. Let's knock. Yeah, let's knock this season out. I'm ready to rock. Let's do this. What were your initial thoughts on it?

Brent: uh. I, I, I, I don't mind to confess to everyone out there that, uh, it, it has been several months for me without some, some deeply personal things happening in my own personal life. Um, you might call it a dry spell, so to speak. So, uh, I would, I would like to, uh, use this opportunity, uh, to do something I haven't gotten to do in a very long time right here, cuz it's, it's the middle of summer.

It's been about five or six months and I would just like to say touchdown. Oh my God. This was the episode I needed. Folks, get your minds out of the gutter. I'm talking about football. That's the thing that's been missing from my life. That's been a dry aswell for the last bunch of months. This was the episode I needed, Jeff. I loved this episode. Loved, loved. Like there are times I'm watching this episode and I'm just like closing my eyes cause I'm just trying to listen and take in everything and absorb it.

And ge, I probably watch this episode 3, 4, 5 times. I don't, I don't normally watch that many times. I usually watch maybe twice. Maybe it's once or twice. Three times is a lot. This was like four or. Right. Like, I loved this, Jeff. I am so excited for where we go from here. And you know what, here's what didn't happen.

Not everything got wrapped up in a neat little bow in 42 minutes. We didn't have big pew, pew, pew action scenes in the middle of this one there. Honestly, there wasn't even a lot of deep like messages and morals, like there was less than this week than there was in last week, and I hated last week the like, like th But this is the content.

This is the story I needed. This is what I wanted. This is what I'm in Babylon, five, four. I love, love, loved this episode. And Jeff, we're not going to do it because we would get divorced, not from each other, but from our individual wives. But I'm with, if we could just, just knock out these next eight episodes of this season and just go bam, bam, bam, bam, bam.

Probably would have to add like episodes one and two of the next season on just. Given how things go. But like we, I mean, oh my gosh, I could, I, you know what, Jeff, I ain't gonna lie to you. My kid's going to camp next week.

Jeff: right. We could just do it. Mine is not, which is a little bit of a problem, but you know, I mean,

Brent: yeah. We'll decide that offline. But, uh, either way, you know what, you know what'll happen, we'll piss everybody else out there off. We might do that, but we're still gonna release 'em one week at a time.

Jeff: that'd be filthy. That would be filthy.

Brent: No, but Jeff, I mean, we've talked about it before, like, like our week is it, it may seem like a long time to the listeners out there, but our week is pretty bam, bam, bam, bam, bam.

Jeff: Mm-hmm. . Yeah. Seriously.

Brent: can't imagine trying to do a new episode every day, having that released and what, what a release day looks like for. mean, oh my gosh. But anyway, anyway, uh, yeah. Jeff, I I loved this episode. There was so much going on here. Um, I, I want to toss it back to you. What, what stood out to you? What do you want to talk about? What do you want to get into? Because there's, there's just a lot, there's so many pieces. I don't even have this organized, it's just train of thought as the episode happened to me.

So I'll let you, where, where, where are we going? What are we talking about first? Let's

Jeff: I wanna talk about, I wanna talk about ster cuz I just, I mean, good. When was it dusted dust the last time we saw him and I was telling people, I'm like, dude, he's filthy, filthy like approach to everything. But I mean, dude's got a heart he loves and he cares. Bottom line. Here's the thing. I loved Sheridan's approach to sending Ivanova in to see, like, see if he scans you see what happens.

You know what happened there? Besser didn't scan. He was a man of his word

Brent: Which, which is surprising

Jeff: is it really,

Brent: he would be.

Jeff: because I think, I don't think that he is ever not done exactly what he says he's going to. All the way back to mind war when we first saw him. And every time we've seen him, what he says is gonna happen is what he does. He's right there. Oh, you, you need me to come on and you need me to take a drug or whatever. Cool. No problem. I'm there.

Brent: You know what though? But, but Basters Total, he's the dude from Pirates of the Caribbean where like, he's like, oh, drop her off over there. And she's like, yo, you've gotta take me back to port. And the pirate turns on and goes, oh no, me missy. That wasn't part of the deal. She's like, but you tricked me.

And he is like, but I'm a pirate, like , you know, don't

dare doing the honor.

Jeff: Yeah, he gets off, you know, he gets off his star theory and there's all those like security guys and riot gear, and he is just like, of course there are.

Brent: No, he started laughing at that moment, , but he's walking through that bay along. I was like, there's no way he's walking through that bay alone. Um, I'm gonna push back on you. I don't think Buster's a good guy.

Jeff: Okay.

Brent: I don't think buster's a guy. And I mean this from a, a moral center standpoint. Uh, I think you, you talked about him, you kind of started pulling out that like, good, neutral, evil, chaotic.

I would, I would say he maybe started in more of like a, like a neutral. Neutral. And where I would see him now is more in a chaotic. Good. Because I, I do think, and I think you're with me on this, just given what you've been saying, I think best's coming over to the good side, but I think he's going to be.

His own little bad guy self. And we've seen this before, and these, these seem to be the best characters of the holding show. This is, this is a, a emperor Phillip Jjo. This is a a, a Garrick, right? This is, uh, you know what I mean? Like, like this is the bad guy who embeds themselves in the core of the show.

They're still very much about their own self. You really, they're, they're kind of that, that, I like the word chaotic. Like you never know what exactly is gonna happen. You really don't know if you can ever trust them, but in the end, they wind up being on your side. And, and usually at some point you're gonna have, you're just gonna have to trust him and hope it works.

And, uh, I think that's where we're gonna see with best. But I'm, I'm not saying he's gonna be a good guy. He's gonna be on the good side,

Jeff: Yes.

Brent: but he is not going to be a good guy. And

Jeff: on the good side, but he's on the good side for his own selfish, narcissistic reasons.

Brent: him a bad guy.

Jeff: Yeah. Right. But I think that that is the complexity that Babylon five is, and then to ride your, your reference, the complexity that Deep Space Nine brought as well and other tv. You know, the, when I think of is that, uh, abc, the Disney show once with Rumpelstiltskin where he was the bad guy, but then he ended up.

A relatively trusted part of the group, but he was still doing some pretty shady stuff cuz he's rumple still skin, you know, it's what he's gonna do.

Brent: That's just what he does.

Jeff: Totally ster. I agree. That's a great, great reference.

Brent: I will, I will say this, ster is my favorite bad guy, and I didn't realize it until this episode. Like I love when Ster comes on the episode because tell me a bad Buster episode

Jeff: Mind war. But he But that

Brent: that wasn't a bad episode.

Jeff: No, it was, it was a good episode wrapped in terrible wrapping paper. But Buster was great in that episode immediately. I think we talked about that way back in the first season. Like he, he was the shining star

Brent: Yeah, we, we, you're right, we, we ranked, uh, we ranked mine war down at like number 20 on

Jeff: Yeah. It was not a good episode,

Brent: Okay. Fair enough. Fair enough.

Jeff: It was a good idea. It was a good idea.

Brent: Okay. But either way, right. You know what we give season one a pass, right.

Jeff: Right,

Brent: That's, that's what we do. But I just, I mean, Bester has been, you love to hate the guy when he comes on and bit of distrust.

You, you feel it when Sheridan and the crew get one over on Ster. At least it feels like they get one over on ster, like it makes you feel so good. When Sheridan looked at him and said, Mr. Ster. Get the hell outta my chair. We are like, yeah, that's right,

Jeff: Totally.

Brent: Because he sits down and you're like, oh, he's sitting in the captain's chair.

Oh, what's he, that's not okay. You know? And he is just like, Hmm,

Jeff: like, this is good. I like the fit of this thing.

Brent: why he likes this chair that when hurts my back after a while.

Jeff: He was, he was explicit about it early on about just like, um, God, he had a different word for me. He said normals. And then what did he, he had a different word that he used in this one obsolete is, did he call it or something? Something like that. Like he clearly believes he's of a superior race and has, you know, rights to more stuff, you know, but, but he's hilarious about it.

Like, it's just stuff like that. He's also filthy about it, like that scene with Ivanova where he's like telling her, yeah, you know, your mom did this stuff, but you know what? You have her eyes. Oh, that was, that was filthy. Filthy. But to your point in the recap, what, in the name of all that is Holy Pos possess them to drop, plop him under the white star , like

Brent: I, I was, I was not on board with that. Like if best, like that's a bester needs to be around a little bit more and earn a little bit. Before we're like, Hey, we like almost, it's like we have to use the white star for this one because they could have used any ship, any transport ship P they just introduced us to two person cockpit star furries.

Throw him and Sheridan in that thing and go like, and that the exact, what does he say? He's sitting on four brand new pulse eye on cannons. Go destroy that ship,

Jeff: Show us what's up. Totally. But it's like no

Brent: would be, I'm sorry, to be fair cuz I can hear people clacking their keyboards right now. Uh, they would be going up against a shadow ship and they used the white star to destroy the shadow ship last time.

Maybe a star fury wouldn't be that powerful

Jeff: Yeah, that's a

Brent: just to be fair, there might be a good reason.

Jeff: But then there's a preamble. There's some sort of a, something around like, but he just shows up on there. But you go on and you're like, Hey dude, we're, here's the deal. We're gonna put a bag over your head. We're gonna walk you onto the bridge. This is a minbar ship. You know, or whatever.

Like, dress it up somehow, but not just like, oh, hey, here's a, here's our secret weapon. Like, hi, here you. We saw a new shadow ship

Brent: Well, I'm sorry, before you get there. Nope, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I was, I was just looking through a piece here. Uh, I do wanna point out a bit of continuity error, or correct my own misunderstandings about something. The last time we saw ster. They had just gotten the white star several episodes before that and they come in, investors wanting to, to control some stuff and dylann's like, I got an idea for how we can do this.

And she goes and grabs presumably people off the white star.

Jeff: okay.

Brent: Presumably I could be wrong and this might, this is where my assumption might be taken over, presumably gets these people off the white start who are mbar, telepaths that together can mess up. Mr. Ster,

Jeff: Mm-hmm. ? Yep.

Brent: were they like, put them on the ship. I don't need ster.

Put them on the ship.

Jeff: So Brent, this is the big hole in the episode for me.

Brent: is it

Jeff: Yeah. So there's a couple of pieces. So one, you know, Garabaldi grabs a book of Jaqua, finds the little passage and everything. Kar recites that thing, you know, chapter in verse, how did he not piece that? He's speculating. Well, you know, all the norms. We used to have telepathy and now we don't.

I want, it says right here in this book that you're reading all the time, you have the answer. Minbar were involved a thousand years ago in the shadow conflict. They've know these things. How did they not know that telepathy was the secret weapon? And how many times have we seen, and maybe it hasn't been a lot, but we've, we've been on the White Star, we've had at least two engagements with the shadows on the white star, with Minbar staffing it.

Some of them have gotta be telepaths and nothing. Nothing. This whole time out of the blue. Suddenly and magically it's a revelation that it's the telepath, even though it's actually been right in front of at least Ja car and probably Dylan. And definitely Kosh. Definitely he, 10,000 years ago, a thousand years ago.

Caution, the Volans have been there.

Brent: I mean, I mean, wouldn't you say then that Kosh, uh, just know what, knowing what we know about Kosh, it's Kosh Telepath.

Jeff: Yeah. I gotta think so.

Brent: You would think the volans as a whole probably are like a telepathic race. Maybe even some of the other first ones that were beyond, beyond them. Right. Like of course, like of course they won all the war , you know, like,

Jeff: Yeah. They've had these, we, we've set these tele pads. How

Brent: why the first ones pieced out. They're like, guys, we're overpowering the shadows every time that like, that's why the shadows go away for so long, because they get such a beat down with all the telepaths, right? And they're like, it's not even a fair fight. Like, we gotta go away. We'll leave the Volans here.

Just let it be a fair fight. And the Volans like, Hey, these other people have telepath people now maybe we can peace out here soon too. Like, you know, that's, that's my, you guys can respond to that if you like. All right. That, that, the shadows really haven't even been a thing throughout the history because all these other people have just been like, telepath, beat down.

Jeff: Boom. Done. Done. Yeah. I, I don't know the whole thing to me, like, I mean, if, if you can suspend that whole, the fact that we should have known this all along, if you can suspend that, this is one of the greatest episodes you've ever seen, but it's a, I don't know, that's the big hole. That's the, the only hole I really have in this episode.

But on Buster being a good guy, uh, on the good side, but not a good guy.

Brent: Mm-hmm.

Jeff: Did I hear it right at the end that he, they said that buster's part of the army of light now. Did I hear that?

Brent: I missed that. If they, if they said those words, I missed that.

Jeff: Because at the end when, uh, they were taking Kar into that awesome New War counselor, basically the Astrics lab that they built

Brent: Yep.

Jeff: the fourth season of. Yeah. Um, they took him and like, there's this voiceover about, or at some point, you know, now we've got such a much stronger army of light because we've got Kar here, we've got baster, we've got, like, they, I'm pretty sure I heard his name brought up as being like, he's in

Brent: It's part of the army of light. Okay.

Jeff: be reporting back from Earth.

Like, yeah, he's off, he took off to Earth. We're gonna hear from him again. He's gonna feed us information. We're gonna tell him stuff like he's part of the fold, I think.

Brent: I, I think that is the, um, Even if they didn't say that directly. I think that is the implication of this episode is, is the enemy of my enemy is my friend. Your war is now my war. I'm in. They're a little quick to accept it, but you know, they're gonna, I mean, this is where you go, okay, we're not gonna trust you just yet.

Go do this stuff and kind of

Jeff: Mm-hmm.

Brent: we'll let you be adjacent to us for right now.

Jeff: do you think maybe that's sort of like, I just had this thought, cause we met the party first ones a while ago. You know, when Ivanova and Marcus went out to do their first contact mission and they shut down. When you brought up the Volans were the volans and the party first ones, essentially like our war council and ster where they were just in a case of the enemy, of my enemy as my friend.

But we still hate each other, but we're gonna be cool while we take this thing.

Brent: It could be cuz they're definitely the first ones did not seem like a unified group of folks out there, you know, and that's, and that's assuming that the first ones aren't a single race that actually was just a bunch of different races and they came first, you know? Um, yeah, it doesn't, they certain, there certainly was at least the I'm better than you are thing.

Even, even if it's friendly, you know, like, uh, maybe animosity friendly, uh, they, yeah. They're,

Jeff: It was still totally there.

Brent: mm-hmm. , let me ask you this, cause I, I do want to dive down into ster. Uh, so his motivation, let's talk about his motivations for this. Ultimately for him, the love of his life, albeit a mistress, all, albeit somebody who he was trying to track down.

Or people like her that he, like, this dude is freaking Saul of Tarus to his own people. And he's, and he falls in love with that one. And she becomes the love of his life. So much so that she's the mistress, he is married. Not a marriage of love. Maybe they have an open relationship. Yeah. Like, we're here together to do this, but you do you I'll do me.

And, and they Tama and Lando,

Jeff: Yeah. And we'll do whomever we want.

Brent: Right, right, right. Bill and Hillary, you just got, you know, that was a joke folks. It was a joke. Just trying to bring into the real world. Although, you know, that's how their marriage works. Anyway. Uh, you might wanna cut that one out. It's a joke. It's a joke. Um, but not really.

Uh, anyway, that's the love of his life. She has his child. She may never give birth to that child. Maybe, maybe not, I don't know. What does being frozen in cry frees do to an

embryo

Jeff: And getting hooked up to all

Brent: fe? Yeah. What does all that do? And, and I mean, oh my gosh, if, if she's psychic and he's level 12, what'd they say? She was like level 11,

Jeff: Yeah. 11 or 12, I think. Mm-hmm.

Brent: herself.

They're, now, remember they're trying to breed these people. What if that kid is like level 24? You know, uh, like what's going on there? But maybe she has a baby, maybe she doesn't, I don't know. But that nn is his motivation for flipping sides.

Jeff: I don't think it was, I think cuz he didn't know that until he saw the band, he was willing to go, well maybe it was the thing that pushed him to flip sides. But what brought him to the table was just that he had learned and heard about these shadows and felt that they threatened his ability to basically become supreme overlord of all on Earth.

Cuz you know, that's, that's what he's aiming for.

Brent: Well see. And, but I thought that's why he came to destroy the weapons components. And then I think he was gonna be happy just to go back home

Jeff: Yeah. Shut it down. Yep, shut it down.

Brent: when he found it was her, that's when he turned around and said, my war has become your war. This is, this is on a different level for him

Jeff: Well how many episodes ago was it? I think it was ceremonies of Light and dark, where I talked about in the Delta message it was about love and the crazy things love makes us do well, here you go. The crazy thing now is bester is on Team B five. Like it's not Babylon five anymore. Now it's Bester five.

Sorry, that was, that came out a lot more lame than it sounded in my head.

Brent: Buster's on the team. So I, here, here's what I'm willing to do, Jeff. I, I don't know if this is true or not, but I am willing to, Move forward with the idea that Ster is on the team until we get clarification that he's not

Jeff: That's fair.

Brent: fair. All right. Um, I would like to talk about the Kar Delin conversation.

Jeff: Okay. Yeah, I loved that. I loved it.

Brent: I, I want to be careful because this plays aot into what I wanna talk about later on in the show, but I did want to get kinda your overall thoughts on how that whole thing worked.

Jeff: So I'm just gonna buzz myself cuz right now cuz I'm diving in TNGs. Um, the Bonding, which was the fifth episode of the third season of the Next Generation. I just know this cuz a couple months ago, that was my episode for the Star Fleet Leadership Academy. But they talked a lot. So in that episode, Wharf was leading an away team, then archeologist on the team died unexpectedly and they came up and she had a kid, a 12 year old Jeremy Astor on the ship and they had to go tell Kid Cuz dad was already dead and now he's on enterprise.

He's an orphan. And there was this conversation with Wharf, Picard and Troy about having to deliver the news.

Brent: Mm-hmm.

Jeff: was like, this is my responsibility. I have to do this. This is my ship. Things that happen here are, are, are, you know this, it's my fault. I have to go do this thing. That's what happened here with Dalen.

You know, I have to go do this thing. This was my decision. This is how I did this thing. I am taking this responsibility and I'm gonna, I'm gonna share about 80% of the truth with Kar, but enough that basically paints me in the worst picture that he, you know, so he knows what went down. This was a shining moment for Dalen.

It was also one of her most suspect moments ever where like, cuz I think the fact that she continued to lie by omission. When fully like confessing to Kar, like it was amazing. It was touching also, she's still playing the game, right? Like it was a very complicated scene.

Brent: I thought she took a little too much on herself.

Jeff: Really?

Brent: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. . Um, sh she really did straddle this line, I think, between, yes, here's where we were. We knew about this, we didn't do anything. And I was on the Great council and I couldn't say anything about it,

Jeff: Mm-hmm.

Brent: but they're all, which is like, she did the right thing,

Jeff: Yeah. Uhhuh.

Brent: you know?

And like even Kar recognized that, and he is like, and I still would've killed. you stand for that. And she's like, yeah, I know. Please don't do that right now. You know? But she's crying because it's like, this is what it meant. And, but it felt like she was taking the weight of the entire great council on her own personal shoulders in sharing this.

And not to say that she should have gone in there and been like, well, they did it. They made me do it. I want, I wanted to, you know, I'm on your side. But they, you know, like, no, I was a part of that. This is where we are. And I just, I, I thought she was taking a little, little too much on her own shoulders for what everybody did.

But Ja Car's response in two specific places I thought was incredibly notable. Where he's, he, he says, you know, I would've killed you where you are. But he, like, he, he says the words he goes to, uh, and I, I don't remember the exact quote, but he. in order to save all, some must be sacrificed or so, like, he's like, I remember that line, damnit, that sucks.

You know? But then that moment where she g she asks him like through tears, like, can you forgive me? Um, and he goes, maybe one day,

Jeff: Mm-hmm.

Brent: but not today. Which was it a cr incredibly self-aware moment? Like, I'm not in that place right now. I might get there. I'm not in that place right now. I'm not gonna kill you

Jeff: Well,

Brent: I'm not going to exact revenge,

Jeff: cuz he did it. He did it. He says perhaps, but not today. He stands up and he walks out of the room because he what? He knew that self-awareness. That's it's, it's what it was. He knew if he stood there five more seconds, he probably would've killed her. Right. Because it's like he had that God, just like you said, it was so well, well said.

God prop it sucks being an enlightened person. Enlightenment sucks cuz you know what'd be awesome is for me to get super mad. Rip you apart like I did Londo when I was high as a kite. It'd be awesome to do that, but I'm enlightened. Like I saw Jesus Kosh

Brent: mm-hmm. . Well,

Jeff: I can't do it anymore, so I'm gonna leave. I'm just gonna go.

Brent: I mean, but I also think that that's, that's is a part of conflict resolution. And this is a, um, yeah, I'll tell it. I don't mind. I'm in my own marriage. I've discovered this in my own marriage and I see it in other places. I see it in other people's relationships. My wife is that counter person, like if there's any kind of conflict whatsoever, she wants to solve it and she wants to solve it right now and get it resolved immediately.

She doesn't wanna have any conflict in her life, you know, resolve it right now. Sometimes I need a minute. You know what I mean? Like, I, you just, I need to decompress for a second. I need yo, and you need to shut up and leave me alone, j just get, just gimme a few moments. Let me collect my thoughts, let you know.

And, and honestly, it's not usually between her and I, it's like between me and one of my kids, one of my kids blows their top and I'm like, I'm gonna kill this kid, you know? Or I say something and I piss my kid off, you know? And then she's like, well, you need to go. You need to go talk to your son. And I'm like, he needs to sit in his room for 20 minutes and let me calm the freak down because I will go pop his little head off like a zit. So let me calm down. Let, let me come to that spot where I can go. He's only young. He's still young. Okay, now I'm ready to go talk like Ed, I thought that was the word. Self-aware of Kar to be like, Not right now. I'm, and, and the most insincere thing he could have done would be like, yeah, sure. I forgive you.

The most insincere thing he could have done in that moment. So I, I really like that. I wanna talk about that, dive that into that a little bit more. Um, later on. What did you make, Jeff? There's an old leadership phrase. This is the leadership question I'm gonna ask you. There's old leadership phrase I'm familiar with.

It's called Leading Up.

Jeff: Mm-hmm.

Brent: You're familiar with that, right? What do you do when you have to lead people over? You? Kar goes to Ivanova and he forces an issue,

Jeff: Yep.

Brent: says, you told me this. Sheridan told me this. I've not been able to make any headway. I'm forcing it right now. Yeah, I really don't have time to worry. I don't care.

I'm forcing it right now. What did you make of that scene?

Jeff: I loved it. To be honest, he was getting, and, and Sheridan even said it when he was talking to Thelen. He's like, I've been trying to like, just kinda let this blow by for a while. I'm not ready for it. That's not fair. That's disingenuous. I thought it was interesting that that Kar would go after Ivanova for it.

Like it's lucky she even knew, you know? Like how did he even know that was a thing? But that's part of the strategy really. It's just publicly calling out Sheridan as much as possible. Hopefully she doesn't know. And she's like, what do you mean? He said that? But that was great self-advocacy. That's exactly how it should have been done.

The scene I wish we had though, was the one with Ivanova going to Sheridan and being like, dude, like, you put me in a really rough spot here. I got attacked in the corridor by Kar and he wasn't wrong. You've been blowing him off for a long time. Make a

Brent: got the start of that conversation.

Jeff: Yeah, a little bit

Brent: mean, she went in, she's like, uh, by the way, there's something else we gotta talk about. We've got a problem with Ja car. And then it cut the scene,

Jeff: It did, because the thing is they don't have a problem with Kar. The problem honestly was with Sheridan, he was trying to just not deal with the thing, and then it almost blew up.

Brent: mm-hmm.

Jeff: And I mean, good for Ivanova for taking it to him, but I would've liked to have seen that scene where she called him out and, and, but we got the other side of it when he talked to Delan and he is like, I've been, I've been hoping this wouldn't come up, but it's like, why?

Just, I mean, he's totally come through on his end. Nans have been all in on this whole thing. He even said it, NANS have died for Babylon five. Like, we put our lives out there and you, you can't even tell me if I'm in or not. Like, yeah, no, I thought it was really well done. I think that's, that's what self-advocacy looks like.

Specifically what self-advocacy from a politician, because that was Kar understanding how to create a scene or make a scene, how to force an issue, how to do those things, you know, I mean, it. Would have been better if he just went straight to Sheridan and was like, Hey, I need a couple of minutes. No, I need now I need J Sheridan.

I am forcing the issue right here, right now. Gone that

Brent: You're not gonna get away from me this time. We gotta do this.

Jeff: that would've been better, but, I think it was good in that we got, we just talked about Dylan having to kind of come forth with, you know, taking some accountability. Sheridan had to take some account. He took accountability. Tolen again, it'd been better if it was to Kar, but we ought to see that.

We got to see two, we'll call 'em executive level leaders having to take accountability in one way or another, and that's a good thing.

Brent: So speaking of Ivanova, taking it to someone sorry. All right. You can edit this one way. I'm gonna say this two different ways and you can pull it whatever way you want in the show.

Jeff: Okay.

Brent: All right. She bitch slapped ster so hard. She drew blood, she slapped ster so hard. She drew blood.

Jeff: Seriously. Seriously.

Brent: I was like, it wasn't even that hard of a hit to be honest with you.

Jeff: I think Ster fester's just very fragile. He's very, you know, he's a very

Brent: thin skin, like literally thin skin. He just, you know, or she caught him with a ring or a, the zipper on her glove or something

Jeff: yeah. Or he's got bra, he's like a, like an implant or something on his tooth and it scratched him or something.

Brent: something. I was like, geez. And um, I was like, it's, it's badass. But it's not really that, that hard. I, I did love particularly love the cas of Amani Auto reference.

Jeff: Yeah. That was so I, I caught it, but I didn't really connect all the dots on it.

Brent: Do you know the story of Cassani Auto?

Jeff: I don't think that I do.

Brent: It's an Edgar Allen Po. Short story.

Jeff: Okay.

Brent: Piece of Brent Trivia. Edgar Apo is in my family tree.

Jeff: really

Brent: Yep, yep. He's like a second cousin once removed or something like that. Like, or maybe third cou, I don't know, something. He's back there. Um, but yeah, yeah, like he's, he's, uh, oh, what was it?

He was my grandmother's aunt's son Sun or something like that. I don't, anyway. Um, but anyway, the, the whole, the whole deal with Cassani Auto was, um, uh, these two guys who like were enemies and had beef. Uh, one dude buried the other dude in the wall, like got him drunk, put him in like this little alcove of a wall, and just while he's sitting there talking to him, building this wall, and then he leaves him behind.

Jeff: Wow.

Brent: And, and the cask is like, it's like a cask of wine. He's just like giving him this, this drink . And he's like, dude, burys him alive. And he is like, so what do you think the cas of Amani is that what we're gonna do here? ? He's gonna bury me here. Leave me in the brig.

Jeff: that was the plan.

Brent: Literally, that was the plan. I love Sheridan.

That moment. She like, he's asking uh, uh, Ivanova to go in and like be the Guinea pig. And she's like, well, what if he does it? And he is like, then we'll throw him in the brig so far. Well, how long are we gonna keep him there until we run out of food? Or he dies of old age? I was like, damn, get it. And he meant it too.

He was like, I'll throw him in there. I'm not gonna kill him, but I'll throw him in there

Jeff: and from a leadership standpoint, again, it was awesome because he was utilizing the tools that he had available for him, and he was creating a way to protect the people doing that. Hey, yes, Ivanova, I'm gonna put you at risk, but here's the thing. If stuff goes south, you're gonna be fine.

He's not. I got you covered.

Brent: Yeah, exactly. At least we hope he's gonna be fun. Okay. I've got one last thing I really wanna talk about. We, I want to talk about the girl.

Jeff: Okay. Mm-hmm.

Brent: I, I didn't catch her name. Um,

Jeff: Carolyn,

Brent: Carolyn, thank you. I, I had it written down somewhere. I was like, wait, where is it? I'm having my notes. Um, okay. For, I wanna talk about the memory first.

All right. Those people we saw, they looked like the Roswell Aliens. Now, I, I remember the last time we, these were the strips, right?

Jeff: I don't think these were the strip, but they might have been. I'm not sure what

Brent: they were the strip. I

Jeff: It would make sense cuz the strip had the little, you know, in your face ring, ring

Brent: Well, they were on the organic tech ships and stuff.

Jeff: Mm-hmm. . Yep. And here they were doing kind of the same thing, but physically and they even had face masks on, which I thought was very, very, uh, apropo.

Brent: They did. Now I don't remember what the last episode was that we saw them in. I think it might've been season two sometime.

Jeff: Yeah. I think it was the one where Sheridan got abducted. The um, was that

Brent: It was absolutely that one. And I said, these were the Roswell aliens. And a bunch of people commented and like, oh no, you, that's the v I remember that word. That's the V. And we saw 'em in this other episode. I think it was the one in front of the judge where they're like, you were in my, you abducted my grandfather or something like that.

And they were like, whatever. They look like the Roswell aliens. All right. Um, so that, that to me, I'm gonna say that too. That was, that's a callback. This is Jeff. We have this fully confirmed the shadows use organic tech. Their ships are organic tech. This is the same thing we saw back in infection. Did you hear the phrase she said? She said, kill to protect.

Jeff: Yes

Brent: Do you remember what the dude said way back then?

Protect, protect, protect. And he was killing to protect. Right. I kind of want to go back and watch infection again.

Jeff: That's a tall, tall order.

Brent: not gonna do that until Babylon five for the second time. But, um, and she's, she's in this thing. Jeff, buddy. I I You have not watched the Burnt Watches video this week yet, have you? Okay.

Jeff: they're opening the garage door. So I'm gonna stay muted for a minute. Sorry. Sorry. YouTube. I didn't talk to YouTube here

Brent: Tech to welcome to the behind the scenes. Do you need to go say hi to them? Cuz if you do, I'll go let my

Jeff: They're actually leaving, is what they're

Brent: Oh, okay. Well then the dog can just sit there with her legs crossed in the kennel downstairs.

Jeff: do you need to go take care of

Brent: I think she's, no, she's fine.

Jeff: She's probably fine. Almost. Almost shut

Brent: I'll find out when I go downstairs.

Jeff: right?

Brent: She's okay.

She's a good p If if she really needed to go, I'd hear her,

Jeff: Yeah, I'm right.

Brent: you know? Yeah.

Jeff: Okay. We're good.

Brent: Okay. Um,

Jeff: I got you. Yep. Yeah, no, I, I don't ever watch the Brent watches video till after we record this.

Brent: so I've gotta, I've gotta come you, you've had something that I have said. No, no, no, no, no. And I think I'm coming around on it.

Jeff: Really?

Brent: Yes. So they take organic tech, they use, now they're using people right. To pilot their ships and do some things. And Jeff, I think you might be right, I think Sheridan's wife might still be alive.

Jeff: A hundred percent. I thought she was gonna, the one in the tube. I'm like, it's Anna Sheridan. Oh.

Brent: I know. I thought, oh man, I, she might be, you might be right about this. I have, I have so not wanted to say that and I've so like it. It wasn't until this episode that I was like, oh, I think he might be right now. I think you called it. How long ago was that, that you called

Jeff: that was in the second season, I

Brent: Oh my God, Jeff, uh,

you were on

Jeff: we knew, it was, as soon as we knew Morden's story, when we got that, I'm like, oh my God, Anna's, Anna's gonna be this.

Brent: You were on that way before I was, I, I, I think I'm with you on that.

Jeff: Well, I have another theory of another theory that that totally unfounded, but I, I was curious who those aliens were as well. And my initial thought was same as yours. Oh, that's gotta be the stripe. And that's why the stripe were introduced because, you know, they do these things and here's the, the wraparound.

But what I noticed was whenever they showed them, you had the, they had that shadow scream happening, you know, the shadow that sound that they make, the screech or whatever.

Brent: Yeah. I don't think I noticed that, but okay. Oh no, they did. Yeah. Yeah. But it was like this, this like amalgamation of a, of a C. Okay. Anyway, go ahead.

Jeff: Yeah, it, it was not quite as synthesized maybe. And so my thought was, are these aliens, the shadows and all we've seen and interacted with so far, are there, is there organic tech, like the ships and like little carriers or drones and these are the actual beans.

Brent: that's what I said back when the first time we saw these was because like so far, what have we actually seen of the shadows? Like we saw them talking to more once, way back in like season one. I think it

was end

Jeff: that was all like weird

Brent: they were all weird in shadow. Like we haven't actually seen them until we got to the strip that the stripe are the, the shadows, however, Because Dalin was really confident in knowing who the strip were.

Like, I was like, I don't know that that's the shadows. The shadows are supposed to have been sleeping. So, but what are the stride to the shadows? Are they their mechanics?

Jeff: Right. Or

Brent: Like, what, what are the stride like that's, uh, and how do they relate to the, to the, to the shadows? I think that's a big, a big question that we now have going forward.

We've not had that answered, uh, to go forward. So, Jeff, do you have anything else about this

Jeff: So Carolyn, yeah, so Carolyn, two things. One was, um, she kept saying, you know, so they made it very clear that the Cyco emblem is a symbol of pain for the shadows. And so they're trying to kind of work that. But what she would say is, and I, and I got the quote here, the sign hurts us. We cannot hear the machine.

And at first I was like, yeah, can't hear the machine that's interrupting your connection with the shadows, which you're. Built to interface with, but then I started thinking, what other machine have we heard a lot about that also has a organic being attached to it? The Great Machine of Epsilon three.

Brent: Yeah, absolutely.

Jeff: Is that the machine that she couldn't hear?

Brent: no, no, I don't think so. I don't think so. I think that machine of Epsilon three is something that's left over by early first ones. Um,

Jeff: Kind of the same tech style

Brent: I'm gonna be so pissed if you're, if, if you're onto that, if, if Epsilon three turns out to be like the bass of the shadows and they've been right there the whole time, I'm gonna be so pissed.

I don't think that's it. I think this is the, the Epsilon three, there might be several of these kind of scattered throughout the, the universe, but that they, um, they are, are remnants, leftover remnants as part of the, the, the war, because I think. I don't think the shadows are or are the sole proprietors of organic tech.

Jeff: Correct. I agree.

Brent: know, like, I think that was just, it was just the tech of the day

Jeff: Mm-hmm. , we see that with the volans, like they've got Yeah.

Brent: yes. The volans, they've definitely used Organic Tech and whatever. These old, uh, the, the dude from Infection, if we go back to that episode, they were doing archeologist work on a dead planet and came across this stuff and it, and it started like attaching and taking over and, and that sort of stuff.

So there are obviously planets out there that have this stuff left over on them, dead or not. I wonder what would happen if he went back to the planet and like plugged in.

Jeff: Yeah,

Brent: what I mean? That'd be, that'd be interesting.

Jeff: when, um, when she did the whole hookup to the stuff in Med Lab. That was very, so any to, to my mass effect fans out there,

Brent: Hmm. Here we go.

Jeff: yeah. I'm curious if anybody else got, uh, from Mass Effect two, there's the D L C overlord where they had the person who had autism and they hooked up to a machine to try and.

I should do something pretty similar to this, but it was a much more brutal hookup they had. But I had very strong, very strong David vibes from overlord in that d l c. So hit me in the comments. So tell me if anybody else had, uh, had that impression as well.

Brent: Hey, can, can I ask for something? I've, I've floated this idea before as part of like, maybe this is like a Patreon thing. A Patreon exclusive deal. I've never played mass effect. Would you guys be interested in me playing mass effects? Like for a first, like a first time go through? Like I can, you know, we can stream it and stuff and Jeff can be there and laugh at me the whole

Jeff: well, I'm just, I, I'm just thinking of the, about, I'll say, oh, 130 hour commitment minimum

Brent: it's not

Jeff: It's three games. It's three games. And I, and I'm gonna tell you, this is just Jeff. Like, you've gotta play each game really at least three or four times to really get everything like it is. It is rich.

It is

Brent: that is, that is, that is, that is a situation I wouldn't mind going through with somebody like you and having you point everything out to me along the way. Like, give me all those spoilers. It's fine. I don't care.

Jeff: Yeah,

Brent: you know,

Jeff: that'd be a lot of

Brent: tell me where to go right now and what to do. I don't make me figure this out.

Jeff: right? Don't do this. One last question. So you mentioned it in the recap, but the shadows are in the open and attacking brick in brachii space. Have we heard, do we know what Bekri

Brent: we have heard of the Khari, at least I think it was pronounced Khari. Um, and I assume they either just mispronounce this one or when they, uh, pluralize it, it changes form or something of that nature, or I just misheard it the first time. But I am nearly a hundred percent positive, like 98% positive.

We have heard the phrase, the khari as one of the aliens on Babylon five or in the Babylon five universe

Jeff: Yeah, it just hit me. It was very specific, like it'd be one thing to say the shadows are attacking in the open. Okay. But then they made a point of saying where it was and I'm like, I don't, it's not ringing a bell for me, but I dunno. I'm sure we'll find out.

Brent: next week. Uh oh. Wait, no, nevermind.

Jeff: Yeah. You're cutting a huge part of this one

Brent: Right. No, I think, I think they, I, I'm pretty sure they're part of the, the league of Non-line worlds.

Jeff: Okay,

Brent: Yeah. Yeah.

Jeff: well let's do it.

Brent: Well, Jeff, with that, uh, we have gotten to that spot where it is time to boil down the show and see if it has any of what we call the Star Trek equality to it. But really what we're looking for is not Star Trek, but we are looking for that deep moral message. What is the show trying to say? Is it trying to hold up a mirror to society?

Is it trying to give us hope that we can be better in the future? Is it trying to tell us something? What is, or is it just an awesome piece of, of sci-fi television? And it can be both or it can be neither, or it can be one or the other. Uh, so we're gonna do that. I'm gonna rate the scale on a scale of zero to five Deltas as far as how quote unquote Star Trek this episode is.

Jeff, you got Star Furries this week. How Babylon five. How much does this show do it in a Babylon five way? How much do we enjoy this episode? You got star furries. Uh, I'm gonna go first with Deltas. Um, I've already talked about this a bit, but that whole scene between Delin and Ja Car, I thought was masterfully done.

It was masterfully acted. You brought up that Dylan might still be holding some stuff back, kind of kinda walking that and I didn't catch that. You might be right.

Jeff: She didn't even mention. point in this, and that was a big part of what

Brent: To go back to what I was saying though, if she's taking so much of it on herself, uh, and not, she's like not throwing people under the bus, which I appreciate that, but they're just, she's almost taking more responsibility for it than what she actually deserves to take, you know?

Jeff: I think, I think she did a good job of taking the accountability she needed to, but I think that was her opportunity to share it. Gray Council said this thing, I advocated, but I stood with what the Gray Council decided, and I did that because the Volans also counseled me that way. I made this decision, it was my choice, but here are the reasons why I made it.

Brent: I made the choice to agree with everyone else

Jeff: exactly.

Brent: you know? Uh, and he would, he would understand that and he'd kill her. Where she, she. But anyway, she's coming to him. She's showing him the respect he deserves. And I mean that when I say that deserves, Jakarta deserves that respect to, to, to be in on everything that's happening.

He deserves, before he joins this private group, to know where people are, he deserves to know that before he fully dives into all of that, she's being truthful with him. And what I love the most, and we're missing this in our society, I teach my kids to do this, and it freaks other kids out when they do this to other kids.

She directly asked for his forgiveness. That is, you don't hear people often physically say the words, will you forgive me? I did this. I'm sorry that we'll say those words. Will you forgive me? A lot of times it gets fu Can you ever find it in your heart to forgive me? You don't have to do that. These phrase, will you forgive me by the way, the converse of that, of saying, yes, I forgive you physically saying those words, is it, it's a game changer for how you develop relationships

Jeff: know, my, uh, my daughter had her first. In about it was back in May, so what is that? Three months ago. And as part of her first communion prep, that's what, that's one of the exercises they had us do as a family specifically ask and grant forgiveness. Cuz I'll get the kid I got my daughter used to that concept.

Because you're right, in our society we don't, we just don't

Brent: My, you know, like with my kids, like, what's okay, you know? So he asked you to forgive them. What do you say? You know, and what would, what's really funny is, is like they'd get around, like their friends and stuff, and somebody would do something. He'd say, oh, will you forgive me? And then like, the, the, my boy, like, then my daughter would do that, right?

And then my boy who's like her older brother, he'd turn around and look at the front and be like, now what do you say?

Jeff: say it. No

Brent: and that kid's like, their family doesn't do that. They're like, uh, yeah, sure, fine. Whatever. No, no. You must say the, you know, . Anyway. Um, but it is, it is immensely I important And the fact that Jaar was able to say, not today, but maybe someday.

And we, we already had that discussion, so I won't rehash it here, of knowing himself well enough to not flippantly say yes, I. To be able to say it as he actually meant it, uh, I thought was phenomenal. Now I actually wanna talk about the bigger Star Trek message that I got out of this episode. And it's from your boy Ster and Bester and Sheridan.

Actually, together, the enemy of my enemy is my friend. And the point there being even your enemy can become your friend. If here's the Star Trek part, you ready? You talk to them, have the conversation. Don't just always assume they're evil. When, when Bester shows up and he is like, I've got this thing, and, and Sheridan's like, why shouldn't I just blow you out of the sky?

He's like, he, he calls out Curiosity. Curiosity and Sheridan's like, maybe, but what Sheridan knew in that moment, I don't think it was so much curiosity that stayed his hand as much. I really should find out what he's doing here cuz something's got like, is this just a trap or is there really something here?

And he had to talk to him and Sheridan went through the places he put in. He sent in Ivanova and he had a plan for that. He, he brought 'em in and if you talk to him, here's what he found out through the course of this episode working with Ster. Cuz where we wound up at the end was, your war is now my war. You even mentioned he's now part of the Light council or whatever we're calling that group.

Jeff: Army of light,

Brent: Yeah. Army of light. There it

Jeff: I think.

Brent: such a horrible name. Anyway, um, they found common ground. You talk to them, you'll be amazed at what common ground you can find and you'll be amazed at what you can accomplish together.

Because with ster on their side, this group is gonna be able to do stuff they would never be able to do without ster. And by the way, Fester's gonna be able to accomplish stuff from his own agenda that he would never be able to do without them. And, and here's the cool part. You're ready. You don't have to have all your stuff figured out before starting to work with him.

If I could grab those folks in Washington and sit down and show them an episode of Babylon five, this would be it. Right now. You don't have to have all your issues figured out. You don't have to agree down the line to talk and find common ground to come together and work together because you'd be shocked at what you can make happen. Because I promise you, in the next season and a half season and a quarter, two seasons, I guess they're gonna beat the shadows.

Jeff: Right.

Brent: They're gonna beat. J I haven't, I haven't watched beyond this point, but I'm just making a guess here. They're gonna beat 'em and it's gonna be because all of these groups come together and they each contribute and that includes bester and we may not ever trust them buddies there.

That is the Star Trek message. Was this overt? Was this the point of the episode? No, I do not think so. So this does not get five star furries by any stretch of the magic. It doesn't even get four, but I will give this a solid three star furries for what it put out there.

Jeff: Say three Deltas say that so I can edit it in for you.

Brent: I say star furries the whole way?

Jeff: the whole way.

Brent: Son of a.

Jeff: I hit it at the end and it's good.

Brent: do what

Jeff: I'll just like and that's why this is a fork. Delta

Brent: Lemme try that again. Do it again. This is not a five Delta episode. It's not even a four Delta episode, but I will give this a solid three Deltas based on that strength alone.

Jeff: I think that's a great rating. I mean, honestly, cuz it, it. What went through this, the, the, the real through line for me and a lot of it was the stuff that we saw with Thelen and Kar, which is a, it's, that's the theme of the season, right? It's, we've talked about this a couple times. It's that forgiveness, you know, piece.

And it was just so well done. It was so well done. So I agree. Star furries. I, I'm gonna make this really quick, this tomy. I'm gonna, I'm gonna l l

Brent: this tomy.

Jeff: this Tomy. It's a tomy. Look at my tomy. Don't look at my Tomy. This is a Safe For Work podcast. It's fine. , that's . I don't know, this to me should have been a five star Fury episode.

It's fun, it's awesome. It's got baster, it's done in a super Babylon five way, the introduction of a mistress. And we're just cool with that because like all this stuff and now like we have a bad guy. On the good side, like how much more Babylon five can you get

Brent: Jeff, can I pause your conversation because you, you brought up something I've never even thought about till this moment when you just said that they brought up a mistress and were cool with it, and you wanna know why? Because they have seated to us for three seasons now. Cyco is marrying people off really against their will, and we understand that that same thing happened to ster and he actually found the real love of his life and we're cool.

You can be married there and go over there. Dope. I, I don't advocate that sort of thing in the real life, but in this world, in this universe, I'm with it. That's an interesting concept I've ever thought about to this moment. I'm sorry, go back to what you were saying.

Jeff: Well, it makes me wonder though, if it's, if this happens, Ency, not necessarily falling in love and having a kid with a blip, but having side stuff go on. Because there's the T version of a forced marriage where you feel victimized and it's horrible. And yes, it is a form of victimization, no question. But then there's the Bester versions where he is like, yeah, I'm married, I got a kid, I'm doing my duty, but I'm also gonna go like, be in love with

Brent: Well, I mean, but doesn't that harken back to, if you go through the history of, uh, European arranged marriages between royalty and, and marriages were signing of, of, uh, treaties and declarations and, and things like that. I mean, oh my gosh. That actually, if you go back to that Luma episode with, with Ivanova where they're gonna have like sex to seal the deal, like it kind of has rings of that.

Although I think that was a whole different situation anyway. Um,

Jeff: But yeah, the, the title of Royal concert. , right. You know, or concubine or whatever. Like those are roles.

Brent: like. I'm marrying you because they tell me I have to, I'll have a kid with you. But that's really the girl I like. And, and people are cool with it

Jeff: Mm-hmm.

Brent: for the most part. I mean, I don't know. I've never really been in England, in in Europe with royalty.

But for the most part they're like, it's, or it's just accepted.

Jeff: it's accepted. I think about in Dune, right when Paul marries Ilan, because he has to have the treaty with house Corino. Like that has to happen to legitimize his roles Emperor, but he's in love with Shawn. And Shawn is the, his concubine. Like that's Yeah. Seriously. I

Brent: Exactly. I mean, you know, I thought you were gonna go with Game of Thrones and Robert Verian and Sarai, but you know, so she was really in love with, but

Jeff: Mm-hmm.

Brent: know, you went with Dune. Okay,

Jeff: I did, but also, like he had, Paul had kids with ch, the royal cons, the concubine, and there was no question, those are the heirs to the throne. Like, that's, that's what it is. We're, we're good with that. So I think just, this is the, the Cycore version of all that. But to get back to the star fairy conversation, love it.

So great in so many ways, but the massive hole around how is this a revelation that telepaths are the secret weapon? This is not possible. It's not feasible to me that Kar Dalen everyone else are like, I had no idea. Gar Baldy digging through an old book is the one who uncovered this mystery that was already uncovered,

Brent: In a book that he doesn't understand. He had to have a translator right next to him

Jeff: that also kind of has the, uh, coroner's cutoff. A very ba Battlestar, galactical looking, uh, book, by the way. I

Brent: by the, have you ever noticed, I'm sorry, you haven't given your surfers. The book of Jaquan is not really as big as it looks like it is. It looks like it's a super thick book, but like every page is like super thick in it too, and it's like, it's like a kid's board book. It's like, yeah, you got like 10 pages in that thing, man.

like,

Jeff: It looks all impressive and it's whatever. But yeah, not so much. And it's mostly picture.

Brent: right. So how many star furries are we on? Jeff, how

Jeff: Four and a half, given four and a half. Just gonna take half of a star ferry off for that, that

Brent: you, if you took anything more than half, I was gonna reach through the internet and slap

Jeff: Like I will fight you. I will. I will. Avan of a bitch slap you if you tuck that down anymore.

Brent: You'll have blood on two lips. All right, Jeff, well, just like last season, we are creating the absolute 100% completely accurate definitive ranking of the third season of Blon five. This week I expect is gonna be a little hard. This might take it a little bit. I'm asking you, you get to do it this week. Where are you placing Ship of tears?

Our current ranking number one is severed dreams. Number two is point of no return. Number three is messages from Earth. That is that trilogy that went bam, bam, bam. Also in there is passing through Gase with Brother Edward and matters of honor, which was the season three, uh, kickoff. I think matters of honor might be dropping out of the top five.

It's just a guess. I don't know. But what else is dropping down a level or two? Uh, Jeff, where are you placing ship of tears?

Jeff: It's going in the top five. We know that I am forced to go back to our season two wrap up and think there was about a four episode arc, right, where we had, uh, long twilight struggle, fall of night, come into shadows, uh, Zaha Doom, you know, kind of like this. It was stretched out more over the season than these, the trilogy we have in our top three.

But when we did our wrap up, right, we went episode by episode to test, you know, really where it was because. To this point, these, our top three deserves to be the top three, no question. They're the three best episodes we've seen and we kind of have 'em set up like in the impact of the, the trilogy they're in.

So my question, I'll, I'll just tell you where I'm at is this is either going to be number three or number four point of no return. And severed dreams were Holy crud episodes. Holy crud. So good. Passing through. Gethsemane was such a great episode of television. It is. It is what really launched so much of the theme of this season.

But this is bigger.

Brent: It's, it's why, it's why last week was a waste

Jeff: Exactly.

Brent: passing through Gustin is why late delivery from Avalon was a complete waste of an episode, although an okay 45 minutes of television just not there. And it, it, it in the mid and after several dreams and point a note return and, and where we are like, no, that is not where this needs to go.

I want to deal with the gunner who started a war. 10 years ago, season one, man, kick that, kick that stuff back there. Season two, kick that back there.

Jeff: well, honestly, I think that you, you kind of just, just hit it for me, passing through guest somebody is an important episode mess, but in the scope of Babylon five, you can't take anything out of the trilogy of messages from Earth Point and no return and severe dreams without having long-lasting impacts.

This episode had great stuff, but it kind of built on top of some of those things. I think this is gonna be our new number four, right below messages from Earth.

God, as I said that, I'm starting to think I might wanna make it the number three. I am. I'm gonna make it the number three. I'm gonna put it right above messages from earth.

Brent: it, it's a hard sell to put one, two, and three As that trilogy like there's, there's almost a conversation to have, like, do we wrap them together as one? And call that like an episode. I don't think we should because they are still individual episodes. Uh, but we can have that conversation offline. But for now, you are breaking apart the trilogy, which is totally fair.

And I mean, to me, the real question was is does this actually go in the new number one?

Jeff: Really?

Brent: It does. Well, that's the

Jeff: Mm-hmm.

Brent: I I don't get to place this. You said number three. So it goes in number three and that's where it's gonna be. And, uh, I don't know that you are wrong.

Jeff: Yeah. And I think the thing that pushed it for me was just that exactly was do we look at those three as one or do we look at them as individual episodes? And if we look at them as individual episodes, this one's a little bit better than messages from

Brent: I might have to go back and actually watch that trilogy again to sort of go, okay, what's being set up in each one of these and what's going, because in my mind, all three of those episodes are the same story. And I, I have trouble separating what happened in each episode.

Jeff: Well, and this one, this is really a question of ster in Ship of Tears versus Julie Masante in Messages from Earth. And that was great. It was big, it did a lot of stuff, but literally point of no return. Grabbed that football and took it 35 yards

Brent: wait, wait, wait. wait. Messages from Earth was the one that had had sexy lady

Jeff: Had Chicky had chicky in it.

Brent: Oh yeah. No, you're absolutely right. You're absolutely right. Like that was a good episode. It certainly built on everything else. This is far better than that one. I like that episode, don't get me wrong. I

Jeff: yeah, totally. It's a total top five episode at this point. No question.

Brent: Um, yeah. Okay. We'll, we'll leave you there. Number three. I like it,

Jeff: Yeah, you know, last week, last week, this was a moment of triumph to reach this point. This week it's a little bit disappointing. It's bittersweet, but that Brent, is it for Ship of Tears. Next week we're watching Interludes and Examinations for the first time. One of the games that we play here, Brent talked about at the beginning, but we know the title of the next episode.

That is it. We don't know anything else. We haven't seen thumbnails or anything, and we'd like to guess what the next episode's gonna be about based on that alone. So, Brent, what is your guess as to what Interludes and Examinations is going to be about?

Brent: When, when you say interludes, I think of private time interludes. is what I really think of when you say that word. And examinations. Oh my gosh. If this is a Dr. Franklin episode, oh, um, I, I mean, okay, so here's what we know for the most part. Episodes do not like directly sequel each other. They're all tied together.

They all work as an, as an overall story, but, Yes, there was messages from Earth Point, no return and, and several dreams. But that's out of the norm. We, it's really not a, so I don't wanna say that this is gonna come right off the heels of this particular episode. Right. Um, interludes and examinations. I think, I think, you know, we, we've been in this season, you were kind of talking about this passing through GASE is sort of set a tone for this season.

Um, these examinations, I, I feel like this is a lot of self-examination, people seeing where they are with the whole thing. Um, it does have to continue the, the

Jeff: Sorry, It's important to do, I don't care if you're, how you identify for your gender. It's an important thing to do. It's a real, yeah,

Brent: on both. Yeah.

Jeff: they're real killers.

Brent: Please, please examine yourself and a loved one if they give you permiss. Um, in fact, ask them if you can examine them for them. They might like it anyway. Um, you don,

Jeff: I couldn't, I'm sorry. I totally derailed the

Brent: that is the interludes and examinations. No, like I, I think there, there's a little bit of a, of a self-examination.

I'm trying to talk my way into this, but it's gotta pick up. Shadows are openly attacking people.

Jeff: That's right. That was the hangar at the end.

Brent: yep. So,

Jeff, I have no idea. I'm just, I gotta throw this out there. I have no idea where this could be going at all. With a, with a title like that. I'm not even sure how ship of tears really applies. There was a ship and people were freaked out to be on it. So I, I guess maybe that, but, um, I feel like the titles have been getting better. At hinting what the, what the episodes are, are really about, you know what I mean? So,

Jeff: Seriously, they they called, they weren't even humans. They were weapons components. How depressing and sad is that?

Brent: right.

Jeff: Especially when ster loves one of them.

Brent: okay, here's, here it is. I got it. I got it. The, the shadows are openly engaging in war. It is time for everybody to, to knuckle up. Franklin's gotta get his STEM thing under control. He had this, he had this confession to Delin the other day of, I think I'm an addict. Remember all those things that everybody came and said, I think I'm an addict.

He's gotta resolve that. Whatever remaining feelings that Ivanova has for Talia who has now been dissected, she's gotta resolve. Right, um, whatever. Uh, here's your interlude. Sheridan and Dalin. You know, , but that's gotta get resolved. Like that's gotta move to the next piece. What was Gu Baldi Garibaldi saying?

He's constantly scared.

Jeff: Of losing control.

Brent: yeah. I don't, I don't know how that gets resolved, but, but it, it's a, okay guys, we can't mess around anymore. It's here. War is here. Get ready with your button there, Jeff. Get together.

Jeff: Yeah. I'm gonna do it longer so I can cut it into the episode there.

Brent: here I'll get, I'll get, I'll give you the take of it. If you just want clean, take you ready.

Jeff: got it. I got it. I

Brent: Get your sh get it, get it together. Because we gotta go do those. And, oh, hey, by the way, look like this is all our people, but I think this also is gonna extend to everybody. Hey, you league of non-aligned world.

Everybody else out there, we look. Time. Time for plane's over. We gotta go. I think that's where we're going on this one. What do you think?

Jeff: read you what I wrote here

Brent: Oh, you thought about it beforehand. I just had to talk it out. Live on air. Go

Jeff: get to do that. That's, you know, yeah. It's one of the advantages to being the note guy, but I really lit.

Brent: Yeah.

Jeff: We are going to get some follow up from the secrets shared in ceremonies of light and dark. I think we'll see how Talia will affect Marcus and Yvanova's relationship.

And Dr. Franklin is going to open up to Garabaldi about his addiction. I got some specifics in there, but you and I are on the exact same page. This is gonna wrap up some ceremonies from light stuff and it's gonna get everybody kind of clean and ready for moving forward. I think the, uh, shadows in the open thing.

Is gonna get mentioned again in this one, like, it's not gonna be a focal point. It'll be like, oh, and this is also happening. And then an episode or two later is where it's gonna like, oh, and here it is. But it's just gonna be a a s, I don't wanna say a slow build, but they're not gonna move. I don't think they're gonna move direct into shadow conflict from here.

And we're gonna find out right here next week. Thank you all so much for joining us. Please follow us or subscribe wherever you are listening or watching. And if you haven't already, head over to Good pods. Head over to Apple Podcast, podcast Chaser, any of those cool places, cast box, leave us a rating or review.

I'll read it right here on the podcast. So, until next time.

Brent: Hey, hey. Hey Jeff.

Jeff: Yeah. Yeah. Brent.

Brent: Uh, so before we go, uh, we got a convoy coming through.

Jeff: Okay.

Brent: We, we, we need to snag it. We need, we need to get it because in the center of that convoy is a ship with some pretty sweet supplies. We got that podcasting thing coming up. It's got a bunch of cool stuff in it.

Jeff: How, how, how do you even know? How do you even know this?

Brent: Dude, you've been around for a long time. You know my episode predictions. I'm a P 13. Let's go.

Jeff: Fair enough. Peace, victory, and long life.