Babylon 5 4-13: Rumors, Bargains and Lies

Episode:

79

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Writer:

J. Michael Straczynski

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Director:

Mike Vejar

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Air Date:

12-May-1997

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This week on Sci-Fi Adventures, I'm writing about Rumors, Bargains and Lies, the 79th episode of Babylon 5.

It was written by showrunner J. Michael Straczynski, who was about two thirds of the way through his unbroken streak of scripts by this point, and it was directed by Mike Vejar, finally making a reappearance after skipping the first half of the season. He hadn't directed an episode since War Without End, Part 2 back in season 3, so it's nice to have him back.

I'll be recapping the whole episode and sharing my thoughts as I go, so there'll be huge SPOILERS for this episode and earlier ones. But you'll be fine if you've been watching through the series for the first time.

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3-08 - Messages from Earth

The episode begins with the station's command staff (and Marcus) all arriving in the mess hall together, and the room looks very different than it did back in season three's Messages from Earth. Part of that's due to the fact that they're all wearing different uniforms (and Garibaldi's not there), but the room itself is also far less crowded. It's more like a café now with everyone sitting apart at separate tables.

It's like they've gone to the casual mess hall next door this time.

Funny thing is, I think the difference is all due to the direction. In that earlier episode the director had the tables lined up with the camera, with people sitting either side of the frame to make it look like the characters were in a packed room. Here the characters get to dominate the foreground and all the extras are sitting way back so it doesn't even look like the same place. (It's still obviously a redress of Sheridan's office though).

Oh when I said the command staff arrived together, I didn't mention that Sheridan was already there, sitting against the wall, lost in thought. The other officers decide to go find their own table where they can exchange some exposition. Turns out that G'Kar and Londo actually decided to agree with Sheridan's plan last episode to put White Stars on their borders to protect commercial transports from pirates. Trouble is now they need to convince the League of Non-Aligned Worlds to come together for their common good, which Franklin points out, is something they have to go through every four months and it's always a pain in the ass.

Meanwhile Sheridan's just giggling to himself like a maniac and it's actually kind of distracting for them. Almost as distracting as their wobbly table is for me. Also I'm sure that art deco painting of the station is new. So they did change the room after all!

Sheridan finally comes over and shares what's on his mind: he's come to an epiphany, one so profound that he has to slam his fist down onto their table in his enthusiasm and make Ivanova yelp. No wonder the thing's wobbling if he's been doing that for multiple takes. This isn't exactly what I expected when Delenn told him last episode he needed to be dangerous.

He tells them that the easy way to convince the League is to not convince them, then he orders Marcus to send some White Stars off to Sector 87 to do... something, he hasn't decided yet, and then he's gone. So Ivanova gets up and sniffs his cup just to make sure.

Meanwhile Delenn's been on a White Star for three days, on a mission to deal with her own problems. They're struggling to get any information about what's going on back on Minbar but it seems that fighting has broken out in the capital. The Minbari civil war has started.

Minbari killing Minbari is unthinkable to Delenn, but the story hit close to home for Mira Furlan, as she left her home in Yugoslavia because of its war. That's how she ended up in Babylon 5.

Anyway, that's the end of the teaser. Sheridan's happy and has a plan, Delenn's miserable and has a spaceship.

ACT ONE

Act one starts with Delenn reviewing the show's library of establishing shots of Minbar. It looks pretty nice and peaceful, but this is all old footage.

She's kind of depressed about how things have gone, with her beautiful city in flames, wondering if she's the one responsible for it. She broke the Grey Council to bring the Minbari into the Shadow War, and now there's nothing in place to keep the three castes unified.

Lennier points out that Valen prophesied that the council would be broken, but Delenn reminds him that Valen was just telling them about things he'd already seen happen, and he never knew what was going to happen next. There's no prophecy which says this is going to have a happy ending, Delenn just assumed that as long as they won the war everything would be alright afterwards. Even Sheridan's time travelling and Londo's precognitive dreams give no clues to Minbar's future.

But she's going to meet with Neroon from the Warrior Caste and try to sort something out. Yay, Neroon, we haven't seen him in ages.

Mike Vejar sure likes his out of focus objects in the foreground. Also, when did Londo's quarters start looking so good? Is it just because of the lighting?

Londo is a bit confused here, because Sheridan talked him into allowing White Stars to patrol the Centauri border to encourage the League to do the same, but now he's asking him not to tell anyone about it. In fact he's telling him to lie about it if anyone asks!

Turns out that a lot of what he's learned about the humans confuses him. He already did his rant about the 'Hokey-Pokey' back in season one and now he's adding 'country and western' and 'Reebo and Zooty' to the list of things he just doesn't get.

He lifts his leg up and goes "Zooty, zoot zoot!" to give us a demonstration of their legendary comedy routine, and also flip our perspective entirely. Every time Londo's commented on Earth culture before now it's been something that that us viewers understand and he doesn't, but this time we're on his side and it's future humanity that seems alien to us. We just don't have the context to get how "Zooty, zoot zoot" could ever be funny to someone like Sheridan.

But this is a funny scene, with Sheridan being momentarily distracted from his secret plan because of his outrage at Londo not liking Reebo and Zooty. Which means that we've already seen a context which makes "Zooty, zoot zoot" funny and it's... this.

Sheridan assures him he has a plan and then leaves... doing the "Zooty, zoot zoot" move in the doorway on the way out. A passing security guard grins in approval as Londo glares at them in the background.

Back in the Minbari plot, a group of Delenn's Religious Caste and a group of Neroon's Warrior Caste are meeting in a hallway of one of their ships. I'm guessing they're on Delenn's White Star but it's hard to tell as they're all in Minbari vessels and they all look the same on the inside.

Neroon greets Delenn from behind his wall of bodyguards, while Delenn stands in front of hers. It gives the impression that Delenn's the braver of the two, but if Neroon's visiting her ship then I suppose it makes sense for him to be cautious.

He's here responding to her message because he likes a mystery, so he's putting himself and his ship in danger to hear her out without even knowing what she's going to say. Seems that Sheridan and Delenn both have secret schemes this episode.

She invites Neroon to come talk with her, alone, leaving the other Religious Caste Minbari to wonder what the hell she has planned.

So this is one of the rare times we get to see Lennier interacting with other Minbari on his own.

Hey it's Guy Siner from Allo Allo, playing the role of 'Religious #1'. He's one of the very few actors to have had roles in Babylon 5, Star Trek, Doctor Who and Star Wars... video games. It's pretty much just him, W. Morgan Sheppard, Christopher Neame and David Warner as far as I know (though correct me if I'm wrong).

Religious #1 has heard rumours that Delenn is going to have the Religious Caste surrender to the Warrior Caste and allow them to rule Minbar, and he's not happy about it. Delenn is head of the Rangers, not the Religious Castle, at least that's my understanding, but it seems like she has a lot of sway with them at the moment.

Don't look at the human hand on the left of the frame!

Once they're alone Delenn explains to Neroon that she needs his help. Neroon reminds her what happened in Grey 17 is Missing (the Minbari plot, not the 'Garibaldi gets captured by a secret purity cult who plan to return their bodies to the universe by being eaten by a monster they've set loose on a hidden floor of the station' plot), just so we know that last time they met he tried to steal control of the Rangers from her. In fact he's pretty much the closest thing she's got to a nemesis, but she knows that everything he's done, he's done for the good of their people.

She tells him that the Warrior Caste cannot be allowed to win this war. And the Religious Caste cannot be allowed to win either. One caste ruling over the others is going to ruin the balance of their society. (I guess the Worker Caste is just sitting this one out).

Hang on, this room is just an obvious redress of the White Star bridge. All they've done over in this corner is add a sofa. Wait, no they didn't, the bridge already had a sofa beneath its windows! The funny thing is, this is probably the clearest shot we'll ever get of these windows, because the widescreen version of the episodes always goes to crap whenever there's visual effects in the shot.

Neroon makes the same argument that was made during the Earth-Minbari War, that the Minbari have gone mad and the fighting can't be stopped until the fire that's driving them burns out. But she's a got a better plan... that we don't get to hear. All we know is that they're both risking their castes turning against them by working together like this, but he will work with her.

And now we get to see Minbar as it really is right now. It's actually just an update of one of the old establishing shots, except with more running and screaming, and people being carried around on stretchers.

They've actually done a pretty good job of compositing all these actors in, I'm impressed.

ACT TWO

See, I warned you about what Mike Vejar is like! He loves sticking stuff in the foreground, even if there shouldn't actually be anything there, just to make the shot more interesting. It's a good idea that works really well.

Sheridan's continuing his scheme to win over the League ambassadors by not asking them to do anything. In fact he won't even admit that the reports of White Stars along the Centauri border are right. They definitely wouldn't be there if they weren't invited... but he can't confirm that they're there at all. The Drazi ambassador seems confused.

Next Sheridan heads to C&C where Ivanova has Marcus standing by on Channel 4. That's a subtle reference to the TV network that aired the show in the UK, so the episode was presumably written before the channel started burying the series by airing it at weird times.

Marcus has arrived at Sector 87 with his White Stars and he's ready for his mission, so Sheridan tells him to shoot a few rocks and come back. It's lucky Delenn didn't take all her ships for that civil war she's dealing with or else this Sheridan plot wouldn't work at all.

Sheridan's orders are a little bit confusing so Marcus asks to know what's going on. But Sheridan switches to full military commander mode and lets him know that he ain't telling him nothing and unless he's incapable of carrying out his orders he wants them done. Seems like he's really not going to bring anyone into the loop this episode, not even Ivanova. Probably because he knows that if you explain your plan to the audience it'll inevitably go off the rails at some point.

Man, it's a good thing Garibaldi's not in this story, as his suspicions about Sheridan would be going off the charts here.

Meanwhile poor Londo is having to straight up lie to the Drazi about the White Stars, his duplicity symbolised by him literally having two faces on screen, one a painting, the other a reflection. I can't be sure that's what the director was actually going for, but there's no ambiguity about it being an interesting shot.

I feel sorry for Londo here, as he's really trying to do the right thing to save lives for once, but he has to be a jerk to do it and he doesn't even know why. He's bloody good at it though, thanks to his years of practice.

The League ambassadors meet up in the hallway outside Londo's apartment to discuss the fact that people are clearly hiding things from them. But then Franklin interrupts to ask them for blood, as much as they have to spare. For... no particular reason. Man, I hope this plan of Sheridan's doesn't cause a blood shortage on one of their homeworlds.

Franklin's being doing some actual spy work this season, going undercover and meeting with the Mars Resistance, so it's perhaps a bit surprising how obvious he's being in this scene. He's really laying it on thick, acting really shifty and he even says "I'll see you later... probably," as he leaves!

The League ambassadors should really be onto the fact that someone's playing them after that performance, but they're not. In fact they're even more concerned now. I guess being cartoonish idiots isn't out of character for them.

Meanwhile on Delenn's White Star, there's another group of people discussing their concerns, this time about Delenn and Neroon. They're worried that Delenn's going to sell them out, especially considering that Religious #2 heard her saying "the Religious Caste cannot be allowed to win this war" as he walked past her room! Hey maybe it was his fingers we saw at the edge of the frame.

Both storylines this episode have been about a person making secret plans, but Sheridan's done a better job of making sure that no one gets to hear anything he doesn't want them to hear. He's using rumours to his advantage, while Delenn has been sabotaged by just one line, heard out of context. She should've known that the only thing that's safe to say near an open doorway is "Zooty, zoot zoot."

We do get some legitimate information out of the scene though, as they explain that only Delenn can authorise a surrender as she's the only one that all the clans will honour. So there you go, that's cleared that up. We also learn that they're going to kill themselves and everyone on the ship to stop Delenn from surrendering.

ACT THREE

By the time act three begins they've got a canister of poison syphoned right from the fuel system, enough to kill everyone on the White Star twice over.

They're all willing to kill themselves without hesitation for the sake of their cause, which would be pretty noble if it wasn't unbelievably counter-productive. They talk about how dismayed they are that Delenn would turn against them, while they're in the process of turning against Delenn and murdering everyone based on a rumour and a line heard out of context.

Speaking of overhearing people, Lennier's been listening in on them! Fortunately he's much better at it than they are, as he stuck around to hear the entire conversation and get all the facts.

Back on the station, Sheridan's dropped by just as Ivanova's about to go live with her latest Voice of the Resistance broadcast. So she has barely any time to argue against what he's asking her to say. Wait, they broadcast it live? I suppose that makes sense, I'm just surprised.

Sheridan wants her to tell people that nothing happened today in Sector 83, by 9, by 12. Which I guess is true. Last time I watched the episode I assumed that was the sector he sent Marcus to shoot some asteroids and he was drawing attention to it, but that's actually Sector 87.

Ivanova feels like they need to tell the absolute truth to keep their credibility and that's technically what they're doing. But is it moral to broadcast a true fact for no other reason than to create a false impression and manipulate foreign ambassadors? More importantly, is it a good idea to broadcast a truth that seems like a lie?

That's a nice shot. It's been a while since they've had a reason to use the wall of screens. Apparently Claudia Christian was using a teleprompter during newsreader scenes like this to make her performance more authentic.

Unfortunately the times mentioned in the scene are not authentic. When she says she's going on air in two minutes, she actually has a minute and a half, and when they tell her she's got 10 seconds she's actually got more like 6.

The ambassadors have heard the news and they've also heard about the White Stars blowing up asteroids. The only conclusion they can draw is that they must be fighting invisible enemies with advanced cloaking technology! White Stars are based on Vorlon technology so they must be the only ones with scanners capable of detecting the cloaked ships, and that's why the Centauri went to them for help!

They end up freaking out and running off, fearing that invisible enemies are all around them, in a moment of comedy that's maybe a bit too much. It's also a bit too late, as invisible enemies had been walking around the station for the last three seasons until Sheridan finally convinced the Shadows to go bother someone else.

Fortunately the closest thing to cloaked observers around here these days are the monks walking by in the background.

Meanwhile Neroon's still on Delenn's ship, just hanging out inside that room with the massive LED wall they use to film The Mandalorian.

Suddenly he's attacked by one of his own people and an alarm sounds across the ship. Religious #2 has only just finished planting his poison canister at this point and is concerned that they've been caught but Religious #1 assures him that they'll be fine. I mean they're all going to be dead soon, but the plan is still on track.

Neroon's got a bit of a head injury after his assault, but he's mostly fine, and Delenn orders that the attacker be put in a cell with a copy of the sacred scrolls to read, so that he may learn that there's other ways to handle disagreements other than violence. The thing is, the people she was giving orders to were Warrior Caste as well! You know you've got respect when even enemy soldiers obey you.

She's got a message for her Religious Caste crew as well, talking to them about extremists who want to be martyrs to misinformation. That guy from Warrior Caste attacked Neroon because he'd heard a rumour that the Warrior Caste was going to surrender. She explains that neither side can surrender as that would just cause chaos, and there's a more reasonable way to end their conflict. She's basically handing Religious #1 and #2 their free tickets for a massive guilt trip and she doesn't even realise it.

Then she twists the knife even further by saying only the Warrior Caste could turn on their own like that. Her Religious Caste crew is the steady rock beneath her feet! She's even got a kind of halo in that light when she turns her head the right way, just to make it even more obvious how righteous she his, and how stupid they were to rig up that poison to kill her.

But it's too late to stop it now sadly. They're 100% doomed.

Fortunately hero Lennier has crawled into one of the Jeffries tubes to stop the poison! That's a term from Star Trek by the way, in case you've only seen Babylon 5. It refers to a narrow maintenance tunnel that's no good for the actors' knees at all.

You see what's happened here: Religious #1 and #2 told us their plan, so it was never going to work out like they expected. You have to keep your plans a secret from the audience if you want them to work, Delenn and Sheridan both realise that.

Lennier stumbles down the hallway and collapses into the arms of the conspirators, who had all rushed over to presumably try to stop it themselves. Lennier wasn't around for Delenn's speech earlier and doesn't know they've already been given a guilt trip, so he twists the knife just a little bit more by struggling for the breath to say "Have we fallen so far that we cannot even trust ourselves?"

ACT FOUR

Seems that Neroon's feeling better, as he's sent his personal doctor to treat Lennier instead.

Delenn tells Neroon that she's been training Lennier, like she was trained by Dukhat, so that's been made explicit now. She's being very candid with Neroon and he's not being a dick for once. It's funny how open combat between their castes has actually brought them closer together.

Hey it's the council chambers! Last time we saw this place the show was deep in the Shadow War and Sheridan was still lost at Z'ha'dum.

The League ambassadors have decided to keep it between themselves that they know about the invisible enemy, so Sheridan won't find out about their sources. Instead they're going to let him believe that they want the White Stars patrolling their borders to defend against Raiders and Drahk. Wait, they all knew that the Drakh were attacking their ships and just let them get away with it? I just assumed they were a secret for some reason.

But Sheridan tells them that the White Stars are busy, they can't have them! Besides, there's no way that each of their worlds would give the White Stars permission to hunt down Raiders or other vessels along their borders. The League ambassadors are determined to give him everything he wants though, and pretty much leave him no option but to say yes. They're even offering to send their ships to support the White Stars on missions in return for their patrols. He's been completely out-manoeuvred here!

Sheridan reluctantly submits to their demands and then walks solemnly down the hallway, into the transport tube, and once the doors are closing yells "YES!" Everyone outside turns and looks for a moment, then carries on with their work. It's Babylon 5, they're used to it.

I like how the episode didn't feel any need to explain what Sheridan was doing at any stage of the plan. We saw what he did every step of the way, we saw the results, and it all makes perfect sense. It definitely makes sense why he'd be so happy it worked, as we've seen how much of a pain in the ass it is to get those ambassadors to work with him for their own self-interest.

Hey Lennier's alright, kind of. Characters usually recover from this kind of thing without any real consequences, but we learn that they had to remove part of his lung. Damn, poor Lennier.

Delenn mentions that this is the second time she's seen him injured like this. The first time was in Convictions, when he got caught in an explosion while rescuing Londo... which was another Mike Vejar episode now that I think about it. Lennier actually regretted that decision afterwards, feeling that he had served the present by sacrificing the future. Londo then went on to save the Centauri from an insane tyrant and free the Narn, so maybe not a bad choice after all.

The others are all wondering what he's going to say about what happened. He tells Delenn that he smelled a discharge from the fuel system and went in there to sort it out before it got into their air processing system. So there's another lie for you.

Religious #1 asks why he lied to protect them. He tells them he lied to protect her belief in them.

Lennier's been through a lot since leaving temple and he's not the naive innocent he was back in season one. In fact he believes that Delenn's the one who doesn't know how things really are, and he wants it to stay that way. She thinks that they're all better than they are and he thinks that's awesome. If everyone thought that way there'd be fewer poison canisters hidden in maintenance tubes.

A Minbari can only lie to save someone else's honour and that's not why Lennier did it, but it did save their honour as a side-effect so does that still count?

Personally I think he should've just used Lennier-fu on them all the moment he discovered their scheme, put them into hospital beds, and then lied about it afterwards to cover it up. That way he'd still have all of his lungs and they could feel moderately less guilty about the terrible thing they tried to do.

ACT FIVE

They've cropped the top of the Voice of the Resistance test card for the DVDs again! What's up there that they don't want us to see? What are they hiding?

Ivanova comes on with another broadcast to tell us that the League of Non-Aligned Worlds have announced an authorised patrol force to protect civilians.

The scene cuts mid-sentence to the same image on a monitor screen, then pans over to Sheridan sitting in front of the broadcast on a second monitor screen in a clever bit of directing that doesn't actually distract from how sad he looks. Babylon 5 has just learned about the fighting on Minbar and he's clearly thinking about Delenn. So that's put a bit of a downer on his A plot.

Meanwhile Lennier notices Neroon sneaking away to a shuttle! Lennier goes to give her the bad news and then we get a shot of the shuttle cockpit.

It looks so much better than the cockpits we saw in Babylon Squared and All Alone in the Night! It's cosier too.

Neroon sends a message out to Shai Alyt Shakiri, leader of the Warrior Caste, telling him that the mission has been successful, he's got access to their plans for a counterattack, and the Religious Caste is divided. Victory will be theirs within the week. So that's put a bit of a downer on Delenn's B plot as well.


CONCLUSION

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I remember reading once that showrunner jms liked to come up with a title for an episode first before writing the script, and this episode makes me believe it. It's all rumours, bargains and lies from start to finish, with both plots featuring characters discussing what they think the protagonists are up to based on their limited info. The interesting thing is that it never actually tells us what Sheridan and Delenn are really up to, though it's fairly obvious in Sheridan's case.

It's perhaps unique among B5 plots in that the problem is introduced in another episode, the protagonist comes up with a solution in the teaser, and then everything after that is Sheridan putting his scheme in play, with absolutely no setbacks. He doesn't make choices or react to new situations, nothing threatens to derail the plan or forces him to think on his feet, we're just watching him win. The entertainment comes from piecing together what he's doing and watching as the League falls for it, especially considering how much of a struggle he's had to get them on the same page in the past. Kosh had to sacrifice himself to get them onboard during the Shadow War, and Sheridan had to come back from the dead to bring them together for his plan at Coriana 6, so it doesn't feel like a cheat to just straight up trick them this time. Sure they came across as comically gullible, but it was funny so I'll give it a pass. Plus it was nice to see him cheer up a bit instead of brooding by his office window in the dark.

It's maybe a bit immoral though, to get them believing in imaginary invisible enemies, and there's a real chance that's going to backfire at some point. Plus it was reckless to use their own news service to do it, especially as the ambassadors now believe that they covered up something mysterious that happened. The Voice of the Resistance was created to dispel rumours and reveal lies and he deliberately subverted it. Though the fact he only did it to protect transports and save lives kind of takes the sting out of his choice (just like how Ivanova made a deal with smugglers and Franklin formed an alliance with terrorists for the right reasons). I guess this is the end of the 'Drakh attacking shipping' arc that began in Lines of Communication then. Though the Minbari Civil War arc it introduced is still going strong.

Sheridan's manipulations are played for laughs, maybe too much so in places. Delenn's plot, on the other hand, is deadly serious. Her homeworld is burning, her closest allies are plotting to kill her, and Lennier ends up with a chunk of his lung removed! She's in a war that she can't afford to lose, but she can't afford to win either. Sheridan spends his story using rumours to his advantage, but the rumours are not on Delenn's side, and she never has the opportunity to counter them because Lennier chooses to keep her in the dark! Sheridan's plot ends with huge success, Delenn's plot just ends, and we don't know what she's going to do next, only that it appears that Neroon has taken advantage of her tendency to see the best in people to betray her. That son of a bitch seemed so trustworthy and reasonable this time as well! A lot calmer than he was when he ambushed Valen in his own quarters back in Legacies.

I suppose the moral of the story is the same as in The Illusion of Truth: whoever controls information controls the game. But in the absence of information rumours will form.

Overall I though this was a pretty average episode for season four, it wasn't outstanding, it wasn't overly flawed, but that's fine as season four is great. It was maybe a bit better looking than most though, thanks to director Mike Vejar, and a bit more joyful as well, weirdly.

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COMING SOON

Babylon 5 will return with Moments of Transition, but next on Sci-Fi Adventures... maybe not that? I'm not sure yet.

Please consider leaving a comment! If you let me know you're still reading, I'll keep writing.