EpDis: The Corps Is Mother, The Corps Is Father

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I liked this one showing more about the Psi Corps than in the past, and giving glimpses of Bester's dare I say human side .

It's kinda boring, and those young people with Bester bug me.

There is a nice idea behind this episode, but it just doesn't work for me. The telepath community seems way too mundane for my taste.

Shaal Mayan said:

I liked this one showing more about the Psi Corps than in the past, and giving glimpses of Bester's dare I say human side .

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Only when relating to teeps. Look at how Bester and the girl treated the spacing of the mundane. Talk about cold!

Best line of the episode: "Despite what they may believe, not everything happens on Babylon 5."

KoshN said:

Only when relating to teeps. Look at how Bester and the girl treated the spacing of the mundane. Talk about cold!

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But that's what is so important and powerful about that scene. She's a young psi-cop in training, right? But even Bester is willing to do that bit of dirty work to spare her any kind of pain she might feel.

She was just glowing with eagerness to help out.

And the frightening part about seeing a compassionate side to Bester and the rest is to see how that same compassion as been completely eliminated from them, when it comes to normals.

It would be so much easier to just say "psi-cops like Bester simply HAVE no compassion".

hypatia said:

But that's what is so important and powerful about that scene. She's a young psi-cop in training, right? But even Bester is willing to do that bit of dirty work to spare her any kind of pain she might feel.

She was just glowing with eagerness to help out.

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That was probably a test, to see if she'd freely do it. If she took Bester up on it, and let him space the mundane, she'd have failed that test. To both the young girl psi-cop in training and Bester, normal humans (mundanes) are, at most, objects to be used or obstacles to be eliminated. The spacing appears to have been some sort of standard procedure, and she passed the test.

And the frightening part about seeing a compassionate side to Bester and the rest is to see how that same compassion as been completely eliminated from them, when it comes to normals.

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But we've seen that from Bester all along. We saw that from Kelsey in "Mind War" in Season 1. That's nothing new. What we got to see in this episode is that it's also in the young girl psi-cop in training. When it comes to compassion toward mundanes, she has all the warmth of Talia's alternate personality, i.e. none.

It would be so much easier to just say "psi-cops like Bester simply HAVE no compassion".

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That would be true if the writer is going for nothing more than the simplistic, but JMS is trying to show us something more (Psi Corps. upbringing is elaborated upon in the Psi Corps. trilogy.). In reality, it's ingrained in them by Psi Corps, by their upbringing. It seems that those P-12s who can fully eliminate their compassion toward mundanes (unlike Byron) are good Psi Cop candidates.

Yeah, KoshN's got it right. Remember that Bester has lived in the Corps all his life, constantly bombared by messages of obedience and superiority. It's like a cult. The only way he kept any individuality at all was through his ambition...

Actually, about all I was saying is how I admired the episode. "It would have been easier to..." I assumed would be followd by an understood "but thank goodness JMS is such a good writer he didn't take the easy out".

There is just something about posting comments here that is interesting. It's interesting to see how people interpret what you write.

BAck to the episode:

It is interesting to see the B5 folk greet Bester-and-company. From their perspective, everything he's said about B5 certainly seems true: they were rude and angry at him/them the entire time. Considering it from what they see and hear, and not knowing the background between Bester and B5, it's even rather understandable.

And I disagree with the idea that if the female teep trainee hadn't spaced the mundane she'd somehow have ended her career. Aren't P10's rather rare? One mistake on one "test" and you are out seems a rather careless attitude to take with sucha precious commodity.

hypatia said:

And I disagree with the idea that if the female teep trainee hadn't spaced the mundane she'd somehow have ended her career. Aren't P10's rather rate? One mistake on one "test" and you are out seems a rather careless attitude to take with sucha precious commodity.

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If Bester's offer to space the mundane was sincere compassion for the girl, and I believe it was, it would hardly have been compassionate if accepting his offer would end her career. And, your point about P10's being rare is also pertinent. If she had declined to space the mundane, I think Bester would have counciled her, to try and toughen her up. If that had failed, she would have been given duties that didn't demand such a lack of compassion for mundanes. Possibly she would have had duties trying to rehabilitate teeps who messed up, where her compassion would be an asset.

That's how I figure it, too, though it may or may not have been Bester doing the "toughening". I got the impression he didn't serve regularly with any trainee.

And oops, I typed "rate" instead of "rare". LOL

Thank you for addressing the comment of my post, instead of nitpicking my horrible laptop typing.

Another creepy aspect of that: the guy definitely moves after he's spaced. So however long he lived, you know he felt it. Somehow, that's even creepier than just shooting him in the head, to me.

I suspect the Psi Cop progression works in a similar way to how certain... "institutions" rumoured to be connected to the police force (and another example from B5, the night watch) operate.

If you are naturally talented you can get a high rank job, but you don't move up into the higher echelons until you fulfill certain criteria.

It's pretty clear there are at least a few "good" high rankers in the Corps. Harriman Gray seems like a decent egg and he works in military investigations - presumably requiring more rank and P rating than a commercial.

hypatia said:

And I disagree with the idea that if the female teep trainee hadn't spaced the mundane she'd somehow have ended her career. Aren't P10's rather rare? One mistake on one "test" and you are out seems a rather careless attitude to take with sucha precious commodity.

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As you say, "It's interesting to see how people interpret what you write"

I didn't say that it would end her career. If that was a test, and if she hadn't willingly spaced that mundane, it probably would have kept her out of being a Psi Cop. There are other things a P12 could do (e.g. Instructor), and she was a P12, not a P10. IIRC, instructors are at least P10s.

Galahad said:

It's pretty clear there are at least a few "good" high rankers in the Corps. Harriman Gray seems like a decent egg and he works in military investigations - presumably requiring more rank and P rating than a commercial.

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Harriman Gray was a P10.

Speaking of Harriman Gray, I would love to see his character again.

vacantlook said:

Speaking of Harriman Gray, I would love to see his character again.

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Heh, heh. Who wouldn't?

KoshN said:

Heh, heh. Who wouldn't?

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Seriously. There were a lot of one-shot guest characters, even ones performed by good actors, that I never really liked. Herriman Gray was a one-shot that I really really liked. If we ever get the Telepath War told, I would enjoy seeing him involved.

and she was a P12, not a P10. IIRC,

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If she was a candidate to become a Psi Cop she would have had to be a P12. And while P10s aren't common, they're not as rare as P12s. The distribution of teep abilities is probably described by a bell curve like most such things, with the very weak and the very stong being rare at either end and the vast majority in the middle. Psi Cops have support staff made up of lesser rankings, but actual Psi Cops themselves must be P12s - and also be tough enough to do "what is necessary" in Bester's eyes. Don't forget, he's planning a Teep War of his own for the future, in which "his" Teeps will take on, defeat and enslave (or exterminate) the mundanes. His elite forces will be drawn from the ranks of the Psi Cops, and he's molding them into his own little SS, the supermen who rule the other supermen. (I wouldn't want to be a P3 or a P5 under Bester's regime. I doubt his 12s would treat them much better than mundanes.) Lyta's revolt of the rogue Teeps against the Corps is probably the only thing that keeps the Teep vs. Mundane war that William Edgars and others foresaw, and which Bester was plotting, from coming to pass.

So yeah, I think that young lady would have been shunted into a training slot somewhere if she hadn't been up to Bester's challenge. Depending on how concerned Bester was about keeping his illegal activities to herself, I wouldn't be surprised if he were willing to kill her, too. Some have to be sacrificed for the greater good. Look at what he did to his own Black Omega Squadron when he felt it was in the long range interest of "his" Teeps.

Regards,

Joe

I agree with Joe. It's much clearer if you read the Psi Corps trilogy but it's plenty clear in the show, too, that Bester cares for the Corps entire, NOT for individual teeps. He deep scanned one of his 'family' in "A Race Through Dark Places" and didn't care that it killed the prisoner teep. He sacrificed his Black Omega Squadron, he didn't seem to care if Jason Ironheart lived or not and on and on. As far as he's concerned, the end justifies the means as long as the end is for telepaths to run things.

Jan