EpDis: The Corps Is Mother, The Corps Is Father

[hypatia]

Around 19, right? One year shy of two decades. I'm assuming she's been taught since birth to "dehumanize" all Narns.

Was Vir's potential wife taught neutrally for the first decade of her life? I'm simply assuming most children who go to the Psi Corp have been. Then, when their "gift" is discovered, the indoctrination must begin. That leaves a lot less time to teach such dehumanizing of the mundanes. And such indoctrination would happen at a less impressionable age, though obviously not entirely unimpressionable.

Now, if the female intern was, say, 5 or 6 when discovered, then she was mostly raised from when she could first remember to consider mundanes sub-human. I simply can't remember any reference as to when she was "recruited".

 

[Galahad]

If she was the byproduct of the Psi Corps breeding programme to broduce more potent telepaths, or if she came from two parents already in the Corps, then they would have tested her DNA shortly after birth (at least they would have in the first instance), then they would have had their grubby little clutches on her from day one.

It's ironic that the Corps refer to humans as little more than animals... but it's they that have a breeding programme to produce a better pedigree of telepath and therefore treat their own people like farmyard animals.

 

[Estelyn]

I enjoy the episodes that show us things through someone else's eyes. And I like the idea of having the Corps logo in the credits! That amplifies the feeling.

Bester's line "Not everything is about Babylon 5" amuses me, because as things turn out, it is! The dialogues between him and B5 personnel are almost like Londo and G'Kar's bickering, except that the latter actually respect each other.

The "family" idea is prevalent - the Corps as mother and father, etc. Bester is not the only one who sees it like that.

Isn't this the first time we see Bester without his uniform? It's strange what a difference that makes - he looks so normal.

Interesting how the male intern interprets his actions - he's not disobeying instructions, he's "showing initiative". His death doesn't result from disobedience though, but from calling for help as instructed.

The tension in this episode results from the juxtaposition of "normalcy" and ruthlessness on the part of the Corps members. Chilling...

 

[deaded]

but actual Psi Cops themselves must be P12

This has been said other places. So how could the rogue they were chasing, who was a P10, be a, "Psi-Cop in training?"

 

[A_M_Swallow]

but actual Psi Cops themselves must be P12

This has been said other places. So how could the rogue they were chasing, who was a P10, be a, "Psi-Cop in training?"

Psi Corps would not be the first organisation to drop its standards. P10s are still very powerful telepaths.

 

[Sindatur]

but actual Psi Cops themselves must be P12

This has been said other places. So how could the rogue they were chasing, who was a P10, be a, "Psi-Cop in training?"

Psi Corps would not be the first organisation to drop its standards. P10s are still very powerful telepaths.

Been too long since my last viewing or reading of the books, but, I seem to recall P-10 was the minimum rating for a certain position, and P12 (The highest ranking) was a requirement for another position?

 

[Jan]

As I recall (and I may be wrong), P-12s are automatically psi-cops but I don't recall that *only* P-12s are. That wouldn't make much sense since they're so rare.

Jan

 

[deaded]

I'll probably have to wait for my next viewing of the entire series, but I'm pretty sure that DeMartino is right. I remember someone saying that you had to be a P12 to be a psi-cop.

 

[Jan]

Found it. From "Mind War":

BESTER
He's a P10. All instructors at
the academy are rated P10.

IVANOVA
And Psi Cops? What're you rated?

KELSEY
P12. Someone has to keep an eye on
the rest.

So it looks like Joe DeMartino was right.

Jan

 

[Alioth]

Didn't psi cops have "bloodhounds" working with them in their posses, who were IIRC lower-rated telepaths who assisted in the chases (particularly the more dangerous ones) and provided added psi power for creating illusions/deceptions in the minds of their targets, as needed? Plus of course more physical manpower. Were they technically psi-cops of lower psi rating, just never lead detectives (which were probably all P-12s)?

The rogue they were chasing, if I'm remembering this episode correctly, seemed to have a special talent for "mind shredding"--i.e. even if lower-rated overall, the balance of his abilities skewed more toward offense than defense (or mind-reading per se), and in that category he was a danger to even average higher-rated telepaths (or higher-rated apprentices, as Bester sternly warns one of his). The Psi Cops force might have found that useful for some of its operations.

 

[Bab5nutz]

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.

Harriman Gray was a P10.

Harriman Gray, if I remember correctly was slightly different from most of the other Psi-Corps telepath. He had been born a "normal", had been "normal" during childhood, and well into his teens. In addition, he lived a life outside the Corps, among "Mundanes". He had wanted to be a combat pilot, and had been accepted into Earthforce when his talents manifested. As telepaths weren't allowed in Earthforce, he was booted out, and joined Psi-Corps as the law mandated.

Having lived among "Normals" most of his life, perhaps he didn't have quite the same contempt for them that a telepath who had been in the Corps from birth would have. And while he dedicated to the Corps, he wasn't blindly dedicated to it - at one point, he seems to suspect that Ivanova is a telepath, but he keeps mum about it.

I do have some slightly irrelevant questions about telepaths. Could a non-telepathic child be born to two telepathic parents? And what would happen to that child? Would it be expelled from the Corps? Or would they keep it around to see if it manifested ability later on down the track? And could the telepathic gene skip a generation. Is it recessive? And what would be the odds of a telepath and non-telepath having a child that was a telepath be? 50/50? 50/25? And if a telepath decided that they didn't want to either join the Corps, take the sleepers, or go on the run, but decided to try and pass as a "normal" like Ivanova, how strong would their abilities have to be before people started getting suspicous? Such a person would have to obviously have great self-disipline and control over themselves, and be on their guard at all times. They would have to think very carefully before having children - in case a child of theirs inherited their ability, and unwittingly betrayed them.

 

[A_M_Swallow]

Didn't psi cops have "bloodhounds" working with them in their posses, who were IIRC lower-rated telepaths who assisted in the chases (particularly the more dangerous ones) and provided added psi power for creating illusions/deceptions in the minds of their targets, as needed? Plus of course more physical manpower. Were they technically psi-cops of lower psi rating, just never lead detectives (which were probably all P-12s)?

Yes. Lyta (P5) was training to become one until she met Bester then she changed career.

 

[Alioth]

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.

Spoiler for The Shadow Within:

Supposedly Morden's wife and daughter, when their ship was destroyed in hyperspace, were stranded "out of time" at the moment before death--i.e., their sensation of that moment was one of an eternity--or so the Shadows told him (they could have been lying of course, to get their hooks in him). I wonder if that's what happened to that guy.

The Psi Corps certainly have no compunctions about permanently "hellish" non-death punishments, as witness what happened to that serial killer of teeps ending up in an insane asylum with unremovable horrible hallucinations and nightmares which Lyta tells about in another episode.

 

[Lennier's Tears]

Look at this beautiful six page thread!

I enjoyed the change of perspective this episode offered, as well as the chance to look inside the Psi Cops training center ... Although, as Elipsis remarked upthread, this episode does turn into your average, run-of-the-mill, "we must hunt down a rogue telepath on Babylon 5" episode ... And that Psi Cops training facility is surprisingly mundane-looking! I thought the signs on the wall were a bit silly, especially the ones that just say "Obey". I would have expected the Psi Corps to be a bit more subtle in their indoctrination methods.

I agree with Bab5nutz that telepaths who were discovered later in life are probably not as on board with hating the mundanes as some others. The Psi Corps is all about replacing family, but I would imagine that people who lived with their mundane families for a long time still have a great deal of love for those people. It'd be a lot harder to get them into the us-vs-them mindset. We learn in this episode that Bester has been with the Corps pretty much since birth, which could explain some things.

Also like Bab5nutz, I have many questions about just how the telepath genes work, but I suppose that if that background stuff was never written down or worked out in detail, we can only ever speculate.

The way that young woman hits on Bester creeps me the hell out. It makes sense for him to have fangirls among the young trainees, and I like that that's in there, but it's just uncomfortable to watch. Clearly she's firmly in the "ehh, mundanes, whatever" camp, and so eager to please that she spaces a mundane like it's nothing. Also creepy.

We never really learn anything about low-rated telepaths inside Psi Corps. Both inside the Corps and among rogues we see telepaths sticking together. I kinda wonder if there's a lot of discontent among the Psi Corps telepaths with low ratings. They presumably have very limited job opportunities and they're stuck at the bottom of this strict hierarchy. They're probably not experimented on as much as some of the higher rated telepaths, but they're presumably also considered more expendable. They're practically mundanes, after all. I could imagine some resentment growing, under those conditions.

 

[hypatia]

Telepaths being influenced by something as "mundane' as boring signs on the wall never occurred to me. But constant exposure to such things have been known to be used by many administrations. Whether it works or not, I have no idea.

What I always noticed about the Bester flirtation was the fact that he seemed so bored with it. Like it happens rather frequently.

Yes. That is creepy. And wonderfully written.

 

[Mororless]

The impression I got was that most of the lower level telepaths didn't work directly for the Corps and weren't let in on its more sinister motives.

Whilst I would imagine working purely as a telepath would have been difficult for someone on the kind of level Ivanova was at there do seem obvious advantages that might give that better career prospects than a "normal". The ability to block casual scans and tell if your being scanned would obviously have value in positions were you might be privy to sensitive info and rogue/alien telepaths might be after it.

The latter also seems like a good way for the Corps to extend its influence by having a lot of members who they could draw on for such info without letting it be known they were.

 

[Lennier's Tears]

Can telepaths get "normal" jobs? I guess I always assumed they couldn't.

 

[Mororless]

Can telepaths get "normal" jobs? I guess I always assumed they couldn't.

Maybe a kind of subcontract system like a commercial telepath but with the more limited abilities more of an "extra" in a job where they can depend on other skills? for example someone dealing with admin having training there but also the ability to block a scan to prevent info getting out.

 

[hypatia]

My recollection of all the B5 details is not great, but I think this was kind of a question left open, wasn't it? Perhaps low level Telepaths can live and work in fairly "normal" jobs, if they are scanned regularly to be sure they aren't getting good enough to violate people's privacy? I don't recall the series actually mentioning what occupation they'd have.

Surely they weren't just shoved into a room and fed? (Or not fed?)

 

[Lennier's Tears]

Haha No, I wasn't imagining them shoved into a room somewhere. I figured they'd have telepath jobs, just ... not any of the more desirable or interesting ones, whatever those may be.

I wasn't imagining telepaths in "regular" jobs ... Possibly because we never see it on the show. Also because many mundanes really dislike telepaths. As discussed earlier in this thread, Harriman Gray had to give up his EarthForce career when his telepathic abilities manifested fairly late in life, because EartForce doesn't allow telepaths to join. If EarthForce can refuse a whole class of people, presumably there aren't any anti-discrimination laws that prevent other organizations or companies from doing so.

I always assumed that an extra burden of being a human telepath in the B5 universe was that you had to give up any personal interests or ambitions and be resigned to a life of telepath work. But I could very easily be wrong! Who maintains and designs the Psi Corps facilities? Do they have their own engineers and janitorial staff, or do they contract with mundanes? Do they have telepath medical doctors and biologists researching telepathy? That sort of seems like something they wouldn't leave up to mundanes. On the other hand, there's probably not enough of them to make up a whole "telepath university".

Do we know what the approximate population of Earth (and its colonies) is at the time of the show? And the percentage of telepaths?