EpDis: The Corps Is Mother, The Corps Is Father

[hypatia]

I'd bet that someone knows. Fans can be pretty amazing, and JMS was very thorough. Those are very good questions.

I suspect the poor, low-level teep would risk starvation. The Corp may be mother and father, but it didn't look like it felt obliged to truly take care of the needs of its own. Perhaps, though, there were few enough of them and the corp was funded well enough, they did that as part of their job to keep teeps out of people's way. Off the streets, so to speak.

 

[Jan]

Remember that telepaths are really a very small segment of the population. And that the Psi Corps is kind of a corporation. They regulate the telepaths but they also handle contracting for telepath's services in return for a cut of their wages (as we saw in the show). So chances are the lower ratings were support staff for the higher ones. This would range from everything from aptitude testing to travel arranging to clerking and accounting. And it's likely that many of them might work among normals as long as the Corps certified that they wouldn't be snooping - or only doing sanctioned snooping. Remember when Lyta was looking for a job the businesswoman said that she'd have to get authorization from the Corps.

Jan

 

[Lennier's Tears]

I just watched that Crusade episode called "The Path of Sorrows" for the first time, and it gave me a hint of an answer to some of my telepath questions In a flashback scene, a Psi Corps telepath casually mentions that "most of the medical staff are P1s and P2s". I guess that means that yes, Psi Corps has their own medical professionals (although it doesn't tell me whether they go to regular medical school or Psi Corps medical school), and that those are positions that lower rated telepaths can hold. Good to know!

 

[Talvitar]

I rather liked this episode
A different point of view is always interesting.
The 'hitting-on-Bester' scene didn't creep me out at all; my reaction was more like "oh come on...really??" I think Bester handled the situation quite nicely, turned the girl down graciously. What went on in the girl's mind to make her think that would be a good idea, I really can't say... she can be P12 but that doesn't necessary equal a brilliant mind. Sorry to say but she came across as slightly, well, not highly intelligent. Maybe she was just SO star-struck, I don't know.

Spacing the mundane was suitably creepy.

I liked how the teeps here seemed pretty "normal". I mean with their interaction with each other, talking, smiling, being relatively at ease with their "own kind". For a moment there one might be lured into thinking "they might be somewhat ok after all", and then, along comes casual spacing. The casualness of it is really effective! No evil 'bwahaha' - just a 'would you like to or shall I?' with the same kind of voice as with 'would you like a chicken or ham sandwich'. Very good!

Though, mundanes are hardly THAT much different in their attitude towards teeps... even though the B5 goodies might not actively go about pushing teeps into cold space, they rarely go out of their way to help them, or show any real consideration to their wellbeing. Hating the teeps is the normal. Is it any wonder that teeps don't have much love or appreciation for the mundanes either?